Source: Taxpayers Union
11 DECEMBER 2020FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Yesterday Jordan Williams and the Taxpayers’ Union issued a media statement relating to the Speaker Trevor Mallard’s refusal to disclose how much of the six-figure sum paid to a former Parliamentary Services staffer to settle a defamation claim in relation to a false allegation by Mr Mallard that the former staffer had been accused of rape. The media statement was titled “Did Mallard spend a million bucks of our money to prevent another visit to the dock?”Mr Williams fully retracts and apologises for reference to “dock” which implied criminal behaviour by Mr Mallard. It was in reference to Mr Mallard’s conviction for fighting in a public place for punching Tau Henare, and the defamation writ seeing him back in court.“I accept that Mr Mallard’s attack on the former Parliamentary staffer, like his earlier attack on whistleblower Erin Leigh, is not hate-speech, or a criminal matter. I apologise for the reference to criminal behaviour and accept that disreputable speech has not yet been criminalised.””It has been agreed that no further comment will be made on this matter.”
