Media reports suggest that Ethnic and Women's Affairs Minister Pansy Wong may be stood down from Cabinet over use of her taxpayer funded travel perk.The PM is expected to make an announcement to reporters from Japan shortly.At stake is whether Ms Wong use
Media reports suggest that Ethnic and Women's Affairs Minister Pansy Wong may be stood down from Cabinet over use of her taxpayer funded travel perk.
The PM is expected to make an announcement to reporters from Japan shortly.
At stake is whether Ms Wong used her parliamentary travel perk to cover her husband Sammy's flights while the pair were on a trip to China last year.
The heavy taxpayer-funded subsidy is not meant to be used for business trips.
Calls to the Prime Minister’s press secretaries, Pansy Wong’s press secretary, and Ms Wong’s Botany electorate office went unanswered.
Ms Wong has been under fire since it emerged this week that she listed her profession as ‘Minister of the NZ government’ when she signed a deed of variation to a deal between Chinese-based Lianyungang Supreme Hovercraft and Pacific Hovercraft New Zealand.
Mrs Wong's husband, Sammy Wong is a director of the Chinese company.
The couple were together on a private trip in January when the deed of variation was signed - and the question is now whether the trip was a holiday or for business purposes.
Prime Minister John Key has said that Ms Wong had followed Cabinet rules “perfectly correctly and done nothing wrong” by listing her full profession.
But a new issue arose when it could not be confirmed whether Ms Wong had used her travel perk to cover both herself and her husband's travel.
The PM's office earlier confirmed to reporters that it was investigating the matter.
