It was understood Paul worked as a ministerial adviser for Cabinet Minister Casey Costello.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Wednesday, Hipkins said he did consider his future in politics after his ex-wife levelled claims at him on social media, but he remains \u201cabsolutely committed\u201d to staying on.<\/p>\n
Hipkins appeared on a suite of morning media shows \u2013 including RNZ\u2019s Morning Report \u2013 where he again flatly denied all the claims, but said he would not be litigating them in public for the sake of his children.<\/p>\n
The claims are not criminal and relate to an alleged lack of support for Paul during and after their relationship.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Morning Report, Hipkins acknowledged he had considered stepping down, noting the impact on his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be untrue to say that those thoughts hadn\u2019t crossed my mind in the last 48 hours, but everybody in their lives at some point goes through rough patches, and you just have to keep getting out of bed every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love my job, and I\u2019m absolutely committed to continuing to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later on Wednesday outside Parliament, Hipkins told reporters people should not read \u201ctoo much\u201d into his comments, insisting he was \u201cnot going anywhere\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m passionate about my job, I\u2019m passionate about New Zealand. I\u2019m passionate about many, many things that I care deeply about. But these things have a big impact on the people who I care a lot about.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Morning Report, Hipkins said the public debate was \u201cvery unfair\u201d on his children, partner and parents \u2013 \u201cyou do pause and think about that\u201d \u2013 but he had received a lot of support over the past day or two.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur marriage broke up. That was a traumatic thing. You know, clearly, there are always going to be lots of regrets in a situation like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany, many people have contacted me in the last 24 hours to indicate that they\u2019ve been through a relationship break-up that has been difficult. I think people will understand that litigating those things through the public is in no one\u2019s best interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hipkins confirmed he had sought legal advice about the further publication of his ex-wife\u2019s allegations by others, as well as the addition of other \u201ccompletely unsubstantiated things\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe online world is a bit of a sewer pit, and it seems that no one has any hesitation in adding to that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSocial media certainly has emboldened a lot of people, and, you know, we have a virtual vigilante approach on social media that anybody in a public profile role now has to contend with. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s been healthy for democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul\u2019s initial post was published on her private Facebook page on Sunday evening, but screenshots were quickly circulated online.<\/p>\n
Paul later removed the post, but told RNZ she stood by the comments.<\/p>\n
Since then, false claims have circulated online that Paul works for New Zealand First. In a statement on Facebook on Wednesday, party leader Peters said that was not true.<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was understood Paul worked as a ministerial adviser for Cabinet Minister Casey Costello. Earlier on Wednesday, Hipkins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3276,6650,28428,105649,1888,2082,13480,27306,26478,117,111,43,139,69,17357,6729,6728,15146,80],"class_list":["post-335396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-chris","tag-craig","tag-denies","tag-exwife","tag-first","tag-for","tag-hipkins","tag-jade","tag-mcculloch","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paul","tag-peters","tag-winston","tag-works","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335396","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=335396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}