Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. Well what a sad and sorry saga it's been over the last few weeks for the Government. And it is for the Government because although the main actor on stage has been former Minister Ms Clare Curran it's actually a symbol. It's symbolic of the absolute disgrace and mess that this Government is.And how did it begin? Well it began just after they took office with arrogance and hubris. I could I know be referring to basically anyone on that side of the House but I'm actually referring to then Minister Clare Curran who was determined that the rules and the expectations around ministerial behaviour should not have to apply to her. So what does she do? She goes out and sets up a secret meeting with a very senior member of the Public Service and a very well respected broadcaster—a sneaky little meeting on the side to achieve who knows what. What we do know is it was found out about and she then spent quite some time trying to dissemble and dance on the head of a pin as to what it was really about.What it ended up at was Carol Hirschfeld got the sack. Really the person who needed to get the sack at that point in time was then Minister Curran. It would have been the right thing to do and as events have transpired it would have been the caring thing for the Prime Minister to have done. But unfortunately we have a weak leader in the Prime Minister—she didn't do that.Fast forward just a few short weeks from that saga and one would have expected that Minister Curran would have learnt from that episode and wouldn't have repeated it. Instead what we find out is that in the second round of recruitment—or just before the second round of recruitment—for the Chief Technology Officer Ms Curran has done it again—a serial offender.After a Twitter conversation with Mr Derek Handley she rushes to her private Gmail account. She initiates an email conversation which leads to a meeting. She doesn't acknowledge it. It's not in her calendar. It's only in a little bit of hygiene—if we believe media reports—that because the Government had decided to appoint Mr Handley to the role they discover that actually there was a meeting and it wasn't in her calendar and—oops—someone's asked about it therefore they will find out that it was hidden. Using a personal email account I think is enough evidence for the public at large to say that it was deliberately hidden. So finally some action is taken. The Prime Minister strips a couple of portfolios from Ms Curran but she's in the spotlight—the glaring spotlight—because members on this side know that if she's done it once she's done it twice she's done it a number of times. So the maelstrom of activity from the Opposition in this Chamber and through written questions and Official Information Act (OIA) requests—I can only imagine the pressure that Ms Curran was feeling at the time. Ultimately that was her downfall because with those OIA requests that my colleague Melissa Lee and I had submitted those emails those additional communications were going to come out. We can say with some confidence that there were further emails because just yesterday Ms Curran herself was quoted and reported as saying there might be more emails between her and Mr Handley. Given her previous actions might be more emails" is about the same as saying the sun might rise in the east tomorrow morning.Ultimately it was her hubris and arrogance that was her undoing. She proved what is known as the Peter Principle—that people will rise to the level of their incompetence. And she certainly did. The Peter Principle however is not to be confused with the "Peters principle". The "Peters principle" is where a person acts like they actually have the job of their immediate superior so that eventually the public believe that they do.So look in all this is a failing of leadership and actually uncaring leadership. With all the pressure that Ms Curran was under a caring and thoughtful leader—Prime Minister—would have relieved that burden from her early in the piece. Instead she made her suffer through a week to 10 days of further intense pressure—pressure that ultimately led to her downfall.We're left with a Government still that claims that it's going to be the most open and most transparent that New Zealand has ever had and yet aside from those secret meetings we also have a coalition document annex that they won't show and an example of a local government OIA on the Three Waters strategy where every page—every page—was redacted. If that's their view of an open and transparent Government we're in big trouble. But this is just stage one. This is just the end of the beginning."