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Last week, Mallard referred former national MP and now independent Jami-Lee Ross to the Privilege Committee for misusing edited parliamentary television videos for political ads.
The spokesperson ordered that an anti-vaccination video, posted by the New Zealand Public Party co-led by Ross and Billy Te Kahika, be removed from social media.
The video featured parliamentary footage of Government Minister Megan Woods in an exchange with National’s Erica Stanford that was edited for use in the political ad, which Mallard deemed a possible privilege violation.
The Privileges Committee ruled Tuesday that the video titled ‘Say no to the forced vaccination agenda for workers’ was misleading and recommended that the Spokesperson’s direction to remove the video remain in effect.
“The video represents a flagrant manipulation of Parliament’s procedures that is intended to mislead viewers by implicating a proposal for mandatory vaccination of New Zealanders,” the committee said in its report.
“In the unanimous opinion of the committee, deceptive video should stop being used, including by social media platforms.”
Ross criticized the committee on Tuesday for submitting a report to Parliament without comment from him or the party accused of violating Parliament’s rules.
“The Privilege Committee has acted like a kangaroo court by holding a meeting, receiving advice, reaching a conclusion and then making a finding, all without any input from the defendants,” he said.
“We completely reject the Spokesman’s first decision on the video on our Facebook page. We now completely reject the opinion of the Privilege Committee.”
