Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has dismissed Iain Lees-Galloway as a Minister over an affair he had with a former staffer who worked in an agency he oversaw.
Ardern said the relationship was consensual, lasted for a year and ended several months ago.
She said it was “untenable” for Lees-Galloway to remain an MP - specifically to keep his Workplace Relations and Safety role.
Ardern said he inappropriately used his office to sustain a relationship.
She received an email with allegations about the relationship from a third party - not the woman involved - on Tuesday.
The person initially raised the issue with Opposition Leader Judith Collins, who told them to get in touch with the Prime Minister's office.
Collins told media in interviews on Wednesday morning that she had received correspondence related to a Labour Party Minister.
The saga comes in the wake of National MP Andrew Falloon resigning over it coming to light he sent unsolicited pornographic images to women.
Andrew Little will take Lees-Galloway's Workplace Relations and Safety portfolio, Kris Faafoi will take his Immigration portfolio and Carmel Sepuloni his ACC portfolio.
Ardern said the relationship hadn't seen taxpayer funds misappropriated.
Lees-Galloway won't seek re-election, but will remain an MP until the election.
Here is a statement from Lees-Galloway:
I accept the Prime Minister’s decision and apologise absolutely.
I have acted completely inappropriately in my position and can not continue as a Minister.
I have apologised to my family for letting them down. Please appreciate their privacy.
I also apologise to anyone who has been hurt by my actions.
Here is a statement from Ardern:
This morning I am announcing that I have dismissed Minister Iain Lees Galloway as a Minister.
Yesterday afternoon the leader of the opposition advised me of an email she had received that related to Iain Lees Galloway. She conveyed to me that she had asked the individual to relay anything directly to my office.
No other details were provided to me.
My Chief of Staff subsequently contacted the Leader of the Opposition’s office to pass on contact information, should that be required by the correspondent. At around 3pm my office received an email directly from a third party alleging that the Minister had an inappropriate relationship with a former staffer who worked in one of his agencies.
This was the first time that I had heard such allegations.
At around 545pm last night I sat down with the Minister and put a range of questions and allegations to him. He confirmed that a consensual relationship had occurred, that it involved someone who had previously worked in his office and had been based in one of his agencies
I want to be clear up front, I wish to protect the identity of the person so will avoid providing any details over and above those necessary to explain my decision that may reveal who they are. I request that the media and other politicians respect this.
Over the course of the conversation with the Minister, it became clear to me that his position as a Minister was untenable. I advised him of that at the time.
The Minister has shown a lack of judgment over a period of 12 months.
In undertaking this relationship he has opened himself up to accusations of improperly using his office.
He has not modelled the behaviour I expect as a Minister that is in charge of setting a standard and culture in work places.
His actions have led me to lose my confidence in him as a Minister.
The Minister takes full responsibility for his actions and accepts my decision. He has also decided not to stand at the next election.
Carmel Sepuloni will become the Minister for ACC, Andrew Little will become the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety and Kris Faafoi will become Minister for Immigration.
My final comment is this. Politics is a place where we do need to maintain standards, and politicians should pay the price for mistakes, their families should not. I do ask that we try and maintain that distinction.
160 Comments
This reminds me of the schoolyard tactics from Grade 6....
Affairs happen in any workplace; they're inevitable from close contact and opportunity. Sure, power advantage should not be condoned, but many, many couples meet at work - even those whose previous partnerships ended from work-based relationships.
We don't know the 'sordid' details yet, but on the face of it I reckon many more politicians have a lot more to worry about that just 'this' sort of stuff.
This isn't any ordinary workplace though is it. This idiot was a senior Crown Minister, a position requiring the utmost integrity and dedication. The rules around workplace relationships are there for a reason. The quality of NZ politicians is really quite depressing.
Completely agree TK. The politicans need to understand that the perks and fat pension benefits are a privilege, not a right. If that means showing some restraint as to what you want to do in your private life, then so be it. That's the trade off. Lees Gallloway and Falloon have learnt the hard way.
TK
Interesting comments.
Do we now live in a more moral time????
Not one really in the know, but . . . .
Piggy Muldoon was notorious in having affairs - given his shortness and rotund build, and looks, it was generally spoken about in awe rather than being a scandal.
David Lange, a devout Methodist, not only had an affair with his speech writer Margret Pope, but ending up separating and marrying her.
Do we go on about royalty - Prince Albert, Prince Charles . . . . mind you Prince Andrew seems to have crossed the line.
Just wondering.
I don't think there is any doubt we are less tolerant, and with good reason in my view. He exposed himself to blackmail, showed poor judgement and potentially, as a person with enormous influence, put pressure on the individual either directly or indirectly. This sort of behaviour is not tolerated among corporate exec's either - straight red card.
With that logic, you could say that any vice is inevitable, given close contact and opportunity. Should we all be more accepting of corruption in our government, considering the close contact and opportunity? That's ridiculous. Their greed and selfishness wasn't inevitable. It was a choice. People that carry on affairs, instead of ending their current relationship first or serving their own interests rather than the taxpayers they are meant to represent etc. are responsible for their actions. When they hold positions of authority over other people, that requires the public to be able to trust them, then the choice to ruin their credibility has to have consequences.
News just in :-
The Beehive is to be demolished and a new parliament building is to be build in Auckland ..................in K-road
The new parliamentary Members lounge will include a strip club with lunchtime strip shows , and a pole for pole dancers , 24/7 porn movies on a loop , and a prostitute's allowance will be part of their annual package.
Barry Soper's column on the Granny Herald is interesting, suggesting Judith Collins resurrecting her Dirty Politics hit job days:
The latest shabby chapter came to light when new National Party leader Judith Collins apparently received an email making the allegation. She tells us she gave the emailer the address of Ardern's chief of staff to relay the information to her and she wiped her hands of it.
It's pure coincidence the information came her way just after National got rid of Andrew Falloon for sending pornographic material to a young woman.
Yeah right.
This is politics, pure and simple and this is shaping up to be a tit for tat, nasty election campaign - reflecting badly on those we elected to represent us.
Combined with an earlier article that highlights Collins was the first to throw this into the public domain:
Collins' apparent tip-off came to light when she was speaking about former National MP Andrew Falloon, who quit Parliament on Tuesday after it was alleged he sent inappropriate messages to a young woman.
And we are in the midst of an horrendous financial meltdown while all this nonsense is going on .
Why do we even pay these useless people?
It was riddled incompetence , stupidity and delusional ideas like Kiwibuild , now we have a string of sex scandals to add to the mix .
We really need to get rid of the lot of them and start again
Just watched Ardern’s press conference. Boy, she is good. A real leader and someone to believe in. One important thing here: Walker, Boag and Falloon’s behaviour bordered on the criminal. Galloway-Lees’ didn’t, just a massive error judgment, **** for brains stuff, and he’s no great loss anyway. Ardern was decisive and up front, although she most probably was aware of the rumors. But then, Parliament is alive with rumours. And you can smell a rat in the way Collins set it up in cahoots with Duncan Garner. She is one piece of work, the very personification of dirty politics. If the gloves are off, there will be a few MPs waiting for the tap on the shoulder, one in particular, and possibly someone in the party hierarchies. A lot is already out there, if you know where to look.
I'm just trying to think of a country with an authoritarian-leaning right wing leader where COVID-19 has been managed well.
(Potentially only China, if you concede the CCP has become more fascist than communist.)
I think most people have ended up a little bit relieved that Simon Bridges and Jian Yang weren't in charge of managing NZ's response.
It's not too difficult to evaluate performance at different stages of the pandemic, and everyone (perhaps excluding Trump) is aware there's a long way to go. Pretty sad if you're sitting there hoping things will go wrong so you can feel justified in beliefs you already hold.
Ahhh - there it is. You just made an assumption about my beliefs so you could deride and undermine my view on account of my personality. Trump does that all the time. All I've said is it is too early to judge - that doesn't mean I want the catastrophe to hit. But I'm glad you know how everyone else thinks (apart from, say, me and Trump). With that level if insight, may I suggest you take up politics? Just keep it civil with the staffers.
But it is too early to judge.
We don't have the full data to show whether the stringency of our lockdown was necessary nor whether eradication was the best strategy given our borders could be closed for a long time.
Take your cheerleaders' outfit off.
Really very simple.
As I go about my day, not wearing a mask, not worried about catching Covid-19, not in lockdown or any internal travel restrictions and life for most pretty much the same as before covid-19.. yeah, we have enough data. Sure, they could eff it up completely further down the road, but so far they've got a better than passing grade.
"Johan Giesecke says that assuming New Zealand or Australia have found out every case in their country “what do you do for the next 30 years? Will you close your borders completely? Quarantine everyone who is going to Australia or New Zealand? Because the disease will be out there”. Ian Frazer, an Australian immunologist says: “In my lifetime, I can count seven new viruses that have arrived and we don’t have vaccines for most of them yet”.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/seeing-the-invisible/testing-…
Yes, it would seem that only Muzled and 499997 other team members think that stopping it now, means stopping it forever. Is it NZ's poor education system or it's feeble politicians or it's corrupt media that is to blame for the low knowledge level out there? It's a virus! do some research people! Learn about stuff, it's not hard. If you have 'stopped' it now, all you have done is deferred the impact (possibly until COVID 20 mutation arrives which could be even more dangerous...)
It seems like what you are saying though is that we should judge NZ's covid response based on what the perfect response would have been had we had complete information at the time. This seems like a bad measuring stick. It's entirely likely that the ideal response would have varied, even if only slightly, from the actual response. But it seems pretty unfair to hold politicians to such impossible standards. They had to make decisions based on the information they had available to them at the time, so the right way to evaluate the response if to ask 'given what information they had at the time, was the response the best strategy' not 'given the information we have now, was the response the best strategy.' Doing the latter is a bit like scolding someone for choosing the wrong lotto numbers after the draw.
Not to mention the alleged sexual assault by one of the PM's senior staffers that was sat upon until the complainant realized she was being given the run around under guise of a Sir Humphrey Appleby 'enquiry' and went to Paula Bennett. Be interesting to know what she was given to shut up.
I was curious about your definition of "running the country". Since in my opinion, she's done a bloody good job "running the country". The country hasn't imploded, it hasn't stopped, people are still living the same way as before, nothing has collapsed, status quo was maintained.
So this is why I ask people like you who claim she can't "run the country" to clarify what their definition is.
But if you failed to understand my question, you'll most likely fail to answer it in a meaningful way. Sorry.
I'm aware of how they failed to deliver some of the key promises. Just like every political party ever, since democracy has existed.
There's a big difference between "running the country" and making significant changes. I'd love to know why some people think she's incapable of the former. And more importantly, who they think will be great at both.
Well they did manage to increase homelessness, fuel tax(sorry..levy), virtually halve Z Energy share price ( and thus reduce all KiwiSaver returns) create massive disruption to Auckland CBD (CRL), grant Residency to a convicted meth dealer ...oh, and promote a bible scholar to Health minister
Troubled? Most of her government's trouble has been of its own making - not disciplining incompetent ministers and failing to delivery on almost any of the supposedly urgently needed transformational government that they promised. Personally I would rather the entire country not be in a state of civil emergency for three years just so the PM can look like a capable leader. Stripping out the White Islands and Mosque shootings from 2.5 years of pre-Covid19 government leaves you with a PM that spent more time spinning a narrative than actually doing the things she hyped in the lead-up to getting elected, and getting away with far less scrutiny from a zealously favourable media which seems determined to be more buddy-buddy rather than speaking the truth to power in any meaningful way.
I can't help thinking you need to wipe some of that Jacinda fairy dust from your eyes, but dirty politics doesn't necessarily come into this.
If the young woman aggrieved at what Falloon did complained only to Judith Collins, the matter might have been swept under the carpet, and the true extent of what he did would probably not have emerged.
Equally, if the person who was alarmed at Lees-Galloway's behaviour (and it seems possible that we aren't simply talking about a workplace affair here) had talked only to Jacinda Ardern, the matter might have been dealt on the quiet.
I am no fan of Ardern, but I think she dealt with the Falloon matter appropriately, by referring it to Collins. I also think Collins did the right thing with regard to the Lees-Galloway matter by referring it to Ardern.
Totally agree - the Richie Hardcore link was just too coincidental. No sound-minded Minister would have granted Sroubek residency and I believe Jacinda stuck her beak in - that's why Lees-Galoway didn't get the boot. But now he's been naughty with a staffer in a consensual relationship, she's been right there to throw him under the bus without question. This is insurance - she doesn't want the Sroubek issue resurfacing before the election so any chance to rid the party of Lees-Galoway is jumped upon.
It wasn’t the person concerned. An unrelated third party was the mole. It was a consensual relationship, which had ended. Inappropriate, though and a fair result. I think it’s 95% certain that Duncan Garner and Collins set up the whole thing as a diversionary tactic. Stupid on Galloway Lees’ part, but not malicious and borderline criminal like Boag, Walker and Falloon.
This is unfolding to be a particularly undignified and dirty election campaign. All of this stuff would've been known by someone before, there is clearly strategy to the timing of these leaks and scandals.
It's actually a disgrace. Now, more than ever, New Zealand needs competent, mature adults at the helm to guide the country through these turbulent and uncertain times. And instead we have a bunch of corrupt, useless toddlers slinging mud at each other.
Not too sure about that, although there were rumors about Galloway Lees some years back. I think it is important to realise that there are rumours flying around Parliament all the time. Sadly, people have affairs, split up families and cause their spouses deep distress in all walks of life. Politicians are no different.
I am curious as to how many more MPs will be outed for affairs and such-like in the coming months. This was a nice, convenient tit-for-tat for Judith to get attention off of Andrew Falloon's unsolicited sexting of teenage girls. Good timing, indeed.
We had Sarah Dowie and JLR in the past, and much discussion was had about how common these affairs are among the MPs. Who's next to be called out re an affair? Or for patronising ladies of the night, even? Next we'll be hearing of a good Christian MP's gay peccadillo with a pretty young man.
lets be clear... he hasnt resigned. He has lost his ministerial posts and will not stand in the next election.
Question for Jacinda - so his conduct aint becoming of a minister, but is it acceptable as an elected member of parliament?
He is going to do absolutely nothing for the next two months and get paid to do so. He should be gone... NOW.
I'm sure you are, but it makes sense.
One passed on information of a potentially-criminal act, and left it to the discretion of the oppo leader.
The other announced it first, it wasn't illegal, it was in the past, and it was done for one reason only. Slater territory. I haven't voted Labour since '84, but National at present, and Collins forever, smell of arrogance, self-centredness and falsehood. Dogs and fleas, I can get you some powder.....
Well PDK, there was no suggestion of criminality at the time. Can't blame Collins for not having the truth serum handy. The other was clearly inappropriate (though not illegal) behaviour from a senior minister and JA had no choice but to announce the indiscretion and deal with another lame duck minister. The only reason why JA acted so quickly was pure damage control.. nothing else. Seems those teeth can bite after all. The rest of your post is pure Flat Earth Society stuff
This is great news for Winston.
Diverts attention away from freebie trips to Antarctica for dinner party mates at expense of tax payers and considerable detriment of NZ Antarctica programme.
Nothing for NZ, nothing for science programmes, just a fun trip for dinner party mates.
Ardern was up front, to the point and decisive, as well as demonstrating great empathy. Collins was shifty, indecisive and showed a great lack of judgement in using mental health as an excuse for Falloon’s abusive behaviour, which is the subject of a police investigation. Facts.
They are, I think most decent people accept that this sort of thing is rife in parliament. MPs come from all corners of the country, stay in Wlg for extended periods and probably don't socialize the same way the rest of the population is free to. It is hardly surprising they fall into the arms of each other.
BUT, there is a difference between someone having a consensual relationship (morals aside) than people becoming sexual predators and abusing their positions. I reckon it was a line call with Lees-Galloway and remember, all the PM did was remove his ministerial roles, he was still an elected member of parliament, it was his decision to go altogether, though I doubt that result was particularly disappointing for the PM, given his parliamentary history. For those involved personally, their position become untenable when they have fences to mend at home.
Lame-o attempt at one-upmanship by St Jacinda to show she can sack people and be tough - finally, only because now she's got a genuine opponent.
Maybe people will start to see they've been doing ok simply by default. Oh yeah - that's right, that will never happen.
Gonna be a way more interesting election now which is the main thing as no politicians represent the people's interests anyway.
I'm conflicted about this. There are more than enough legal remedies available to protect the subordinate should they require it, they were (apparently) sneaking about so not obviously impactful on other workplace relations. ILG is failing his family morally/ethically but not sure that it otherwise warrants firing.
Foyle, it warrants firing because Miss Fairy Dust doesn't want any inappropriate media commentary regarding her caucus members. It also shows ILG was careless or at the minimum indiscreet. Not ideal qualities for said senior minister. Also the Sroubek incident is still fresh in some minds. Speaks to incompetence
With you here - of all the things to get sacked for this isn't one. It's not even as if the woman in question was complaining, nor was there any suggestion of impropriety about it.
Now Peters on the other hand - arranging trips to Antarctica, that were mean't for ministers, to 'friends', with zero benefit to New Zealand - that's a potentially treasonous waste of tax payer resources. And the knock on effect that some engineers or scientists were bumped off the trip to make room for them is even worse because they would have provided some benefit by being there.
Peters should be fired - Galloway, sure, strip his Workplace Relations portfolio if that's the sticking point, but other than that he didn't break any laws.
Oh how serendipitous for Ms Collins, right on top of the all publicity about the behaviour of members of her caucus, comes information from a third party about Ian Lee-Galloway and a year long affair with someone he worked with, ended about 4 months ago. You. Would. Not. Believe. The. Luck.
Now he is a goner, and I reckon it might have been a close call, Ardern calling on the fact that his portfolio is workplace relations, but I reckon that Lees-Galloway has been more of a hindrance than a help in this govt and if he'd been in another position or if it was another minister, she would not have been able to get his firing over the line.
and now the revelations that WP made yesterday that national press secretary whom was in a relationship with DS was the source of the leak.
my question is whom leaked that info to WP from within national , they leak like a sieve at the moment, seems he still has friends inside that party.
and what is the purpose of leaking, to hurt ACT, or to hurt national leadership
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12350174
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.