Key must clarify who signed out SIS OIA

Yet again John Key is proving incapable of answering a simple question on an extremely important issue – this time who signed off Cameron Slater’s fast-tracked SIS OIA request on Phil Goff, said Labour MP Grant Robertson.

“John Key’s claim that he didn’t sign off the SIS OIA in 2011 that was released to Cameron Slater in near record time but denied to proper journalists is astonishing.

“The Prime Minister is the only form of public oversight on the SIS. For him to delegate signing off OIAs about briefings for the Leader of the Opposition to unknown staff members is incompetence bordering on negligence.

“It is also barely believable. Ministers operate under clear guidelines from the State Services Commission that means they would see all material of this nature.

“To claim the head of the SIS, Warren Tucker, wanted to rush out the OIA is another example of this Government throwing public officials under the bus to detract from its problems.

“It’s clear that John Key has lost touch with what’s right and wrong.

“If we are to believe him John Key must be the most hands-off minister in charge of the SIS there has ever been. It’s well past time for John Key to take responsibility for his and his staff’s actions,” Grant Robertson said.

ends

© Scoop Media