David Farrar: The non-disclosure to the Minister

Radio NZ reports:

The Ministry of Health has not won itself many friends this week with its failure to inform minister Casey Costello that one of its staffers is related to her arch-rival in Parliament.

Costello has every right to feel aggrieved.

For months, she has been working with health officials on tobacco reform policy, all the while, unbeknownst to her, one of them was the sister-in-law of Labour’s Ayesha Verrall.

It is staggering that no-one told the Minister. This was not a minor conflict, but the sister-in-law of her direct parliamentary opponent, and in an area which she had been most attacked about.

The Chief Executive and/or the secondees in the Minister’s office should have advised the Minister.

It is true, as has been stressed by Verrall and Labour leader Chris Hipkins, that many MPs have relations who work in the public service. Hipkins points out that when he was a minister, he regularly held meetings attended by a National MP’s sibling.

Public servants can’t choose their relatives. That should not be a barrier to them being in the public service, and we never want to see again the disgraceful treatment of Madeleine Setchell who was sacked at the behest of a Minister, who then lied about it, because her partner worked for National.

But Ministers should be aware of political conflicts with senior staff, so that it comes as no surprise to them, and that they can be reassured about how the conflict is being managed.

The ministry has accepted as much and apologised for the “oversight”. It says the responsibility lay with the ministry and not with the staffer, who it says followed all the correct protocols.

“The ministry’s conflict of interest protocol is well communicated to all staff and was adhered to by the individual in this case. Specifically, appropriate declarations were made and management plans put in place.”

Given that, the health official herself should also feel deeply let down by her employer.

By the ministry’s account, she did everything that was asked and expected of her.

The fault is with the ministry, not the employee. Having said that, it would be prudent considering the seniority of the staffer, the role of the person she is related to, and the sensitivity of the policy area she was in, to have proactively asked if her conflict had been disclosed to the Minister.

Hipkins has not helped Labour’s case in initially describing the official as Verrall’s “distant relative”.

When it comes to in-laws, there are varying degrees of closeness, but “distant relative” is not a fair descriptor for a sister-in-law. Hipkins says he misspoke.

A distant relative would be a second cousin, not someone married to your sibling or is the sibling of your wife.

There has been a large amount of confidential material in the area of tobacco and vaping leaked to the opposition and/or the media. Now personally I think it is highly unlikely that Verall’s sister-in-law would be the leaker, as she would know she would be under intense scrutiny. But you can imagine the surprise to the Minister who has had ministry staff leaking to Verrall in this area, and then finds out the principal advisor in this area is Verrall’s sister-in-law.

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.