Hudson Brett; Tolley AnneBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. Yes that previous member Kiritapu Allan said a Government that would like to act" and I agree with that—act in an underhanded and sneaky manner. They are a dodgy Government. The thing I think that this demotion of Clare Curran highlights most of all is that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is weak and indecisive. She's indecisive because it took five days from once apparently she knew about Ms Curran's second indiscretion to finally make a decision public. It's kind of odd isn't it that that decision was made public at 4.30 on a Friday afternoon right about the time when the bad news dump might get hidden in the weekend's activities. She's weak—weak in that all she did was strip her of a couple of portfolios.The message that the Prime Minister sent to New Zealand and indeed to her own caucus in taking just a couple of portfolios was that if you're a Cabinet Minister openness and transparency apply but if you're a Minister outside Cabinet you don't need to worry about any of that stuff. You can be as sneaky as you want to be because Ms Curran remains a Minister outside Cabinet. She still gets a good salary gets the privileges like the ride in the Beemer—there's hardly a punishment there at all."Proportionate" the Prime Minister says. Proportionate? I don't think that's the way the rest of New Zealand sees this at all. What they see is what they heard. When the Government came in they said this would be the most open and transparent Government New Zealand had ever had. So New Zealanders expect that what they'll see is what it says on the tin. Instead what they get is at least one Minister who hides meetings and then gets a little bit sort of clever about what that first meeting with Carol Hirschfeld was about and in the second case simply tries to sweep it under the carpet to begin with.I was quite astounded because when the information dump came out what did become clear was that Mr Handley approached Minister Curran about the possibilities of the Chief Technology Officer role and they sort of conversed via Twitter about whether they might meet. It was Minister Curran that initiated an email exchange that led to the appointment being made and she did so on her private Gmail account—not on a ministerial mail account not on a parliamentary mail account. She carries probably two mobile devices: a BlackBerry for secure communications that Ministers are required to have and probably an iPhone for other communications I would have thought. She had plenty of opportunity and ability to communicate with Mr Handley to set that meeting up using parliamentary devices. She chose instead to use a private email account. Now there's only one thing New Zealanders are going to take from that and that is the Minister was deliberately seeking to make that a secret meeting. She had no intention of anyone ever finding out about it.All that happens when that underhandedness is finally uncovered is she gets a minor demotion—a minor demotion. That's weak government weak leadership from the Prime Minister. Her actions and the limited sanction actually warrant an investigation if you will. They warrant the Prime Minister and her Government actually being open with us for once. We deserve—New Zealanders deserve—to know what communications what conversations were had between either that Minister or other Ministers around the appointment process of this Government's Chief Technology Officer role because there are just so many questions. We don't know. We don't know how many other times things have been hidden. We don't know what conversations have been had. We don't know what influence Ministers may have tried to have over that appointment process.One thing we do know is that Mr Handley did apply for the job and he applied for the job in the second wave of recruitment at or before the closing time for those applications. And then on 9 June he was interviewed by Lisa Owen on The Nation in his capacity as a technology entrepreneur. He was asked questions directly about the characteristics of a Chief Technology Officer knowing he'd applied for it. So he was asked what he thought the right characteristics were—deeply conflicted—and then asked if it was him for the role and he fudged that too. This is a senior Public Service role. He completely failed the test of managing conflicts of interest and he could yet be appointed to that role. It certainly calls into question his fitness for that role but equally behind that given that all the rumour is that he will be appointed I think it's important that we know what influence Ministers might have had or tried to have on his appointment to the role because there's more to come from this yet. Ms Curran deserves to be sitting down the back of the House and that's what a strong Prime Minister would have done.Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Technically this call should have been a 10-minute Labour call but the Greens didn't take their call which means that proportionality has been slightly affected so I'm going to give a five-minute call each to National and Labour."