Tim Beveridge: I think Jan Tinetti's most egregious offence is not knowing the rules in the first place

I've been trying to get my head around just how big a deal the issue is with Jan Tinetti, Minister of Education, who has now been referred to Parliament's powerful Privileges Committee.

This is following her failure to correct and inaccurate statements she made in Parliament back on, I think it was February 22nd.

So what happened?

Jan Tinetti was asked a question, I think by Erica Stanford, in the house, and she was asked to categorically state that she had played no part in the delay of a release of school attendance information. She said she had already stated that.

She then said that it was a decision for the Ministry.

Well, it turns out that her office had instructed officials to delay the release of the information, and they'd done that so it could be timed with a truancy announcement.

So, she had misled the house.

Here's the problem for Jan Tinetti, she learned that she had made a false statement that day. After Question Time back in 22nd of February, she's made a statement; she said no, nothing to do with it. Comes out, finds out from official, oh I made a false statement.

She did nothing about that.

She didn't correct that statement until after she received a letter from the speaker, Adrian Rurawhe on May 1st, saying that her answer needed to be correct. So she did it the next day.

I mean it’s not an argument or a conversation in the bloody pub is it? It’s Parliament, you’d think you would know the rules.

Personally, if it was me, I'd be mortified if I knew I'd made a statement that was incorrect.

For me, while the charge she's going to face is contempt and she's going to have to account for her delay in correcting the record, to me, I think by far who most egregious offence is not knowing the bloody rules in the first place.

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