The Labour Party will hold its special caucus meeting on Tuesday afternoon to deal with the Dr Gaurav Sharma situation.
The Prime Minister's Office has confirmed the meeting will take place at 2:30pm. It will be held via Zoom as MPs are spread out across New Zealand due to it being a recess week. Normally, a caucus meeting wouldn't be held until next Tuesday when Parliament resumes.
Following the meeting, the Prime Minister will hold a press conference. That's expected at about 4pm and Newshub will livestream it.
Dr Sharma has made a flurry of allegations against his fellow Labour parliamentarians in recent days, accusing the Whips office and Parliamentary Service of facilitating bullying. On Monday afternoon, he shared text messages which Dr Sharma said were from other MPs who were also bullied. The text messages are unverified and Dr Sharma has provided no evidence to support his claims.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, also the Labour leader, has denied there are widespread bullying issues within her party and said the situation with Dr Sharma was sparked by issues raised staff in his office about his management style. Ardern says Dr Sharma disagreed with some of the interventions the Whips and Parliamentary Service made.
"It's clear that there wasn't always agreement that was necessary, by Gaurav. But that doesn't necessarily constitute what he has characterised as bullying. I've looked at those processes, I've looked at those interventions," she said at her post-Cabinet press conference on Monday.
"Whilst I don't believe they have substantiated his claims of bullying we'll always look to improve our processes, because some of them are new and they're there to look after our staff, but ultimately to also look after our MPs."
However, Newshub has spoken to one person involved at the time of those disputes between Dr Sharma and his staff who said complaints against the MP were never investigated. They said Dr Sharma goes above and beyond and they've never heard him raise his voice.
When announcing on Monday afternoon that a caucus meeting would be held this week to resolve the issues with Dr Sharma, Ardern wouldn't speculate about what outcome it may have. She wouldn't say whether Dr Sharma would be expelled, instead saying decisions were up to the caucus.
Ardern has refused to stand down the MPs accused by Dr Sharma of bullying, saying she's seen no evidence to substantiate the claims the Hamilton West MP made. Dr Sharma has asked for an independent investigation into complaints against him so he can clear his name.
The backbencher claimed last week that another MP and staff had misused taxpayer money. However the Parliamentary Service has said those claims were investigated and it was found the money was used appropriately on travel purposes.
