Listhaug demands more answers from Hansen in the commuter case – NRK Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
Storting President Eva Kristin Hansen rented a dormitory from Trond Giske and got a commuter home. At the same time, she owned a house with her husband 29 km away from the Storting.
Listhaug says we must get to the bottom of this matter, and she will therefore have answers to several things.
– It is very strange that you do not wake up this autumn when this was a big discussion, and it was upside down in the country’s newspapers that the rule was 40 kilometers, says Sylvi Listhaug, party leader in the Progress Party.
In a letter, Listhaug asks on behalf of the Progress Party’s parliamentary group that the president report to the Storting as soon as possible on what has happened. Preferably during Thursday, she writes in the letter.
– It is of course up to the President of the Storting now. I want her to choose to come to the Storting and go through the case and put the cards on the table. We need that now. After all, he is the second highest ranked person in the country after the king we are talking about, says Listhaug.
Announced cleanup – even broke the rules
She wants to know why she gave the address of a dormitory at Giske, when in 2014 she established a shared home with her husband in Ski.
The party leader also asks when Hansen became aware that it was in violation of the regulations for commuter flats, and what made her change her mind and change her residential address to Ski in 2017.
Hansen was a resident of Ski from 2014, but reported first relocation shortly after she was elected to the presidency in 2017.
Listhaug wants to know if Hansen was aware that she had broken the regulations when she announced clean-up.
– The person who a month ago stood and said that we should clean up, has not himself followed the advice. And that is the President of the Storting, says Listhaug.
Hansen spoke to NRK about the commuter housing scandal after the case of the then KrF leader Kjell Ingolf Ropstad. She said that we need to clean up immediately, and that she believes trust has been weakened because people think parliamentary representatives are robbing themselves of rights they may not have.
Will not withdraw
Hansen did not respond to NRK’s inquiries on Wednesday night. She said the following earlier:
– I have been elected President of the Storting with confidence in the Storting. And I have no plans to do anything else. But I hear that some representatives are critical and they themselves are allowed to be, says Hansen.
Listhaug also wants to know if the tax authorities are involved in the case.
Law professor Hans Fredrik Marthinussen believes Hansen may have done something criminal. He considers this case more serious than the cases we have had so far, and believes there may be reason for the police to investigate.
– Eva Kristin Hansen should have reported when she bought a home in Ski and moved there. When she withholds the information from the Storting, we get questions about fraud. This characterizes this case from, for example, Ropstad, who has been completely open with the Storting about his living situation, says Hans Fredrik Marthinussen, professor at the University of Bergen.
– Must clean up after himself
It was Adresseavisen that revealed the case about Hansen. She received a benefit from the commuter home in Oslo of NOK 214,000 after she bought a home on Ski. The newspaper itself has calculated the amount.
– Eva Kristin Hansen was the ordinary girl who grew up in Kolstad to become a grown woman who became president of the Storting. This fits in beautifully with the Labor Party’s history of new costs, that it is ordinary people’s turn and that it should be cleaned up after the confidence of elected representatives was greatly weakened after Aftenposten’s many revelations about commuter housing, says Siv Sandvik, political editor of Adresseavisen.
– That story has suffered a major setback. Eva Kristin Hansen went high on the field and said that it should now be cleaned up. So instead of cleaning up on behalf of others, she has to clean up after herself, says Sandvik.