Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern urges caution over Mallard and ‘tantamount to rape’ comment
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is urging caution around cries of injustice about a male staffer who has been stood down from Parliament.
The Parliamentary Service employee says he is the victim of slander.
He was sent home after Speaker Trevor Mallard claimed a serial sex offender was roaming the corridors of power.
Ardern today told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking there was a lot to the report by external reviewer Debbie Francis that she and the media were not privy to.
“I’ve seen an interview’s been conducted with someone who’s been stood down from Parliament but there is not necessarily been the detail provided around the original allegations,” she said.
“I don’t think we should have a trial by media.”
So Jacinda is alleging that there is more to the Parliament rape allegations than have been released to the media and has astoundingly called for us to avoid a trial by media.
I know. I know. I know.
So if the Prime Minister didn’t want this descending into a trial by media, why did the Speaker of the House spark off a trial by media by stating as fact that there was a serial rapist walking the halls of Parliament?
How can the PM be so certain that a more series ‘rape’ has occurred if there has been no police investigation and successful prosecution of such event?
So, this is the mutated justice system we are now getting where accusation is the new evidential threshold, where the Prime Minister of NZ is getting involved in a police matter and telling NZ that the case has merit when it hasn’t even appeared in a Court?
Allowing staff to anonymously complain without any need to prove anything said and extrapolating rape from that is one thing. Attacking the resulting trial by media for being a trial by media however is a conversation Jacinda should perhaps be having with the Speaker.
