The Prime Minister says the government will do its best to weed out mistakes and correct those it does make quickly.
Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
This week, the associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage admitted misleading Parliament when she said she had discussed the Environmental Protection Authority's chief scientist Jacqueline Rowarth with the authority's chief executive.
Ms Sage's new story evolved after she was accused of ministerial inteference and shortly before the chief executive, Allan Freeth, reappeared before a Parliamentary select committee.
Officials also contradicted the Regional Development Minister Shane Jones, saying he had been fully aware experts believed a project he was about to fund was a lemon.
And Mr Jones conceded he had been made aware of the advice but it had slipped his mind.
Jacinda Ardern said mistakes will happen from time to time.
"With all of these cases they are, within context, issues that easily occur when you have an extrodinary amount of workflow coming through," Ms Ardern said.
"We will try to weed out mistakes wherever they may occur and prevent them from happening."
Ms Ardern said politicians across the board made mistakes.
"But I would point to the fact, for instance, the last government - written questions, there were 900 of them that were corrected, 80 answers in Parliament were corrected.
"Ministers of all stripes make mistakes we've just got to make sure we correct them quickly."
