Thursday, July 25, 2019
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By Guardian reporters
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A long-standing spat between the Minister for Transport, Phil Twyford and local MP Andrew Falloon took another turn yesterday with the Rangitata MP accusing the Minister of being anti-democratic and playing politics. Falloon yesterday released information which suggested that the minister had been intervening to prevent members of parliament from meeting with local New Zealand Transport Authority officials. The documents showed that Twyford had intervened on eight occasions as
the Transport Minister to recommend to NZTA that they don’t meet with local MPs. Co-incidentally, all eight of those instances involved MPs from the National Party, while all requests from Government MPs were approved by the minister. The three recommendations for responses to the meeting requests are “written information should be provided”, “requested that questions be put in writing”, or “meeting not approved”. Falloon said it wasn’t good enough. “Phil Twyford is clearly playing politics with access to officials who are
meant to operate on a non-partisan basis,” he said. “Previously meetings were declined if there were health and safety concerns where MPs, of any party, wanted to visit an active work-site. “Even then they were generally granted. “My request was simply for a meeting in my office, there’s no reason at all for the minister to be declining it other than the fact I’ve been calling for him to ensure our roads are made safer.”
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