Now it is four

Stuff reports:

A senior public servant, with decades of experience, says Cabinet Minister Kiritapu Allan “yelled and screamed” so loudly, staff in the office heard the telephone call.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they witnessed Allan’s interactions with younger staff members both from government agencies and her Beehive office in a meeting, as well as seeing her “absolutely berate” another official for 20 mins on another occasion.

Allan “strongly refutes” the allegations. 

Another former senior official with a long history of public service, has also spoken to Stuff to confirm they had concerns about Allan’s dealing with staff. “Basically low trust and respect of public servants was [the] issue,” they said.

That makes four senior public service staff who have spoken publicly about workplace relationships relating to Allan, who is minister for justice and regional development. She formerly held the emergency management portfolio.

This is why I said yesterday that Hipkins and Allan are being stupid in denying there were any significant problems, based on the technicality of no formal complaints. Now they have to dig in.

In a statement, Allan said: “The minister strongly refutes these allegations. No complaints have ever been taken up with MBIE or myself and certainly nothing that resembles these allegations.”

Maybe that is because you’re the Minister?

Would four senior public servants just invent this?