Minister plays press release hide and seek

Minister plays press release hide and seek

While education minister Hekia Parata claims to be working collaboratively with the education sector, she has been refusing to send media releases directly to teacher unions.

After failing to receive a media release from the minister of education for the fourth time in a row, PPTA communications staff began to get concerned.

Repeated attempts to be returned to the minister’s media mailing list met with silence - until a phone call today explained why.

It appears Hekia Parata’s communications team had a re-think about who they were sending their press releases to. They decided it was not “in their best interests” to have teacher unions on the mailing list because they tended to respond straight away with releases of their own.

PPTA president Robin Duff was flabbergasted by the approach, which he described as undemocratic and “just weird.”

‘I have never come across anything like this before,” he said.

“The mad thing is that it makes no difference – we still get to respond because the media comes straight to us anyway.”

“When the minister puts out press releases that concern us and the first we hear of them is from the media, it is not a good look – particularly when she insists she now wants to work closely with the sector. If she only sends releases out to people who agree with her, that’s hardly consultation – it really is a very strange strategy,” he said.

PPTA has since been returned to the press release mailing list after pointing out they had been receiving releases for years, and hopes all other sector groups are receiving them too.

“It is crucial that all parties receive up to date information from the minister if she is to pay more than lip service to sector collaboration,” he said.

ENDS

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