Jason Walls: Political Editor on Andrew Bayly's resignation

Andrew Bayly has resigned from cabinet after putting a hand on a staffer. 

The Prime Minister will speak to the media this afternoon about Bayly's resignation. 

Political Editor Jason Walls gives Matt & Tyler all the details. 

LISTEN ABOVE. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. It'd be
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Andrew Bailey has resigned from cabinet.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Indeed, handy having me up here for these sorts of things. Yeah,
we we started to get word at about eleven thirty
this morning that there was something bubbling away in Parliament
and the Prime Minister was set to make an announcement.
He is speaking to media at three thirty today, but
we got word something was happening, which meant that he's
going to have to speak a little bit sooner. And
then quickly after that we got a statement from Andrew Bailey.

(00:40):
Now I'm going to read it out to you. This
comes from Andrew Bailey's office. Now Andrew Bailey is at
this stage, he's the Minister what he was the Minister
for acc and Consumer Affairs. Concerns have been raised with
me about a recent incident in which my behavior towards
a staff member was overbearing, and for that I am
deeply sorry. As many of you know, I have been

(01:00):
impatient to drive change in my ministerial portfolio. Last week
I had an animated discussion with a staff member about
work I took the discussion too far and I placed
a hand on their upper arm, which was inappropriate. I
have apologized to the staff member and regret placing them
in an uncomfortable position. And then in the statement it

(01:21):
goes on to say that he has offered his resignation
to the Prime Minister of being a minister and the
Prime Minister has accepted that, which means that he's going
to stick around as a Member of Parliament for the
Port Waikato and it means there's going to be no
by election now. Moments later we got a statement from
the Prime Minister and said I have accepted Andrew Bailey's
resignation as a minister following an incident involving as staff

(01:44):
member last week. Mister Bailey indicated to me that his
actions fell short of the expectations he sets himself and
that those expectations of a minister, and as such he
has offered his resignation as a minister, which I have accepted,
and he went on to thank him for his hard work.
So what we we don't know a lot of details
at this stage, but it sounds like there was some

(02:05):
sort of altercation about the work and he was you know,
you go back to some of the words in his
statement here. As many of you know, I have been
impatient to drive change in my ministerial portfolio. So it's
almost priming us for this sort of setting the scene
as somebody that was a bit annoyed that work maybe
wasn't getting done. But we've got a stand up with
a media stand up with Andrew Bailey in just over

(02:27):
an hour's time, so we'll get a bit more information. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, I mean, on the surface of it, yelling at
someone and putting your hand on them doesn't seem that bad.
There must be more to it than that, right, what
does it?

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Touched the upper upper arm? Yes? Yeah, and amazing.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
It's actually not allowed. If me and Tyler were having
a huge argument in office and I touched his upper arm,
is that considered? Does that an assault?

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Ohay? I wouldn't with defense if you complain or not.
I mean these days, if you complain and take it
up enough higher up the chain, then it can turn
into a big thing. But I'll tell you what else
is interesting about this one. We've also been given a
time frame of the events. It starts on Tuesday last week,
and it said the incident occurred in the Minister's office.
Now the next day, Wednesday the nineteenth, the Prime Minister's

(03:09):
Office and Ministerial Services were informed of this incident. Thursday
the twentieth and Friday the twenty first, so that's last week.
Ministerial Services discuss the incident with the affected parties. The
Prime Minister is informed of the incident at this point
and then Friday the twenty first, so Friday evening that
is when the minister resigned. But we only found out

(03:29):
about it. It's just a few moments ago. So they've
been sitting on this one all weekend.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Which is not the normal way of doing things. If
something happens on late on Friday, I get it out
so people you know that people are away for the weekend,
and forget about it by Monday.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Well I was thinking the same thing. I think probably
what has happened is they this government has kind of
got the memo about dropping bad news on a Friday night,
and they would have just been completely hammered for trying
to bury the news. So they've actually waited until it's
a little bit more new. So the damned if they do,
damned if they don't. Really, they certainly are Yeah, And
how confident are you that we can get some more

(04:02):
contacts into what happened there. Do you think he is
going to be shielded about the exact scenario on what
unfolded with this stuff. No, I think he's going to
have to front up. To be honest, I think that
this statement, or both of these statements leave a lot
to be desired because there's just so little detail. And
with there's so little detail, people start to fill in
the blanks themselves, so when they come out. And what

(04:23):
we've got now is we've got this sort of void
of information for about an hour and a half two
hours where people are just going to be like, well,
thinking the worst, and he's not going to be able
to defend himself until he talks to us in about
an hour and a half.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, because on the face of a hated argument where
some words are saying and then at one point a
hand touches someone's upper arm does not seem like the
end of the world to me. But we'll wait and
find out what's happened. Absolutely. For more from News Talks
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