{"id":174409,"date":"2025-12-08T23:01:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T23:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/174409\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T23:01:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T23:01:10","slug":"labour-leader-chris-hipkins-absolutely-certain-he-wasnt-told-about-mcskimming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/174409\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour leader Chris Hipkins ‘absolutely certain’ he wasn’t told about McSkimming"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Caucus<\/p>\n

\nLabour leader Chris Hipkins.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Mark Papalii\n<\/p>\n

Labour leader Chris Hipkins says former Police Commissioner Andrew Coster seems to have “undone” his apology over the Jevon McSkimming<\/a> affair with comments since.<\/p>\n

Coster resigned as chief executive of the Social Investment Agency<\/a> after an Independent Police Conduct Authority’s damning report into police’s response to allegations of sexual offending by former Deputy Police Commissioner Jevon McSkimming.<\/p>\n

In a statement he said his resignation was “a result of my acceptance of full responsibility<\/a> for the shortcomings” identified in the IPCA’s report.<\/p>\n

Hipkins told Morning Report on Tuesday he had listen Coster’s apology when he resigned from the the Social Investment Agency.<\/p>\n

The Labour leader said much of the impact of that statement had been “undone” by a subsequent interview with TVNZ’s Q+ A.<\/p>\n

\"Hipkins,<\/p>\n

\nPolice Minister Mark Mitchell and former police minister Chris Hipkins have denied Coster’s claims.
\nPhoto: RNZ\n<\/p>\n

In the programme on Sunday, Coster claimed he had briefed former Police Minister Chris Hipkins<\/a> and current Police Minister Mark Mitchell about the allegations before both said they were aware. Both have denied Coster’s claims.<\/p>\n

Coster said the briefing to Hipkins was a “casual conversation” while the pair travelled together in the South Island in July 2022.<\/p>\n

Hipkins told Morning Report he was “absolutely certain that conversation did not happen”.<\/p>\n

“I have spent a lot of time thinking was there something I have missed, and I have no recollection of that conversation.<\/p>\n

“A ministerial press secretary who was also travelling in the car, does not remember that happening either.”<\/p>\n

Hipkins said that if the former commissioner had wanted to raise it there were formal ways to do so, either through the minister or through the employment vetting process.<\/p>\n

He said the IPCA report was clear that Coster did not do that.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labour leader Chris Hipkins. Photo: RNZ \/ Mark Papalii Labour leader Chris Hipkins says former Police Commissioner Andrew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-174409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}