Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath is re­ject­ing sug­ges­tions that he at­tempt­ed to in­tim­i­date par­lia­men­tary staff dur­ing last Fri­day’s chaot­ic Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing, in­sist­ing in­stead that his ac­tions were aimed at iden­ti­fy­ing in­di­vid­u­als linked to what he be­lieves is a pat­tern of bias against Gov­ern­ment MPs with­in Par­lia­ment.

The con­tro­ver­sy stems from an ex­plo­sive con­fronta­tion on Fri­day, when Padarath ac­cused par­lia­men­tary broad­cast­ing per­son­nel of de­lib­er­ate­ly mut­ing mi­cro­phones used by Gov­ern­ment MPs while main­tain­ing high­er au­dio lev­els for Op­po­si­tion mem­bers dur­ing pro­ceed­ings.

The is­sue es­ca­lat­ed amid al­le­ga­tions that Padarath left his seat and pho­tographed a par­lia­men­tary staff mem­ber whom he be­lieved was re­spon­si­ble for op­er­at­ing the au­dio sys­tem. The in­ci­dent was not vis­i­ble on the Par­lia­ment Chan­nel’s pub­lic broad­cast due to cam­era po­si­tion­ing, but quick­ly sparked crit­i­cism from Op­po­si­tion mem­bers and calls for a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion.