The police and the links effect
If the Pauline Kingi debacle is to have any lasting lesson, it might be that we can now feel completely justified in ignoring or deleting those annoying emails asking us to connect with someone’s profile on LinkedIn. National Party police spokesman Chris Bishop claimed a political scalp when he discovered that Kingi, a respected public servant who was appointed to chair an inquiry into the controversial appointment of Deputy Police Commissioner Wally Haumaha, had endorsed Haumaha 23 times on LinkedIn. They included vouching for his abilities in leadership, crime prevention and stakeholder management.
It was a poor look, and there is no doubt that Kingi had to go.
Politicians and others with high profiles have had to learn the hard way to be wary of social media and online networking, whether it was Bishop himself messaging teenagers on Snapchat, for reasons that were entirely innocent, or activists scrutinising the Twitter histories of Judith Collins and other outspoken MPs in the hope of uncovering politically humiliating opinions or connections.
The rule of thumb is never to do anything online you would not do in real life.
But the Kingi story obscures or perhaps compounds the original issue, which remains much more serious. That is the process around the appointment of Haumaha.
Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters set up an inquiry after it emerged that victims’ rights advocate Louise Nicholas had raised questions that were ignored. Stuff reported in June that Nicholas approached police management over her concerns about Haumaha when he was considered for an assistant police commissioner role.
Those concerns involved his links with officers accused of raping Nicholas. She said she saw a historic police statement from him that questioned her allegations that former assistant commissioner Clint Rickards and former officers Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum, all of whom were good friends of Haumaha, had raped her as a teenager.
The rape allegations, and the police culture they exposed, led to a landmark report on police conduct headed by Dame Margaret Bazley. The police have made great strides to change their culture since.
We can take Haumaha at his word when he says that he, too, has evolved in the 14 years since he made comments that he now deeply regrets and unreservedly apologises for. If wider police culture has changed, there is no reason to believe that individuals have not also radically reconsidered their earlier views.
But it does contribute to a political messiness that could easily have been avoided. It is astonishing that Police Minister Stuart Nash knew nothing about Haumaha’s comments before his promotion, especially as it has been reported that Police Commissioner Mike Bush may have been aware of them. One of the most pressing questions for the subsequent inquiry is why potentially embarrassing material was not provided to Nash before Haumaha was interviewed.
Of course, that inquiry is the one that Kingi was to have chaired until Wednesday. As the story grows murkier and murkier, it becomes clear that Haumaha is turning into political kryptonite for the Government.
‘‘As the story grows murkier and murkier, it becomes clear that Haumaha is turning into political kryptonite for the Government.’’