June 9, 2025 • 10 mins
Deputy Prime Minister Nicola Willis says the Michael Forbes situation is awful - but police have to have discretion.
The Prime Minister's acting deputy press secretary quit last week, over allegations he took compromising recordings of sex workers and photos of women he didn't know.
Nicola Willis says these issues need to be managed well and she says the Department of Internal Affairs looking into the matter is positive.
She says police do have discretion, which is important.
"So it's never appropriate for ministers to dive in and say - we think you should prosecute this person or that person."
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now is Nikola willis the Finance Minister? High Nikola Hi, Ever,
do you think the police have stuffed up this investigation
into Michael Forbes.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Look, I don't know enough to make that conclusion. Obviously,
they have internal processes about what information they escalate up
to ministers and they make those judgments accordingly.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
But also, I mean, so we'll get to that bit.
But what about the fact that they've found the sky
having filmed people and there's no debate about it, having
filmed women through the windows of their houses getting changed,
and they haven't charged him for it. It feels like
a ban that doesn't.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
It's awful behavior and it's horrible. Police have discretion and
independence and investigating issues like this and deciding whether there's
a case for prosecution. So it's never appropriate for ministers
to dive in and say we think you should prosecute
this person or that person. In this case, I think
(00:54):
the actions are horrifying. As the Prime Minister has said,
it does raise questions about where the various government agencies
involved are talking to each other enough and a deep
dive is being done on that. And then the second issue,
as you raise, is what are the powers available to
the police and this instance and do we think that
they're sufficient? And again that's a matter for the Minister Nichol.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I take your point about police independence and it's a
fair one. But it would it be appropriate for the
Police minister to sit down with the Commissioner and ask
for a police explain as to why nobody told the
police minister that this guy had had his phone seized
with a warrant.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, that's what the purpose of the deep divers is
to look into.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Whatist to not just get the commissioner in and be
like explain it.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I think it should go through a proper process because
the issue isn't just about the police is it's also
about security clearances. It's about what information is made available
to who, How are the processes sufficient? Are the guidelines sufficient?
So yep, the police are part of it. And as
I say.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
The Premisi or fair enough, do you deep dive and
get your answers and stuff. That's fair enough, But what
about the just immediately getting the getting the police and
saying what happened? Why didn't you tell us? I mean
for that for the police to seize his work phone
with a warrant? Right, is reasonably significant, and I would
have thought would immediately require letting the Minister know.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well, look, I don't know whether the Minister has asked
the commission of that and whether he has sat down
or not. Well, that's up to him. But what's really
important is how do we make sure in the future
that these issues are managed well? And as I say,
that requires a deeper dive across a range of issues
that's happening. It's happening at pace, Yeah, and it's appropriate
(02:38):
that it does Listen.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Something isn't clear in the reporting of the story, and
I wonder if you've been briefed about what happened here.
Did Michael Forbes give his two cell phones, one being
his work cellphone and one being his personal phone to
the angry sex workers and then give give them the
pin to both? Is that what happened?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Well, that's what it appears from the reporting, doesn't it.
And then did he leave all things sold on to
ask her those questions? Because she's the one who's dug
this story out. But I'm left speculating as much as
you are on how on earth did that occur? Why
did that occur? What were the circumstances all of those
are questions that I've.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Because that's quite a big security bread, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, I understand why people are asking those questions. Are
they're pretty significant. I mean, security breach, bad behavior all together,
terrible incident, and I have to say, you know, there's
a lot of people in the beehive who are feeling shocked,
who are feeling betrayed, who are feeling are really uncomfortable.
So a really sad situation, and not just the beehive,
(03:37):
the women directly impacted.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah too, right, Hey, Now, Federated Farmers has launched a
petition today to try to get the government to allow
young farmers to use key we savor for their first farm.
Apparently you guys have promised this. Why haven't you done it?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Well, I'm actually on the Fed Farmer's side here. So
sus Redmain, who's the MP for Ranger Take, already has
a member's bill in the ballot to do just that.
I've asked the Inland Revenue Department, who provide key we
save advice, to look at that bill and tell me
why we wouldn't make it a government bill. So they
are going to give me some advice on that pretty
shortly and then I'll take recommendations to cabinet. I think
(04:13):
if you can withdraw your key, we save the funds
to buy a house, you should be able to withdraw
them to buy farm.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
There's no one so this is just you guys taking
your time. There's no opposition from ACT or New Zealand
versus is just a national party go slow?
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Is it? Well, there could be opposition. I don't know.
I haven't taken proposals to Cabinet yet. As I say,
I've asked for advice on what it would take to
turn that member's bill into a government policy, and based
on that advice, I tend to take recommendations to cabinet.
Do you have the discussion as we do in the
normal way.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
It seems to me the farm thing is no brainer.
But then what about the buying your first flock or
your first herd? Do you feel the same about that?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Well, I'd want to look into that because then I
guess that gets to a range of other issues. Should
you be able to buy your first set of tools,
if you're a mechanic, exactly able to buy your first garage?
I can see the slippers scope argument there, So that's
something I want more advice on before I've formed of.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
View, Nicholas, what are we going to do about schools
just spending money on crazy things? Is there some way
that we can put some auditing in here?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Well, there is auditing. That's how we know about it, right,
pretty frequently if the Order to General went and had
a look. It isn't frequent. But here's what matters about it.
Everyone listening to the show and everyone who's read that
story needs to now turn around and look their board
of trustees and their school leaders in the eyes and say, please,
don't ever use taxpayers money at my school for those
(05:36):
sorts of purposes. Use it to lift achievement, because rain
jackets for teachers are nice, but when the tax payer
is paying, the question is, what's the straight line between
that and lifting the literacy and numeracy of our kids?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Is that all we've got is just sort of giving
them the hard word and hoping they do the right
thing until they get audited in another nine years.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Well, we do the auditing. That's important because it supposes it.
But we also do expect boards of trustees who are
self governing entities to uphold the highest standards. We expect
principles to uphold high stagg.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, but that's so what you know, I mean, expectations
have obviously led us this way. Look, Nicola, is it
time for us to rethink actually whether we should have
these school self governing I.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Don't think so. I think there is huge value in
having community representatives running a school in a way that
reflects the concerns of their parent community, with the appropriate support,
of course, and my judgment would be that these cases
are rare. My experience has been that most school boards,
most principles, are very very earnest about ensuring that they
(06:46):
use taxpayers money very carefully.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Well you hope. So now, look, Nicola, are we getting
value for money out of the grocery commissioner? Because the
grocery commissioner came out with some hard words again for
the supermarkets and suppliers and blah blah blah over the
last week, and I just thought, this is just what
has this guy actually done.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I tell you what he's done. He's putting together a
charge sheet against the major players who keep telling you
that they're doing everything right.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
What's the charge?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
The charge sheet is two pieces of work, one on
their relationships with suppliers, which shows that many suppliers are
very unhappy with the way the power and balance in
that relationship is used against them, are very concerned about
the terms and conditions imposed on them, and have evidence
about that that they believe shows that the supply Code
(07:33):
isn't working and is being made not to work by
the incumbents. The second thing is they've looked at the
wholesale regime, which was meant to provide access to wholesale
groceries for smaller players, and it's clear that that is
not working at all. A fewer than zero points zero
three percent of groceries are brought via that. So what
that means is that the Commerce Commission have set out
(07:55):
a case to say, when the big players tell you
that they're doing everything right, the evidence is very clear
that they are not. They are not making these systems work.
And that's a problem because you know, the big serf markets,
they spend millions on pr lawyers, communications, and the one
thing the New Zealand taxpayer has is a small little
grocery Commission to go and furnish the other side of
(08:17):
the story. And those reports are substantive and give evidence
well on the supplier Code. The Commerce Commission planning to
rewrite that to tighten it up. And on the wholesale regime,
they are first saying to the surf markets, sharpen up
your act because second, if you don't, we have the
(08:38):
power to put in more regulation to force you to. Now,
I don't want to be a regulator. I don't want
to be going and doing regulations. But seriously, the big
players need to get on board. Stop giving it lip service.
The evidence is in the charred sheet. Is there, respond
pull up your.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Side, because I just I feel like it hasn't escaped
me that there is. There are literal charges being laid
by the Commerce Commission right against the supermarkets, and I
feel like that is more successful in actually changing behavior.
But that's not even from the Grocery commission and that's
coming from the Commerce team, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well, it's very important and it's related to this work.
And actually when it comes to both of these pieces
of work, there are penalty regimes attached. But the point
that the Grocery Commissioner is making is unless the regimes
are tight enough and working well enough, it's very hard
to enforce the penalties. But we want to get it working. Yeah,
And that's what I mean by the charge sheet. If
the supermarkets don't respond in good faith to these recommendations,
(09:32):
then actually regulators get forced into more and more punitive measures.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
When are you announcing what you're doing to the supermarkets?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I will be saying something about that in the next
couple of months, which is two pieces. One is the
request of information who responded to that and what our
next leavers are to make it easier for other competitors.
And the second piece there is how we're going to
make sure that some of these Commerce Commission things have teeth.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Okay, brilliant. I look forward to it. Thank you very much,
Nicola Willi's finance ministers. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
Right now is Nikola willis the Finance Minister? High Nikola Hi, Ever,
do you think the police have stuffed up this investigation
into Michael Forbes.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Look, I don't know enough to make that conclusion. Obviously,
they have internal processes about what information they escalate up
to ministers and they make those judgments accordingly.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
But also, I mean, so we'll get to that bit.
But what about the fact that they've found the sky
having filmed people and there's no debate about it, having
filmed women through the windows of their houses getting changed,
and they haven't charged him for it. It feels like
a ban that doesn't.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
It's awful behavior and it's horrible. Police have discretion and
independence and investigating issues like this and deciding whether there's
a case for prosecution. So it's never appropriate for ministers
to dive in and say we think you should prosecute
this person or that person. In this case, I think
(00:54):
the actions are horrifying. As the Prime Minister has said,
it does raise questions about where the various government agencies
involved are talking to each other enough and a deep
dive is being done on that. And then the second issue,
as you raise, is what are the powers available to
the police and this instance and do we think that
they're sufficient? And again that's a matter for the Minister Nichol.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I take your point about police independence and it's a
fair one. But it would it be appropriate for the
Police minister to sit down with the Commissioner and ask
for a police explain as to why nobody told the
police minister that this guy had had his phone seized
with a warrant.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, that's what the purpose of the deep divers is
to look into.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Whatist to not just get the commissioner in and be
like explain it.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I think it should go through a proper process because
the issue isn't just about the police is it's also
about security clearances. It's about what information is made available
to who, How are the processes sufficient? Are the guidelines sufficient?
So yep, the police are part of it. And as
I say.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
The Premisi or fair enough, do you deep dive and
get your answers and stuff. That's fair enough, But what
about the just immediately getting the getting the police and
saying what happened? Why didn't you tell us? I mean
for that for the police to seize his work phone
with a warrant? Right, is reasonably significant, and I would
have thought would immediately require letting the Minister know.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well, look, I don't know whether the Minister has asked
the commission of that and whether he has sat down
or not. Well, that's up to him. But what's really
important is how do we make sure in the future
that these issues are managed well? And as I say,
that requires a deeper dive across a range of issues
that's happening. It's happening at pace, Yeah, and it's appropriate
(02:38):
that it does Listen.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Something isn't clear in the reporting of the story, and
I wonder if you've been briefed about what happened here.
Did Michael Forbes give his two cell phones, one being
his work cellphone and one being his personal phone to
the angry sex workers and then give give them the
pin to both? Is that what happened?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Well, that's what it appears from the reporting, doesn't it.
And then did he leave all things sold on to
ask her those questions? Because she's the one who's dug
this story out. But I'm left speculating as much as
you are on how on earth did that occur? Why
did that occur? What were the circumstances all of those
are questions that I've.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Because that's quite a big security bread, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, I understand why people are asking those questions. Are
they're pretty significant. I mean, security breach, bad behavior all together,
terrible incident, and I have to say, you know, there's
a lot of people in the beehive who are feeling shocked,
who are feeling betrayed, who are feeling are really uncomfortable.
So a really sad situation, and not just the beehive,
(03:37):
the women directly impacted.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah too, right, Hey, Now, Federated Farmers has launched a
petition today to try to get the government to allow
young farmers to use key we savor for their first farm.
Apparently you guys have promised this. Why haven't you done it?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Well, I'm actually on the Fed Farmer's side here. So
sus Redmain, who's the MP for Ranger Take, already has
a member's bill in the ballot to do just that.
I've asked the Inland Revenue Department, who provide key we
save advice, to look at that bill and tell me
why we wouldn't make it a government bill. So they
are going to give me some advice on that pretty
shortly and then I'll take recommendations to cabinet. I think
(04:13):
if you can withdraw your key, we save the funds
to buy a house, you should be able to withdraw
them to buy farm.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
There's no one so this is just you guys taking
your time. There's no opposition from ACT or New Zealand
versus is just a national party go slow?
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Is it? Well, there could be opposition. I don't know.
I haven't taken proposals to Cabinet yet. As I say,
I've asked for advice on what it would take to
turn that member's bill into a government policy, and based
on that advice, I tend to take recommendations to cabinet.
Do you have the discussion as we do in the
normal way.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
It seems to me the farm thing is no brainer.
But then what about the buying your first flock or
your first herd? Do you feel the same about that?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Well, I'd want to look into that because then I
guess that gets to a range of other issues. Should
you be able to buy your first set of tools,
if you're a mechanic, exactly able to buy your first garage?
I can see the slippers scope argument there, So that's
something I want more advice on before I've formed of.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
View, Nicholas, what are we going to do about schools
just spending money on crazy things? Is there some way
that we can put some auditing in here?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Well, there is auditing. That's how we know about it, right,
pretty frequently if the Order to General went and had
a look. It isn't frequent. But here's what matters about it.
Everyone listening to the show and everyone who's read that
story needs to now turn around and look their board
of trustees and their school leaders in the eyes and say, please,
don't ever use taxpayers money at my school for those
(05:36):
sorts of purposes. Use it to lift achievement, because rain
jackets for teachers are nice, but when the tax payer
is paying, the question is, what's the straight line between
that and lifting the literacy and numeracy of our kids?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Is that all we've got is just sort of giving
them the hard word and hoping they do the right
thing until they get audited in another nine years.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Well, we do the auditing. That's important because it supposes it.
But we also do expect boards of trustees who are
self governing entities to uphold the highest standards. We expect
principles to uphold high stagg.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, but that's so what you know, I mean, expectations
have obviously led us this way. Look, Nicola, is it
time for us to rethink actually whether we should have
these school self governing I.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Don't think so. I think there is huge value in
having community representatives running a school in a way that
reflects the concerns of their parent community, with the appropriate support,
of course, and my judgment would be that these cases
are rare. My experience has been that most school boards,
most principles, are very very earnest about ensuring that they
(06:46):
use taxpayers money very carefully.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Well you hope. So now, look, Nicola, are we getting
value for money out of the grocery commissioner? Because the
grocery commissioner came out with some hard words again for
the supermarkets and suppliers and blah blah blah over the
last week, and I just thought, this is just what
has this guy actually done.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I tell you what he's done. He's putting together a
charge sheet against the major players who keep telling you
that they're doing everything right.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
What's the charge?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
The charge sheet is two pieces of work, one on
their relationships with suppliers, which shows that many suppliers are
very unhappy with the way the power and balance in
that relationship is used against them, are very concerned about
the terms and conditions imposed on them, and have evidence
about that that they believe shows that the supply Code
(07:33):
isn't working and is being made not to work by
the incumbents. The second thing is they've looked at the
wholesale regime, which was meant to provide access to wholesale
groceries for smaller players, and it's clear that that is
not working at all. A fewer than zero points zero
three percent of groceries are brought via that. So what
that means is that the Commerce Commission have set out
(07:55):
a case to say, when the big players tell you
that they're doing everything right, the evidence is very clear
that they are not. They are not making these systems work.
And that's a problem because you know, the big serf markets,
they spend millions on pr lawyers, communications, and the one
thing the New Zealand taxpayer has is a small little
grocery Commission to go and furnish the other side of
(08:17):
the story. And those reports are substantive and give evidence
well on the supplier Code. The Commerce Commission planning to
rewrite that to tighten it up. And on the wholesale regime,
they are first saying to the surf markets, sharpen up
your act because second, if you don't, we have the
(08:38):
power to put in more regulation to force you to. Now,
I don't want to be a regulator. I don't want
to be going and doing regulations. But seriously, the big
players need to get on board. Stop giving it lip service.
The evidence is in the charred sheet. Is there, respond
pull up your.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Side, because I just I feel like it hasn't escaped
me that there is. There are literal charges being laid
by the Commerce Commission right against the supermarkets, and I
feel like that is more successful in actually changing behavior.
But that's not even from the Grocery commission and that's
coming from the Commerce team, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well, it's very important and it's related to this work.
And actually when it comes to both of these pieces
of work, there are penalty regimes attached. But the point
that the Grocery Commissioner is making is unless the regimes
are tight enough and working well enough, it's very hard
to enforce the penalties. But we want to get it working. Yeah,
And that's what I mean by the charge sheet. If
the supermarkets don't respond in good faith to these recommendations,
(09:32):
then actually regulators get forced into more and more punitive measures.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
When are you announcing what you're doing to the supermarkets?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I will be saying something about that in the next
couple of months, which is two pieces. One is the
request of information who responded to that and what our
next leavers are to make it easier for other competitors.
And the second piece there is how we're going to
make sure that some of these Commerce Commission things have teeth.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Okay, brilliant. I look forward to it. Thank you very much,
Nicola Willi's finance ministers. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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