Jacinda Ardern says it is possible to exist in politics without lying and says she has never told a lie.
Has she now been caught in a lie over Manus Island ratbags?
The Prime Minister has repeated her stance that New Zealand is willing to take 150 refugees from Manus Island, but that it would need to be approved by Australia.
Jacinda Ardern fielded questions at Auckland’s Grey Lynn festival around midday on Saturday, where Labour had a stall among the bouncy castle and go-karts.
The offer for New Zealand to take 150 refugees after Australian approval remained unchanged – despite revelations on Friday that Papua New Guinea police were using physical force to evacuate refugees and asylum-seekers.
When asked if she would consider by-passing Australian authorities and approaching PNG authorities directly, Ardern said no.
“The advice that we’ve had from a range of different sources is that we’d need to go via Australia.
“Whether or not Australia takes up our offer to take 150 refugees continues to be a matter for Australia.
“We’ve made it very clear that we’re more than happy to assist but that ultimately is a matter for them.”
Interesting. Then why is MSD leaking like a sieve contradicting everything you’ve just said?
I have several sources in MSD. They advise me that; The PM’s office asked the Housing department to ‘make ready’ housing for at least 150 refugees and their families over the next 6 weeks. MSD replied saying that there’s a general shortage of houses for Kiwi homeless. The plan now is to find motels that will house refugees and their families. There is also a request for Punjabi, Bengali, and Farsi translation services.
There is apparently an email trail to the PM’s office. The email was sent from the PM’s office on Monday last week. These emails will be subject to the OIA.
My sources feel that the PM’s office is bypassing the proper internal process whilst the plan entails direct negotiations with PNG.
The basics of this have been leaked on Twitter.
Further another source tells me that last week there was a huge MSD IT planning meeting at Westpac, it’s called a programme increment…essentially, going through the IT requirements of the ministry for the next 3 months or so…in the process of the meeting, they were informed that they needed to implement one of the software systems used by the department responsible for resettlement, because MSD will be helping resettle some refugees…and part of the project initiation documentation displayed was an email from the PM’s office, sent Monday last week, making the request.
The email trail may well prove that our PM can lie just as well as other politicians.