Like something straight out of The Thick of It, a green italicised font and the formatting of an official document likely contributed to the pickle Michael Wood finds himself in.
The former Transport Minister failed to declare one of his family trusts which he believed owned his shares in Auckland Airport in the 2018 Register of Pecuniary Interests.
Wood personally owns the shares, not the trust like he’s previously stated, prompting concerns when it was omitted in the 2018 return.
He declared the JM Fairey Family Trust in 2017 and in 2019 but it’s missing from the 2018 document. His office has confirmed that he did in fact declare it in 2018 but the Office of the Clerk likely missed it because of the way it was formatted.
All MPs must fill out the form to declare their pecuniary interests and the form gives an example to help MPs fill it out correctly.
That example is in a green italicised font at the top of the table. One example says: Example: West End Swimming Association. The next column over does the same thing: Teaching children to swim.
When Wood completed the form in 2018, instead of filling out the rows underneath, he deleted the examples and typed in the name of his trust which kept that original green italicised formatting: JM Fairey Family Trust.
It’s likely officials overlooked the trust because it was formatted like it was an example, hence why it never made it to the Register of Pecuniary Interests in 2018.
Here's what the generic document looks like. This is 'form 5':
Here's what page 'form 4' of Wood's competed document looked like in 2018:
