Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern disputes claims made by Labour MP Dr Gaurav Sharma that bullying in Parliament has been enabled by party Whips and even her own office.
In her first comments since Dr Sharma wrote an explosive column in the NZ Herald on Thursday claiming several offices in Parliament were bullying and gaslighting MPs, Ardern said she had seen "no evidence of what has been framed as bullying".
Instead, the Prime Minister said Parliamentary Services and the Labour Whips office have been working with the first-term MP after issues arose between him and his staff last year.
She wouldn't say what those issues were, citing the privacy of other staff members involved, but said it appears the "number of interventions" put in place had "given rise to some issues from Gaurav's perspective".
"I was aware at the end of last year that there were some issues and that all parties were working to resolve them," Ardern said. "The next time I had it raised with me was when I saw it in the media yesterday."
She said there had been "constructive attempts to try and resolve these issues", but those interventions "weren't necessarily welcomed".
"Even when you engage in what you believe is a constructive way, others may interpret that differently. That is for us to resolve. But I do believe that can be resolved."
Parliamentary Service paused hiring for Dr Sharma's office, Ardern said, to allow for more "coaching and mentoring" and believed the process had been handled appropriately off the back of the Francis Review into the workplace culture at Parliament.
She believed issues were isolated to Dr Sharma's office.
"While no one can claim perfection, I'm confident that these concerns relate only to Gaurav's situation and don't reflect a wider issue and that we will continue to do what we can to help Gaurav with these issues in a supportive way and to ensure that they are resolved to the best of our ability," Ardern said.
She has exchanged messages with the Hamilton-West MP since the story broke.
"Gaurav is a valued member of our team. We wouldn't be working so hard to resolve these issues if he wasn't. I've reached out to him but I think from here, the best thing we can do is continue to work together to resolve the issues that have been raised."
Ardern wouldn't rule out punishment for the MP for going to the media over the issue.
"As you can imagine, we do have expectations in our team around the way issues, particularly where they relate to the privacy of others, including the people that we hire, and that we are lucky enough to have worked for us, and so clearly there are a number of issues here at play."
She said there "are things we need to work through", but her primary focus was seeing the staffing issues resolved and "down the track we can deal with the way in which it's been raised".
In his column on Thursday, Dr Sharma said the Parliamentary Service "promoted and facilitated" bullying, including between MPs, "by working behind the scenes" with party Whips offices, leaders' offices and the Prime Minister's Office.
"If anything, in my experience, when an MP raises serious concerns the Parliamentary Service steps back, stonewalls the conversation, ghosts the MP and throws them to the whip's office to be gaslighted and victimised further so that the party can use the information to threaten you about your long-term career prospects."
He has also since said he has "made multiple complaints through proper channels, including to the PMO [Prime Minister's Office]" over the past year-and-a-half and "nothing has been done".
Earlier on Friday, Labour Chief Whip Duncan Webb said his office had become "aware of issues between Gaurav and some of his staff a year ago". It's been working with the MP and recently paused hiring staff "with the intention of providing further assistance before more staff were hired into his office", Webb said.
"At all times the Whip's office has acted in good faith and sought to work constructively with Gaurav and the Parliamentary Service to ensure he has good support available to address issues between him and his staff," Webb said.
Webb and Parliamentary Service met with Dr Sharma "in good faith to progress these issues as recently as yesterday, he was fully represented at that meeting".
"We are mindful these are ongoing relationships, so we must respect individual’s privacy, but we will continue to seek a resolution with Gaurav in the coming weeks."
Parliamentary Service Chief Executive Rafael Gonzalez-Montero on Thursday night said it had worked closely with the Labour Whip's office to "address employment matters with Dr Sharma".
"We do what we can to support all our MPs, and we acknowledge the triangular employment relationship at Parliament is complex," he said.
"It is also important to make it clear that the Service cannot direct MPs what to do and how to act. MPs are elected representatives of New Zealand’s citizens and that would impinge on New Zealand’s democracy, and the free right of MPs as elected representatives of New Zealand’s citizens."
