Benson-Pope breaks silence 

Cabinet minister David Benson-Pope has fronted up to the media, saying he does not consider himself a liability to the government and is determined to continue in his job. 

The Labour MP says he has not lied or deliberately misled parliament or the public when answering allegations about his time as a teacher at Dunedin's Bayfield High School. 

The Social Development Minister faced another Opposition barrage in the House on Thursday after enduring a bruising attack on Wednesday which prompted Labour to threaten to unleash allegations about another former teacher, National's deputy leader Gerry Brownlee.

Benson-Pope has been shielded from the media for more than a week. 

He says people who believe he has been involved in wrongdoing should take their evidence to the police.

"What's really hurtful is that my own children and my wife sat and watched those allegations - they live in that Dunedin community," Benson-Pope says.

"They've got to put up with that and I don't think anyone should have to put up with that."

Benson-Pope has described the allegations as ''ridiculous'' and ''nonsense''.

Asked if he burst in on 14-year-old girls showering, he said he banged on the door and told the students to hurry up.

"I've apologised and I'm sorry if I gave them a fright."

And when questioned about whether he strolled through the dorm while girls were changing, he said:  "It wasn't always me, other staff acted the same way...other male staff."

He admits he did make teenagers stand outside in the cold in their pyjamas as punishment. And to the claim that he slapped a girl on the thigh he said her construction of events was different to his.

However the opposition isn't satisfied by his explanations.

"A student, parents and teachers have all laid a complaint," National welfare spokesperson Judith Collins says.

But Benson-Pope says he is human and makes mistakes.

His colleagues also leapt to his defence on Thursday and the minister is determined to tough it out.

"I've been pretty upset by the attacks on my integrity," he says.

The woman at the centre of the allegations has revealed that she doesn't think he meant to hurt her when he slapped her leg, but does think he was out of order.

"It was forceful, but yeah, I think it was just out of frustration that he hit me...I don't think he meant to hurt me," Geana Earl says.

Murray Venable's daughter was also at the camp and he was a parent helper.  He has written to the Prime Minister defending the MP.

"At the end of the camp, the pupils actually wrote notes about their feelings of the camp, and all of them were really positive," he says.

"He never saw us in the showers like you know, he stood outside the shower cubicles, but he never actually saw us indecent, apart from people in their underwear in the thing.  But I don't think I'd call him a pervert," Earl says.

But she stands by her complaint - claiming Benson-Pope did slap her at abseilling and should have owned up to it.