Back when we busted Siouxsie Wiles and Nicola Gaston for breaking lockdown rules, despite them lecturing us all about how we should follow the rules, Dr Ashley Bloomfield let the cat out of the bag that Siouxsie Wiles had texted him.
I made two OIA requests, one of Ashley Bloomfield, and another of Jacinda Ardern, seeking any messages that were alluded to by Bloomfield and Grant Robertson at their 1 pm press conference.
The Ministry of Health provided their response, but trying to get an answer out of Jacinda Ardern is proving somewhat difficult.
The Prime Minister’s Office has prevaricated, delayed, delayed again, then refused to provide the information requested, instead providing a summary, that we are supposed to accept as true. The request is now seriously overdue for no good or defensible reason.
They are simply dancing around the issue and trying to find a reason for them not to provide the information requested.
I have complained to the Ombudsman after they refused to supply the information. Now, 17 days after I laid my complaint, the Chief of Staff of the PMO, Raj Nahna has reconsidered what they would provide and sent through just one message, redacting the rest and claiming that the information was not in the public interest to release.
This is what they have released:
Those message blocks suggest quite lengthy text messages. This series of messages is clearly something the Prime Minister and her office are trying desperately to hide. They are clearly in the public interest, they are both in the public arena and were in the centre of a controversy relating to clear and demonstrable level four breaches.
The fact that Siouxsie Wiles, who the Prime Minister has in her mobile phone as just “Siouxsie”, felt comfortable texting the Prime Minister about the issue to give her a heads up shows that at the very least Siouxsie Wiles thought it was a matter of public interest.
That and the fact she lied to the Prime Minister about the circumstances of the breach certainly make it very much in the public interest to find out precisely what they were talking about.
Jacinda Ardern has made much of her belief that she never tells lies and that she leads the most open and transparent government ever. Well, lying by omission is still lying, and this is as far from open and transparent as one can get.
For all intents and purposes, it looks to be exactly as it seems, a cover-up. A deliberate cover up to hide embarrassing text messages.
This issue is not going to go away. We will be pursuing this hard via the Ombudsman.
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