Bad tidings and little joy
Three grey men, a local take on the biblical Three Wise Men, brought no Christmas gifts on their camels this year. Instead they gave cause to question the integrity of some government agencies with a report startling enough in parts to make you gag on your turkey, and skip the trifle.
Southern Response (SR) chairman Ross Butler resigned in the wake of the State Services Commission’s report detailing how the government-owned insurer hired private snoops to spy on dissatisfied Canterbury earthquake victims. (SR was set up to stand in for insurer AMI after that company failed.) It’s bad enough that seven years after the disaster some people still haven’t been compensated for their losses, and that work done to repair some – for all I know, many – damaged homes there has been shoddy.
Now it’s apparent that SR looked on claimants as adversaries in the game of money, intending to win by any means, and disregarding that ethical thing, fairness. Private investigator firm Thompson & Clark, who it’s tempting to call Thompson & Thomson after the bumbling Tintin detectives, infiltrated closed meetings held by claimants for SR, including strategy meetings with lawyers. They’ve now lost government work.
During the Cold War, Left-wing people were aware of the government security service, and joked about hearing the click of its agents eavesdropping on their phones. It was almost flattering, I guess, to think they were that important. Times change. A list of organisations spied on by Thompson & Clark and revealed in the report now includes Save Animals from Exploitation, Oil Free Otago, Climate Justice Taranaki, Farmwatch, The Green Party, the Mana Movement and some iwi groups, all of which probably annoy some people, but have a right to exist as much as the old lefties did.
The report is sobering if you care about civil rights. It details how surveillance began because of threats to earthquake recovery staff, and how it gradually drifted into dubious activity as if nobody was aware of basics like people’s right to privacy. Former Canterbury earthquake recovery minister Gerry Brownlee has attacked the report. He has admitted knowing about the surveillance.
This isn’t the sort of report you hope to read at the end of a year of unwelcome news, like Middlemore Hospital’s dilapidated buildings, or Wellington Hospital’s leaky miles of copper piping, domestic grade and arguably unsuitable.
There’s more. The NZ Transport Agency last month asked 10,000 motorists to get their warrants of fitness rechecked, and this month NZTA boss Fergus Gammie fell on his sword. It seems an exercise in educating as opposed to enforcing failed; a man died because of a worn-out seatbelt.
All over the country post offices were closed, their services shunted into a sideline for local businesses. In rural areas they just shut. Leaky homes continued to be uncovered, and be nobody’s fault. New Wellington bus timetables caused chaos. Axing the former route to the city’s zoo was one clever idea, and a report on the process, released this week, pointed to incompetence. Male lawyers at Russell McVeagh were found to have had seedy contact with female interns, opening up a general questioning of male-female interaction and the drinking culture in the profession at large.
Overseas #MeToo was born. A report found high-ranking cop Wally Haumaha belittled and humiliated staff. Mighty Fonterra lost its magic. Ireland beat the All Blacks. Brexit droned on. Trump never failed to appal. Plastic killed possibly a trillion sea creatures. Russia had fun on the internet. China built an island. And we, on the 25th, will celebrate a very old piece of good news.