The Prime Minister won't comment on the resignation of New Zealand's second most powerful cop, Jevon McSkimming.
The Deputy Police Commissioner had been on suspension since December - but Police Minister Mark Mitchell has now confirmed he's resigned with immediate effect after new serious allegations.
Mitchell says the Prime Minister had already been considering recommending the Governor General immediately remove McSkimming from office.
Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls explains further.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jason Wool's political edit is with us now.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hi, Jason, good afternoon, Heather.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Okay, So Jevin mcskimming has he resigned about the initial
allegation or is there a second allegation?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Listen, it's actually quite unclear. We were trying to get
to the bottom of that at the post cabinet press
conference just a few moments ago, and the Prime Minister
was really not giving us much information at all. For
those that aren't caught up, Police Minister Mark Mitchell today
confirmed virus statement that Mick Skimmings has resigned with immediate effects.
So he was on leave after being investigated, but the
nature of those investigations we can't report now. Police Minister
(00:33):
Mark Mitchell also said the mc skimmings had resigned before
he could be dismissed, and actually revealed that the Prime
Minister had been about to consider recommending to the Governor
General that mcskimmings should be removed. So very very serious.
You don't hear about this happening all that often within
the halls of power. We tried to get Chris luxon
on this in a myriad of other issues to do
(00:54):
with mc skimmings, and this is essentially all we could
get from him.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Look, I'm aware of the race nation. I'm not actually
going to go into that, given the ongoing police investigation
that is in place, as you would expect, and I've
got no further comment to say about.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
That, right and try as we might, it was no
further comment to everything. But I'll tell you what. I'll
tell you what he did have comment on, and he
came absolutely ready to talk about this, which was the
way that Nicola Willis had been talked about in the
Post newspaper over the weekend. That's where Nicola Willis was
accused of quote girl math around the pay equity moves.
And within the story written by Post Andrew Advance, it says,
(01:32):
turns out you can have it all so long as
you're prepared to be act dot dot And I'm sure
listeners can fill in the blanks there to women who
birth your kids, school your offspring, and wipe the quote
ass of your elderly patients while you stand on the
shoulders and earn your sixth figure taxpayer funded pay packet,
(01:52):
wrote Vance. And here's what Luxon had to say straight
out of the gate this afternoon.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I think it's been incredibly disappointing to see gender based abuse.
Over the course of the weekend, I saw again a
Labor Party promotion of a minister being portrayed as a Nazi.
I saw a senior media journalist talk about the sea
word and associate that with a minister. That is utterly
unacceptable to me. We in this place often talk about,
(02:17):
and I'm often asked questions about gendered abuse and what's
going on in Parliament for our female in piece. And
yet we have that conversation, the same people that raise
those issues ultimately end up continuing to prosecute the gendered
abuse that we're seeing.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
So the Nazi comment was made in relation to a
Labor Facebook page that posted a photoshopped image of Brooke
van Velden in a Nazi uniform. And I think, you know,
it's absolutely fair enough for the PM to make these
comments and good and good on him for doing so.
Attack the policy, sure, but some of the attacks that
have been leveled against some of the women in government
have been frankly quite disgraceful.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, to be fair to Labor, they have deleted this post,
haven't they, And they have said it was inappropriate and
it seems like it was just some random brownch up
north that did it.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
It does, But I mean if she was on the
other foot, right, imagine if the Nats were in opposition
and something like this happened, you know, it would be
wall to wall coverage. So it's fair to points.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I just I think that the difference here is that
Labor has portrayed Brook van Velden as a Nazi, realized
they shouldn't have done it, taken it down and apologized,
whereas the Sunday Start has called a minister the sea word,
which is like, surely unprecedented, and then has decided that
that's all good.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, I mean, it was so unprecedented that Nicola Willis
got an entire five six hundred word right, of which
it's been running all day.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Isn't this the interesting thing, right that it actually gave her,
First of all, for the first time, you actually feel
sorry for Nichola Willis. Is not a person you feel
sorry for because she clearly is so capable, right, but
now you're actually like, Asia, I've got a bit of
sympathy and empathy for you, and this this feels really harsh.
But also she gets to lay out the government's argument
for everybody to read, which is the very thing they
haven't been able to do properly. It gave her the
(03:54):
opportunity to actually explain why they're doing it.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
And it's almost like in the House. You know, she
gave this speech the other day in the third Reading
that was essentially laying out the government's case for these changes,
which really fell upon deaf ears in terms of the
coverage when it was made. And then she has this
big article today and then you got the Prime Minister
coming out, So yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, hey, now listen what's going on between Act and National?
Why are they're fighting in public again?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Well, you know, there's two elements here. There's the agreed
to disagree clause when it comes over to the firearms Registry.
That is fine, that is absolutely how M and P works,
that's exactly what they should be doing. And there's a
clause in the agreement for a reason. What is really
interesting is what's happening around this social media ban in
terms of the ACT party still saying listen, we don't
(04:39):
think this is very well conceived law. But Luxon's still
saying that Actor coming around to changing their views on this,
and that postcab it was really brushing this off.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I thought, I mean ex supportive of a deeper look
into the subject, and that's a good thing.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
We kept asking questions about this, more specifically about Seymour
saying that ACT hasn't shifted its position on the social
media policy, but Luxen kept doubling down.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Look in ex support of atipa look into the issue.
That's a positive step.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
So he's spinning it saying it's just them wanting to
have a deeper look into the issue. So we'll see
where they get to on this one. I mean, the
government seems to be itaid, the government, Nats seem to
be looking to court some support from either Labor or
the Greens on this one. So Chris Hopkins is actually
just speaking to media now, so we'll have an update
on this one very soon.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Good stuff, Hey, Jason, thanks very much. Appreciate it. Jason
Wool's political editor. For more from Hither Duplessy Alan Drive,
listen live to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
Jason Wool's political edit is with us now.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hi, Jason, good afternoon, Heather.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Okay, So Jevin mcskimming has he resigned about the initial
allegation or is there a second allegation?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Listen, it's actually quite unclear. We were trying to get
to the bottom of that at the post cabinet press
conference just a few moments ago, and the Prime Minister
was really not giving us much information at all. For
those that aren't caught up, Police Minister Mark Mitchell today
confirmed virus statement that Mick Skimmings has resigned with immediate effects.
So he was on leave after being investigated, but the
nature of those investigations we can't report now. Police Minister
(00:33):
Mark Mitchell also said the mc skimmings had resigned before
he could be dismissed, and actually revealed that the Prime
Minister had been about to consider recommending to the Governor
General that mcskimmings should be removed. So very very serious.
You don't hear about this happening all that often within
the halls of power. We tried to get Chris luxon
on this in a myriad of other issues to do
(00:54):
with mc skimmings, and this is essentially all we could
get from him.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Look, I'm aware of the race nation. I'm not actually
going to go into that, given the ongoing police investigation
that is in place, as you would expect, and I've
got no further comment to say about.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
That, right and try as we might, it was no
further comment to everything. But I'll tell you what. I'll
tell you what he did have comment on, and he
came absolutely ready to talk about this, which was the
way that Nicola Willis had been talked about in the
Post newspaper over the weekend. That's where Nicola Willis was
accused of quote girl math around the pay equity moves.
And within the story written by Post Andrew Advance, it says,
(01:32):
turns out you can have it all so long as
you're prepared to be act dot dot And I'm sure
listeners can fill in the blanks there to women who
birth your kids, school your offspring, and wipe the quote
ass of your elderly patients while you stand on the
shoulders and earn your sixth figure taxpayer funded pay packet,
(01:52):
wrote Vance. And here's what Luxon had to say straight
out of the gate this afternoon.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I think it's been incredibly disappointing to see gender based abuse.
Over the course of the weekend, I saw again a
Labor Party promotion of a minister being portrayed as a Nazi.
I saw a senior media journalist talk about the sea
word and associate that with a minister. That is utterly
unacceptable to me. We in this place often talk about,
(02:17):
and I'm often asked questions about gendered abuse and what's
going on in Parliament for our female in piece. And
yet we have that conversation, the same people that raise
those issues ultimately end up continuing to prosecute the gendered
abuse that we're seeing.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
So the Nazi comment was made in relation to a
Labor Facebook page that posted a photoshopped image of Brooke
van Velden in a Nazi uniform. And I think, you know,
it's absolutely fair enough for the PM to make these
comments and good and good on him for doing so.
Attack the policy, sure, but some of the attacks that
have been leveled against some of the women in government
have been frankly quite disgraceful.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, to be fair to Labor, they have deleted this post,
haven't they, And they have said it was inappropriate and
it seems like it was just some random brownch up
north that did it.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
It does, But I mean if she was on the
other foot, right, imagine if the Nats were in opposition
and something like this happened, you know, it would be
wall to wall coverage. So it's fair to points.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I just I think that the difference here is that
Labor has portrayed Brook van Velden as a Nazi, realized
they shouldn't have done it, taken it down and apologized,
whereas the Sunday Start has called a minister the sea word,
which is like, surely unprecedented, and then has decided that
that's all good.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, I mean, it was so unprecedented that Nicola Willis
got an entire five six hundred word right, of which
it's been running all day.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Isn't this the interesting thing, right that it actually gave her,
First of all, for the first time, you actually feel
sorry for Nichola Willis. Is not a person you feel
sorry for because she clearly is so capable, right, but
now you're actually like, Asia, I've got a bit of
sympathy and empathy for you, and this this feels really harsh.
But also she gets to lay out the government's argument
for everybody to read, which is the very thing they
haven't been able to do properly. It gave her the
(03:54):
opportunity to actually explain why they're doing it.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
And it's almost like in the House. You know, she
gave this speech the other day in the third Reading
that was essentially laying out the government's case for these changes,
which really fell upon deaf ears in terms of the
coverage when it was made. And then she has this
big article today and then you got the Prime Minister
coming out, So yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, hey, now listen what's going on between Act and National?
Why are they're fighting in public again?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Well, you know, there's two elements here. There's the agreed
to disagree clause when it comes over to the firearms Registry.
That is fine, that is absolutely how M and P works,
that's exactly what they should be doing. And there's a
clause in the agreement for a reason. What is really
interesting is what's happening around this social media ban in
terms of the ACT party still saying listen, we don't
(04:39):
think this is very well conceived law. But Luxon's still
saying that Actor coming around to changing their views on this,
and that postcab it was really brushing this off.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I thought, I mean ex supportive of a deeper look
into the subject, and that's a good thing.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
We kept asking questions about this, more specifically about Seymour
saying that ACT hasn't shifted its position on the social
media policy, but Luxen kept doubling down.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Look in ex support of atipa look into the issue.
That's a positive step.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
So he's spinning it saying it's just them wanting to
have a deeper look into the issue. So we'll see
where they get to on this one. I mean, the
government seems to be itaid, the government, Nats seem to
be looking to court some support from either Labor or
the Greens on this one. So Chris Hopkins is actually
just speaking to media now, so we'll have an update
on this one very soon.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Good stuff, Hey, Jason, thanks very much. Appreciate it. Jason
Wool's political editor. For more from Hither Duplessy Alan Drive,
listen live to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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