Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran says she regrets meeting with Radio New Zealand's Carol Hirschfeld and says it's a "huge shame" the broadcaster has resigned.
"The meeting was not secet and I regret that the meeting took place," Curran told reporters at Parliament today.
She said she instigated the meeting and recognised it could be viewed as sensitive, given her role as Broadcasting Minister.
Hirschfeld resigned today - effective immediately - after admitting the meeting was arranged. She was head of content at the public broadcaster.
Curran insisted it was not a "secret meeting" and noted it was held at Astoria in Lambton Quay - "one of the busiest cafes in Wellington".
After learning of the select committee hearing, where RNZ bosses told MPs the meeting was "unplanned", Curran said her office contacted RNZ to say the meeting was in fact pre-planned.
Curran said she believed at the time that the meeting was appropriate - but now knowing RNZ guidelines she conceded the meeting should not have taken place.
She initially believed the December 5 meeting with Hirschfeld was "informal", but realised this was a mistake when she was later asked a written Parliamentary question by a National MP.
Tipoff revealed meeting no coincidence
RNZ's chairman Richard Griffin revealed today that he uncovered discrepancies about Hirschfeld's account of a secret meeting with Curran after a tipoff.
Griffin said a personal source contacted him late last week to tell him that the meeting between Hirschfeld and Curran was not coincidental and had been scheduled in the minister's diary.
Hirschfeld had initially and repeatedly claimed to RNZ bosses that she bumped into Curran at a Wellington cafe by chance.
She assured RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson the meeting in December was coincidental, leading Thompson and Griffin to inadvertently provide incorrect information to Parliament.
Griffin is a former RNZ journalist and later worked as former Prime Minister Jim Bolger's press secretary.
He said today that Hirschfeld was not authorised to meet the minister and the issue was compounded by her maintaining an incorrect version of events for almost four months.
Griffin said he would be making a further statement to the select committee on the issue, as his last one was based on false information he'd received from Hirschfeld. He described the saga is disappointing for the whole company.
The meeting between Hirschfeld and Curran was revealed publicly after National MP Melissa Lee asked questions about it at a select committee this month.
Lee, National's broadcasting spokeswoman, said Curran's relationship with public broadcaster RNZ had to be transparent.
"Carol had been to the gym, she was getting a coffee, they bumped into each other, in a cafe and had a conversation so it was hardly a secret meeting," Thompson told the committee. "I don't have any concern," he said at the time.
But on Sunday, Hirschfeld told Thompson that the meeting had been arranged.
"I am very disappointed about what happened and it is important that I put the record straight about the circumstances of the meeting," Thompson said.
Griffin also told the select committee that the meeting was not scheduled. "It was a meeting of minds in the sense that the minister walked into a cafe, saw the head of news sitting there and sat down and talked to her."
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today that Curran was "splitting hairs" in deciding initially to exclude the meeting under questioning from the National Party.
Curran had initially omitted the meeting with Hirschfeld from a list of meetings when she was asked about it in a Parliamentary written question in December.
She later corrected her answer to the written question to include the meeting with Hirschfeld.
Curran was defending excluding the meeting in her answer to a Parliamentary written question as recently as February 20 during Question Time in the House.
"If they did have breakfast together, as the Minister's office has confirmed, and discussed a range of issues about the future of media in New Zealand, why did she not include this extremely relevant meeting in her answer to written questions?" National's broadcasting spokeswoman Melissa Lee asked Curran during Question Time.
Curran eventually responded: "Because I didn't perceive it as an official meeting."
The Broadcasting Minister's initial failure to disclose the cafe meeting has been criticised by National, which has questioned whether the meeting was appropriate, given Hirschfeld's editorial role and the Government's intention to boost RNZ's funding by $38 million to create RNZ Plus.
Minister 'does not influence' RNZ
The select committee in question, the Economic Development, Science and Innovation committee, released its 2016/17 annual review of RNZ today, outlining the discussion about the "unplanned" meeting between Hirshfeld and Curran.
"RNZ told us that the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications, and Digital Media and Government Digital Services does not have an influence on the content it produces," the report states.
"We heard that the minister had recently had an unplanned meeting with the head of content from RNZ. RNZ said it was not concerned about this particular encounter given its context, but believed it was inappropriate.
"The protocols around meeting with ministers and political transparency have been clearly outlined to senior members of staff since the incident."
Hirshfeld was not at the select committee meeting when Melissa Lee questioned the appropriateness of the meeting.
"Radio New Zealand operates in a competitive media environment," Lee said.
"The company and its competitors must be confident there is nothing going on with the Minister in charge of the sector that could screw the scrum in a particular direction."
