EXCLUSIVE - ‘I haven’t come this far to be silenced’: Gaurav Sharma
This is your first day as an independent MP in the House and it's very clear that your expulsion has not resulted in your silence. In fact, you spoke out against outgoing Speaker Trevor Mallard.
Look, I think the most important thing is, why am I doing this? I'm doing this because I am genuinely saying that things haven't been done in the right way, the processes haven't been followed, I have been bullied, other MPs have also been bullied. And there is an issue here with how the system is run, there's an issue here with how things are done. And what I'm asking [for] is a fair trial for myself, a fair trial for other parties, but also hoping to help change the system in a positive way. And my fight isn't with the Labour Party, my fight is with the system. That's what it is. And it so happens to be that the Labour Party is in government at the moment, or is part of the system at the moment. But that's what my fight is, that it's against injustice, it's against the way the system is set up and it doesn't work. So there's no point in being silent or being silenced there. And I haven't come this far to be silenced.
So is this going to be the trend from now on? Are you going to use parliamentary privilege to speak out?
No, the intent here isn't to just attack anybody or anything like that. It happened that today the Speaker had changed and I spoke about whatever the matter was for the day. [I was] just going back a little bit as well. I guess what I want to say is, I think people have different opinions about what's happened in the last few days. When I wrote that article in New Zealand Herald on Thursday, [August 11], I genuinely thought that the Prime Minister would come out, [that] the Labour Party would come out and they would say that on Friday, when they were going to do their press release, that things haven't gone well and they will be doing an independent investigation and that would help everybody clear their name. So it wasn't [that] I was intending this whole plan for the past two weeks. Then what happened is, I think the Prime Minister said there's no proof that there is bullying going on in caucus, [that] everything is all fine, which then led me to release more information about what happened [to] me. I had to name people, [but] even then, it wasn't accepted. So then I had to put [out] some screenshots, obviously cutting off people's name[s] there, which showed that other MPs were also being affected by bullying.
So the intent was [not] to bring disrepute or whatever to people or party. My intent was from day one to see justice [is done]. And that's why I just wrote an opinion piece. And there's nothing wrong with writing an opinion piece and it was an opinion piece about how the system wasn't working. Unfortunately, the reply to that wasn't that let's have a look at [an] independent [investigation], look at the system and see if it can be changed. Does it need to be changed? Have things gone wrong? Which is the right way to do it? An independent investigation, we [will] look into it. What happened was that they were trying to silence me and blocked me from speaking and then saying that there isn't an issue. That's when I had to release the screenshots. Right then we ended up at a point where I was told that there would be an independent [investigation], [that there] would be a fair caucus meeting, [that] I was able to present my side of the case.
But then it turns out there was a secret meeting the night before, and I was made aware of it by somebody else [and a] senior as well. And then somebody said, well, that's not true. There was no secret meeting. We didn't really discuss these issues. Well, then there was an audio tape available as well, where somebody for 55 minutes went on to use the word “predetermined” many times, but also talked about how the prime minister didn't want an investigation. All of that was predetermined. I guess what I'm trying to say is, first of all, at every step of the way, it hasn't been like I've planned it. So coming to your question, it's not that I'm trying to use or will be using the parliamentary questions just to do this. I do want to get on with doing the work as well. But it just happened to be the situation that you're in.
Your Op-ed piece was the trigger. It goes to the heart of the problem. It proved that you opted for media over mediation. So in hindsight, do you think that was politically naive? Did you expect the Labour party to get up and order an investigation?
So to answer your question, first thing is it's not something that happened over one-and-a-half weeks or two months or three months. It's been going on for one-and-a-half years. And for one-and-a-half years, I've tried every office. I've tried talking [to] the relationship manager, their boss, their boss's boss, the deputy CEO of Parliamentary Services, the CEO of Parliamentary Services. I've talked to multiple whips, I've talked to the Prime Minister's office. Even when they didn't come forth after our oral conversation, I even wrote an email to them. So it's not something that happened because I didn't try all the avenues. It happened because I tried all the avenues and nothing worked.
I was already at the highest office in the country, which is the Prime Minister's office. In December, I provided them all the evidence and talked to them and raised my concerns, and nothing happened. And then, this person who they should have looked at, because other MPs were getting affected by it, that person ends up getting promoted. So there was no actual genuine concern for other people's wellbeing, other MPs’ wellbeing as well. So going back to your point, it wasn't that I was naive or didn't try all the avenues. I went through every single step of the system before I got there.
I also want to say, the only time mediation was offered was after I was suspended. It was only after I was suspended that they sent me a text message saying we are happy to do a mediation.
I also want to say that you can't say that I have had staffing issues for one-and-a-half years, as they said it, then I would take a lawyer into a meeting and they said there were never any issues and we will give you all the staffing rights and everything, and within 30 minutes, somebody has texted you from Parliamentary services and said, it's all good. The point of difference then was, well, you still need to investigate the claims I have made, where I've said that the staff were drunk, they didn't show up to work. There were lots of other issues where constituents had raised issues, organisations had raised issues. So there were lots of things going on. They didn't want to investigate them. All they wanted was to put it under the rug again and for me to move on. But is it not odd to you that for one-and-a-half years, if there have been issues, I take a lawyer into the meeting, and then there are no issues? So the mediation, that definitely only came after I got suspended. I tried every avenue that there was and nobody paid any attention, nobody tried to help.
So you exhausted all the avenues before you went to the media?
Definitely. And I think the thing people have to realise [is] that by going to the media, or whatever has happened in the last two weeks, it doesn't help my career. Why would I do this as the first thing to do? I would only do this if there was no other resort left. So I know that having done this hasn't helped my career, but it's also the only option I had left after going through all the avenues. So it wasn't that I didn't follow anything else, I went through every avenue I was supposed to for a very long period of time. One-and-a-half years is a long time, trying to get justice. Trying to get resolution.
The staffing issues that you faced, were they unique to your office? Or did your colleagues also have the same issues?
As the prime minister said, multiple people have had issues with their staff. Any workplace will have staffing issues. The question is who's investigating it. If a staff makes a claim against an MP, who is investigating it? If MPs make claims against [their] staff, who is investigating it? Because the problem here is [that] nobody is investigating it. So when I say that I had two staff members, who were both drinking at work (one was caught drunk at work, the other was drinking at work), nobody investigated it.
When I had a staff member who threw all the brochures that they were supposed to deliver on the side of the road, [after which] I had a constituent who emailed me and said you're wasting tax payers money. All of this is thrown on the side of the road near my [the constituent’s] house. When I went there, I saw it.
The staff member had gone home at 11 o'clock and was sleeping, and pretending as if they were working till 5 o'clock. All of that information, all of those claims, are easily proven, because I have the name of the constituent, have the date and time. Same thing with the complaints of drinking, they were made in writing, it's all available. I was the one who made [the] complaints against the staff, and not the other way round. So I [raised the] staffing issues, [but] they didn't resolve them. And things got worse.
So my point is, even if staff are making complaints, and not in every situation staff will be right or MP will be right. Sometimes both will have their own views of doing things. The point is who is investigating it? Nobody is.
Now that you have been expelled from the caucus, are you still pushing for an investigation? If so, given your changed status in the House, how close are you to realizing your mission of an independent investigation?
I'm not the only one who has asked for it. We have had members from the party, the volunteers from the party, multiple community organizations who have actively asked for an independent investigation. Some of the organisations have actually written to the Ombudsman directly to see if they would investigate this as well. So I mean, whether you're in the party or not, that doesn't mean that my right to having a just and fair trial goes away. That applies to everybody. The fact that I’m not, or I am, a member of the Labour Party shouldn't stop me from getting a fair trial or fair justice. Continuing to request that shouldn’t be a problem.
Has your expulsion impacted your standing in the constituency?
In terms of the constituency, I've been going to markets, I've been going to clinics, and this is obviously before the expulsion because I've been here [in Wellington] since the expulsion. At the markets, I was doing an after-hours pharmacy where I do my clinics from 7 to 9pm. That went well. I was at a school, that went really well, the markets went really well. So most people that have come in have been very supportive. My mail box is actually full of people just writing positive messages. And what they're saying is, we appreciate that all you're asking for is an independent investigation. I'm not saying heads should roll, I’m not saying fire this person or that.
What I'm saying [is] that, for myself, I should get a fair trial. Also, an independent investigation means that people like Kieran McAnulty, against whom claims have been made, get a genuine opportunity to clear their name if they are in the right because why should this hang on their head for such a long time.
Similarly, staff should get a genuine opportunity to be heard. Because if they feel aggrieved, then why not hear them out? What the constituents have said is that it’s not unreasonable to ask for something like this.
How do you see your political career panning out from here?
As an electorate MP, I have always been very passionate about the work I do in the community. If you look at the last one-and-a-half years, I’ve done 52 constituent clinics, in marae’s, churches, schools, community centres, pharmacies, markets, everywhere. I'm very connected to people at the grassroots level. I try to do as much as I can with the constituent cases.
I’m also very transparent. I know that's a word that gets thrown around quite lightly these days. One example I'll give you is of the hundreds of thousands of cases we get through our office. We have done a data analysis on them. How many percentage of cases are immigration related, MIQ related, DHB related, ACC related, crime-related? We are publishing that data, showing our constituents what exactly an MP does in terms of work. We’ve done thousands of flyers. I'm quite active and will continue to be active because I'm still the Member of Parliament for Hamilton West. So my intention is to continue to work hard and lobby for my constituents.
Finally, Brian Tamaki of Destiny Church led an anti-government protest march in Wellington yesterday. He has invited you to join his new political outfit. Will you accept?
I read it in the news that he has said that. I've had lots of parties talking to me or sending me messages. Most of them are about [my] well-being, a lot of them are [offers of] support. I'm sure people would want me to take sides one way or the other. My focus is on my constituents. My focus is actively on Hamilton. So I'm not looking at joining anybody.
This is your first day as an independent MP in the House and it's very clear that your expulsion has not resulted in your silence. In fact, you spoke out against outgoing Speaker Trevor Mallard. Look, I think the most important thing is, why am I doing this? I'm doing this because I am genuinely...
This is your first day as an independent MP in the House and it's very clear that your expulsion has not resulted in your silence. In fact, you spoke out against outgoing Speaker Trevor Mallard.
Look, I think the most important thing is, why am I doing this? I'm doing this because I am genuinely saying that things haven't been done in the right way, the processes haven't been followed, I have been bullied, other MPs have also been bullied. And there is an issue here with how the system is run, there's an issue here with how things are done. And what I'm asking [for] is a fair trial for myself, a fair trial for other parties, but also hoping to help change the system in a positive way. And my fight isn't with the Labour Party, my fight is with the system. That's what it is. And it so happens to be that the Labour Party is in government at the moment, or is part of the system at the moment. But that's what my fight is, that it's against injustice, it's against the way the system is set up and it doesn't work. So there's no point in being silent or being silenced there. And I haven't come this far to be silenced.
So is this going to be the trend from now on? Are you going to use parliamentary privilege to speak out?
No, the intent here isn't to just attack anybody or anything like that. It happened that today the Speaker had changed and I spoke about whatever the matter was for the day. [I was] just going back a little bit as well. I guess what I want to say is, I think people have different opinions about what's happened in the last few days. When I wrote that article in New Zealand Herald on Thursday, [August 11], I genuinely thought that the Prime Minister would come out, [that] the Labour Party would come out and they would say that on Friday, when they were going to do their press release, that things haven't gone well and they will be doing an independent investigation and that would help everybody clear their name. So it wasn't [that] I was intending this whole plan for the past two weeks. Then what happened is, I think the Prime Minister said there's no proof that there is bullying going on in caucus, [that] everything is all fine, which then led me to release more information about what happened [to] me. I had to name people, [but] even then, it wasn't accepted. So then I had to put [out] some screenshots, obviously cutting off people's name[s] there, which showed that other MPs were also being affected by bullying.
So the intent was [not] to bring disrepute or whatever to people or party. My intent was from day one to see justice [is done]. And that's why I just wrote an opinion piece. And there's nothing wrong with writing an opinion piece and it was an opinion piece about how the system wasn't working. Unfortunately, the reply to that wasn't that let's have a look at [an] independent [investigation], look at the system and see if it can be changed. Does it need to be changed? Have things gone wrong? Which is the right way to do it? An independent investigation, we [will] look into it. What happened was that they were trying to silence me and blocked me from speaking and then saying that there isn't an issue. That's when I had to release the screenshots. Right then we ended up at a point where I was told that there would be an independent [investigation], [that there] would be a fair caucus meeting, [that] I was able to present my side of the case.
But then it turns out there was a secret meeting the night before, and I was made aware of it by somebody else [and a] senior as well. And then somebody said, well, that's not true. There was no secret meeting. We didn't really discuss these issues. Well, then there was an audio tape available as well, where somebody for 55 minutes went on to use the word “predetermined” many times, but also talked about how the prime minister didn't want an investigation. All of that was predetermined. I guess what I'm trying to say is, first of all, at every step of the way, it hasn't been like I've planned it. So coming to your question, it's not that I'm trying to use or will be using the parliamentary questions just to do this. I do want to get on with doing the work as well. But it just happened to be the situation that you're in.
Your Op-ed piece was the trigger. It goes to the heart of the problem. It proved that you opted for media over mediation. So in hindsight, do you think that was politically naive? Did you expect the Labour party to get up and order an investigation?
So to answer your question, first thing is it's not something that happened over one-and-a-half weeks or two months or three months. It's been going on for one-and-a-half years. And for one-and-a-half years, I've tried every office. I've tried talking [to] the relationship manager, their boss, their boss's boss, the deputy CEO of Parliamentary Services, the CEO of Parliamentary Services. I've talked to multiple whips, I've talked to the Prime Minister's office. Even when they didn't come forth after our oral conversation, I even wrote an email to them. So it's not something that happened because I didn't try all the avenues. It happened because I tried all the avenues and nothing worked.
I was already at the highest office in the country, which is the Prime Minister's office. In December, I provided them all the evidence and talked to them and raised my concerns, and nothing happened. And then, this person who they should have looked at, because other MPs were getting affected by it, that person ends up getting promoted. So there was no actual genuine concern for other people's wellbeing, other MPs’ wellbeing as well. So going back to your point, it wasn't that I was naive or didn't try all the avenues. I went through every single step of the system before I got there.
I also want to say, the only time mediation was offered was after I was suspended. It was only after I was suspended that they sent me a text message saying we are happy to do a mediation.
I also want to say that you can't say that I have had staffing issues for one-and-a-half years, as they said it, then I would take a lawyer into a meeting and they said there were never any issues and we will give you all the staffing rights and everything, and within 30 minutes, somebody has texted you from Parliamentary services and said, it's all good. The point of difference then was, well, you still need to investigate the claims I have made, where I've said that the staff were drunk, they didn't show up to work. There were lots of other issues where constituents had raised issues, organisations had raised issues. So there were lots of things going on. They didn't want to investigate them. All they wanted was to put it under the rug again and for me to move on. But is it not odd to you that for one-and-a-half years, if there have been issues, I take a lawyer into the meeting, and then there are no issues? So the mediation, that definitely only came after I got suspended. I tried every avenue that there was and nobody paid any attention, nobody tried to help.
So you exhausted all the avenues before you went to the media?
Definitely. And I think the thing people have to realise [is] that by going to the media, or whatever has happened in the last two weeks, it doesn't help my career. Why would I do this as the first thing to do? I would only do this if there was no other resort left. So I know that having done this hasn't helped my career, but it's also the only option I had left after going through all the avenues. So it wasn't that I didn't follow anything else, I went through every avenue I was supposed to for a very long period of time. One-and-a-half years is a long time, trying to get justice. Trying to get resolution.
The staffing issues that you faced, were they unique to your office? Or did your colleagues also have the same issues?
As the prime minister said, multiple people have had issues with their staff. Any workplace will have staffing issues. The question is who's investigating it. If a staff makes a claim against an MP, who is investigating it? If MPs make claims against [their] staff, who is investigating it? Because the problem here is [that] nobody is investigating it. So when I say that I had two staff members, who were both drinking at work (one was caught drunk at work, the other was drinking at work), nobody investigated it.
When I had a staff member who threw all the brochures that they were supposed to deliver on the side of the road, [after which] I had a constituent who emailed me and said you're wasting tax payers money. All of this is thrown on the side of the road near my [the constituent’s] house. When I went there, I saw it.
The staff member had gone home at 11 o'clock and was sleeping, and pretending as if they were working till 5 o'clock. All of that information, all of those claims, are easily proven, because I have the name of the constituent, have the date and time. Same thing with the complaints of drinking, they were made in writing, it's all available. I was the one who made [the] complaints against the staff, and not the other way round. So I [raised the] staffing issues, [but] they didn't resolve them. And things got worse.
So my point is, even if staff are making complaints, and not in every situation staff will be right or MP will be right. Sometimes both will have their own views of doing things. The point is who is investigating it? Nobody is.
Now that you have been expelled from the caucus, are you still pushing for an investigation? If so, given your changed status in the House, how close are you to realizing your mission of an independent investigation?
I'm not the only one who has asked for it. We have had members from the party, the volunteers from the party, multiple community organizations who have actively asked for an independent investigation. Some of the organisations have actually written to the Ombudsman directly to see if they would investigate this as well. So I mean, whether you're in the party or not, that doesn't mean that my right to having a just and fair trial goes away. That applies to everybody. The fact that I’m not, or I am, a member of the Labour Party shouldn't stop me from getting a fair trial or fair justice. Continuing to request that shouldn’t be a problem.
Has your expulsion impacted your standing in the constituency?
In terms of the constituency, I've been going to markets, I've been going to clinics, and this is obviously before the expulsion because I've been here [in Wellington] since the expulsion. At the markets, I was doing an after-hours pharmacy where I do my clinics from 7 to 9pm. That went well. I was at a school, that went really well, the markets went really well. So most people that have come in have been very supportive. My mail box is actually full of people just writing positive messages. And what they're saying is, we appreciate that all you're asking for is an independent investigation. I'm not saying heads should roll, I’m not saying fire this person or that.
What I'm saying [is] that, for myself, I should get a fair trial. Also, an independent investigation means that people like Kieran McAnulty, against whom claims have been made, get a genuine opportunity to clear their name if they are in the right because why should this hang on their head for such a long time.
Similarly, staff should get a genuine opportunity to be heard. Because if they feel aggrieved, then why not hear them out? What the constituents have said is that it’s not unreasonable to ask for something like this.
How do you see your political career panning out from here?
As an electorate MP, I have always been very passionate about the work I do in the community. If you look at the last one-and-a-half years, I’ve done 52 constituent clinics, in marae’s, churches, schools, community centres, pharmacies, markets, everywhere. I'm very connected to people at the grassroots level. I try to do as much as I can with the constituent cases.
I’m also very transparent. I know that's a word that gets thrown around quite lightly these days. One example I'll give you is of the hundreds of thousands of cases we get through our office. We have done a data analysis on them. How many percentage of cases are immigration related, MIQ related, DHB related, ACC related, crime-related? We are publishing that data, showing our constituents what exactly an MP does in terms of work. We’ve done thousands of flyers. I'm quite active and will continue to be active because I'm still the Member of Parliament for Hamilton West. So my intention is to continue to work hard and lobby for my constituents.
Finally, Brian Tamaki of Destiny Church led an anti-government protest march in Wellington yesterday. He has invited you to join his new political outfit. Will you accept?
I read it in the news that he has said that. I've had lots of parties talking to me or sending me messages. Most of them are about [my] well-being, a lot of them are [offers of] support. I'm sure people would want me to take sides one way or the other. My focus is on my constituents. My focus is actively on Hamilton. So I'm not looking at joining anybody.
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