The first ethnic Asian elected to New Zealand’s parliament quit as a Cabinet minister yesterday after a scandal erupted over her use of taxpayer-funded travel perks, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said.
Shanghai-born Pansy Wong, who held the ethnic and women’s affairs portfolios, handed in her resignation after it emerged she used a trip to China with her husband in 2008 for business purposes, Key said.
“On the face of it, this is a breach of travel entitlement rules and Mrs Wong has been unable to assure me it is a one-off breach,” he said in a statement.
“I expect high standards from my ministers and I believe that Mrs Wong has taken the appropriate step in resigning,” Key added.
Under New Zealand’s parliamentary rules, long-serving politicians receive subsidies of up to 90 percent on travel, but the trips cannot be used for business.
Reports said that while in China, Wong signed off on a business deal involving her husband Sammy and a hovercraft company that later turned sour.
Wong said she had a duty to meet the high standards expected of ministers in Key’s conservative government.
“As a member of parliament it is my responsibility to ensure that the travel entitlement is used within the rules and that does not appear to be the case on this occasion,” Wong said.
“Given that, the appropriate and honorable thing to do is to offer my resignation to the prime minister. He has been gracious enough to accept it,” she added.
Wong, who was raised in Hong Kong and moved to New Zealand in 1974, became the country’s first Asian member of parliament in 1996.
“It is beyond my wildest dreams that a baby girl born in Shanghai, China, grew up in a Hong Kong apartment where eight families shared a single kitchen and bathroom to be New Zealand’s ... first Cabinet minister of Chinese and Asian ethnicity,” she said.
Key said parliament was investigating the case.
“I am extremely disappointed to lose a minister who has been an effective and hard-working representative for the ethnic community and New Zealand,” he said.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to