Paula Bennett has labelled Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's handling of recent ministerial employment issues "absolutely disgraceful" in a fiery speech to Parliament this afternoon.
The National Party's deputy leader was addressing the recent controversies surrounding Labour MPs Clare Curran and Meka Whaitiri when she made the scathing remarks.
"To stand up and not have the conviction of the high standards she should have with her ministers is absolutely disgraceful.
"To hide behind employment issues and yet another investigation to work out what actually happened, I challenge the Prime Minister to stand up and have standards for both Clare Curran and for Meka Whaitiri," Ms Bennett said passionately.
She went on to say that Ms Ardern lacked "courage as a boss".
"Any of the previous three Prime Minister's that I have known would have sat her down (Whaitiri), looked her in the eye and told me exactly what happened, made a judgment if that is a standard that she would expect in Cabinet and made a call on it."
Background:
At the end of last month Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern removed Clare Curran from Cabinet and accepted her offer to resign from the Government Digital Services portfolio and Open Government responsibilities, following a second failure to properly declare a meeting.
In February this year Ms Curran met with tech entrepreneur Derek Handley at her Beehive office in her capacity as Minister of Government Digital Services to discuss Mr Handley’s interest in the vacant Chief Technology Officer role.
The meeting was not recorded in the minister's diary and neither the Minister’s staff nor officials were made aware of it.
Minister Curran will retain her responsibilities as Minister for Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, and as Associate Minister for ACC, but will now sit outside Cabinet.
In the case of Meka Whaitiri, she was stood down as Customs Minister last week over what 1 NEWS understands is an allegation of assault on a staff member levelled against her.
Ms Whaitiri is a protege of former Labour Minister Parekura Horomia.
A source close to Mr Horomia's office told 1 NEWS that during the time Ms Whaitiri worked as a senior private secretary, she allegedly used threatening behaviour to staff and then Prime Minister Helen Clark's office was forced to step in.
Ministerial services are undertaking an investigation but there's no date yet on when it will be completed.
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