The last thing Muller needed

National activist Michelle Boag is openly remorseful, and Clutha-Southland MP Hamish Walker rather more muted in his apology – but emphatically in trouble nonetheless – as the pair now find themselves the subject of pointed inquiry after last night acknowledging their roles in passing private details of Covid-19 patients to the media.

Boag at least speaks plainly when she acknowledges ‘‘a massive error of judgment on my part’’ in sending the information sent to her, in her role with the Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust, to Walker.

Let’s be plain. This was done as ammunition to be used against the Government, though by her account she didn’t anticipate Walker – sometimes described as a press release machine – quietly flicking it on to the news media.

He, in turn, points out that the private details weren’t published by him or the journalists. This does, however, leave interesting questions of legality that will now be canvassed in the inquiry already launched by Health Minister Chris Hipkins.

Walker still tries, unconvincingly, to portray his manner of playing fast and loose with deeply personal information as some sort of whistleblowing exercise to expose Government failings of not having appropriate safeguards in place. A case, essentially, of committing wrongdoings to show that it was possible.

This really is the last thing National leader Todd Muller needed, speaking as it does to the worst sort of opportunism – and ineptly handled at that.

There’s a principle known as Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to malice anything that can be adequately explained by stupidity. When Hipkins announced the inquiry there was still a perception that the initial leak was most likely a screw-up, following which some unintended recipient may have shared the information with the media.

Hipkins wants to ensure such breaches don’t happen again. That imperative remains because privacy breaches do keep happening. We need look back no further than last year when Treasury prematurely allowed pieces of Budget information online. And when 35 people had their full details laid open from the police gun buyback database, while hundreds more may have had their names and addresses accessed. Also last year the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, sorting prospective trainees for a commemorative sailing adventure, accidentally betrayed the trust of more than 300 people who had provided passport, driving licence and birth certificate details.

The Privacy Commissioner’s 2019 report recorded 95 breaches voluntarily acknowledged by public agencies – though the Privacy Act coming into force at the end of this year will likely see a significant increase because it makes the reporting of significant breaches compulsory.

There’s cause for abiding concern about the release through malice or mishap of information that the state has a responsibility to keep private. And sure enough the Office of the Privacy Commissioner has just published a survey of nearly 1400 New Zealanders, which concluded twothirds want more privacy regulation. Most vivid in people’s thinking wasn’t Government information, but theft of banking details, security of information online, and concern about what the commercial world could do with our information. That last issue reminds us malice and ineptitude don’t explain every privacy breach. Commercial increasingly shows up. But not this time.

A case, essentially, of committing wrongdoings to show that it was possible.