Cabinet Minister Michael Wood is now under formal investigation to determine whether he has broken Parliament's rules around disclosing assets and other financial interests.
There are also fresh calls for him to be sacked from Cabinet altogether, with allegations he provided a false response to a media outlet in 2021 about his pecuniary interests.
At issue are $13,000 worth of shares in Auckland Airport that posed a conflict of interest in his transport portfolio - that he was told to get rid of by the Cabinet Office no less than a dozen times.
Wood had already been stood down temporarily as Transport Minister while he sells the shares and amends past declarations.
Today Newsroom is reporting they emailed Wood's office in 2021, shortly after he became minister, asking "what pecuniary interests, did he have beyond those disclosed in the 2021 register of interests? "None," Wood replied, unequivocally", said the story.
Paul Goldsmith Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
National MP Paul Goldsmith says by that stage the minister had been contacted by the Cabinet Office a number of times "about whether he had sold his shares in Auckland Airport, part of its lengthy and unsuccessful attempt to get him to follow the rules".
The revelation "Michael Wood emailed a false answer to media about his pecuniary interests...means the Prime Minister must sack him", he says.
"He knew he owned the shares, and he knew they represented a conflict of interest. His answer rested on the fig leaf that he thought because the shares were held in a trust they didn't have to be declared."
The list of Wood's mistakes "continues to grow", says Goldsmith.
"First, not selling the shares when he became Minister of Transport; second, not declaring them publicly for more than a year; third, while still holding the shares not recusing himself from conflicted decisions as Minister; fourth, not doing what he told the Cabinet Office he would do 12 times; and now fifth, providing answers to the media that were demonstrably false.
"If the prime minister has any standards, he will dismiss Mr Wood from all his portfolios today."
The Registrar of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament, Sir Maarten Wevers, has also launched an inquiry, after a request from National MP Chris Penk into "whether Hon Michael Wood has complied with his obligations to declare certain interests under Parliament's Standing Orders".
Wevers "noted that Hon Michael Wood had, in recent days, made a number of public statements, including in the House of Representatives, in relation to the need to amend previous returns under the Register".
When looking at whether an inquiry was needed, he also "took account of the degree of importance of the matter under inquiry; whether the matter may involve a breach of the obligations to make a return; and whether the matter is technical or trivial".
Wevers concluded "an inquiry is warranted and will be undertaken in accordance with clauses 16 and 17 in Appendix B of the Standing Orders. Clause 17(3) establishes that the proceedings connected to the Registrar's inquiry are strictly confidential".
RNZ has contacted Wood's office and the office of the Prime Minister for comment.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is expected to comment later this afternoon.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/491576/parliamentary-inquiry-to-be-held-into-michael-wood-s-handling-of-his-business-affairs