Clark sorry in private but not in public

The Herald reports:

Health Minister David Clark apologised to the former chairman of Counties Manukau District Health Board for the position he’d been left in over Middlemore Hospital’s building problems, correspondence from the ex-chairman claims.

The Herald has obtained text messages and an email which reveal former acting district health board chairman Rabin Rabindran’s increasing concern over public comments from Clark about what he was told about the state of the buildings at Middlemore and how the announcement of Rabindran’s departure from the board was handled.

Clark has previously said he was not told of the extent of problems at Middlemore Hospital when he visited on March 13 but Rabindran said he had been told verbally, and in documents handed to him at the time.

National MP Jami-Lee Ross says the correspondence shows Clark ignored Rabindran’s pleas to set the record straight. …

“I said that I have a good reputation but all this in the media is affecting that reputation. He [Clark] kept apologising. I wish I could have recorded what he said.

“Polite and apologetic as he was, I have difficulty with him saying one thing in public and then calling me with the messages he gave me privately.

So we we have a DHB Chair saying the Minister was prepared to apologise privately, but not prepared to correct his public statements.

What a relentlessly positive Government we have.