Press on Worth

The Press Editorial:

The allegation against Worth was that, during his private business trip, he had encouraged Indian student pilots to train in New Zealand. His problem was that at the time he was a director of New Zealand Aviation, which has links to an Invercargill air training academy.

Labour seized on this as a conflict of interest and also said that he was referred to as a Government minister when he was in India, despite saying that his trip was private. After the allegations emerged, Worth did resign from NZ Aviation, after being told to do so by Key, but his initial decision not to do so after becoming a minister was naive in the extreme. By contrast, Cabinet member Tim Groser did take the advice of officials and resigned from the same company after he was made Minister of Trade and before a portfolio-related trip to India.

After years in Opposition all National’s new ministers, many of whom will have had business links before entering government, might have been expected to err on the side of caution when it came to conflicts of interest. They should have been well aware that even the perception of a conflict can be politically damaging to themselves and their party.

Indeed.  Once you are a Minister you should rid yourself of all your other interests, if possible. And those you can not should be passive or through a blind trust etc.

The attacks on Worth should also send a salutary message to all his ministerial colleagues that, although the new Government has enjoyed a political honeymoon, they must always remember that Labour will be targeting their weakest links and will ruthlessly exploit any real or perceived conflicts of interest. And if further conflicts do occur, it seems likely that Key will do more than just give the culprit a bollocking.

I think it is a very safe bet the next episode will have unfortunate consequences for the Minister.