Too much divulging and too little talking

IT was lucky my neighbours were away for the day taking in the delights of Oamaru. They avoided the spectacle of me prancing about the front lawn wielding a spindly branch, attempting to catch the sun.

In my defence, I was acting on the instructions of a 3yearold.

My grandson and I had been making the most of the glorious day, taking time out from his frenetic activity for afternoon tea outside.

‘‘That sun’s annoying, isn’t it?’’ I said as he tried to shield his squinting eyes.

Standing staunchly, his authority unquestionable, he had the answer. ‘‘We need to talk to the sun.’’ Foolishly, I asked how we might do that, since the sun seemed quite a long way away.

His solution was to equip me with said branch and assign me the task of capturing the sun with it, bringing it down for a bit of a chat. Logical. I am taller than him.

We had as much luck as the National Party has had in controlling the Hamish Walker/ Michelle Boag Covid19 patients’ privacy breach saga, but at least we had fun.

Could Todd Muller have survived if he had followed my grandson’s lead and recognised early on he needed to do a whole lot of talking, to more than just Mr Walker and his QC?

At the time of writing, the new leader was not known, but National’s Michael Woodhouse must go as health spokesman. His decision to ignore the private information he received from Ms Boag for weeks and then delete it when the heat was on surely rules him out as a future health minister. His only contact with her after receiving it was apparently a text after the leak became news assuring her he was not the leaker. Why didn’t he tell her to desist back in June?

There is much we do not know yet that may be overlooked in this fastmoving drama. If this information (understood to contain names, addresses and ages of 18 ‘‘active’’ Covid19 cases and their whereabouts) was on an official spreadsheet, was it a blunderbuss approach sending it to helicopter trusts because they might have to deal with these patients? Shouldn’t health service providers only be given relevant information about any such patients as and when they are to deal with them?

News outlets’ willingness to give Mr Walker anonymity was baffling.

Journalists’ codes of ethics (which may seem an oxymoron to many) through their unions or employers would contain clauses about respecting the confidentiality of sources.

Such rules are designed to protect those who might be adversely affected by divulging something in the public interest. There is often good reason for sources to be confidential, but it is hard to see this as one of them.

It seems the anonymity was agreed to before journalists knew what Mr Walker was providing. As I understand it, he promoted the information as supporting his concerns about the countries of origin of people he reckoned were headed for southern quarantine (claims that had been decried as racist). However, journalists discovered Mr Walker’s claims were not supported in the information he sent. (He later changed tack, suggesting he was trying to expose how slack the controls were on the information, a concern he could have raised publicly without divulging anyone’s personal details.)

At any point, did any journalist go back to Mr Walker and tell him they could not respect his confidentiality because he had misled them and was sharing information that should have been private?

In the early days of the story, did any of these journalists in the know, who, sensibly, did not publish the private information, feel uneasy when National leaders thundered about how appalling it was this information had been leaked? Did they wonder if they were being used for political ends?

These journalists may not be E tu union members, but even so I wonder how their early reporting would fit with this part of that union’s code: ‘‘They shall report and interpret the news with scrupulous honesty by striving to disclose all essential facts and by not suppressing relevant, available facts or distorting by wrong or improper emphasis’’?

If the Government had not instigated an investigation and Mr Walker and Ms Boag had not outed themselves, would the fact the information had come from Mr Walker have remained secret? Would that have been OK?

Call me Pollyanna, but I hope this might be a precursor for better behaviour all round during the election campaign.

If not, my grandson could help by offering transgressors time out in the cardboard dog box we made. There will be no room to move and

Grandma’s special chocolate dog biscuits will be off the menu.

❛ Call me Pollyanna, but I hope this might be a precursor for better behaviour all round during

the election campaign.