Public servants sell us short over snooping

The media are rightly reporting the Government’s efforts to make NZ roads safer. The Government has announced a multibillion-dollar programme of road improvements such as realignment and median barriers. It is holding NZTA to account for licensing unqualified engineers to issue warrants of fitness. So our Government appears to be trying to make NZ roads and vehicles safer. But it’s not enough.

Traffic police consider three factors in every serious road crash: First, environment; second, vehicle; and third, driver. Police say the third factor, driver behaviour, is the main cause of many serious road traffic accidents. So why is no-one, except me in letters to the Marlborough Express, talking about it?

I know of only one way to persuade motorists to drive safely and that is through their pocket, ie, third party insurance premiums. If you are caught doing anything that increases your risk of causing an accident you are given demerit points on your licence.

Insurance companies – mine at least – say the onus is on the driver to tell them about anything that might affect their risk as driver. Such a laid back attitude is not good enough. If insurance companies insist on being told about demerit points immediately and third party premiums increase accordingly, you drive safely to keep your premiums low. The trouble for NZ is that third party insurance, unlike many other countries, is not compulsory and, because of ACC law, never will be.

Is our insurance industry’s softly, softly attitude because if motorists’ third party premiums are too high they will legally drive uninsured and the insurance company will lose customers and profit? If so that raises another question: what’s more important – profit or life? real. But beyond this, and without a clear contract, Southern Response used the private investigators for what amounted to ‘‘monitoring [of] its corporate reputation’’.

Any report which finds that Christchurch earthquake victims were being snooped on will be terrible reading for the agency involved.

When it includes an accusation that it was simply done to try to help massage what people might be saying about the organisation, and involved the use of unlicensed investigators who may have been acting illegally, it is indefensible.

Then there are the findings on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) petroleum and minerals team, in its heading of ‘‘operation exploration’’, a multi-agency project related to 2013 changes to the Crown Minerals Act.

The report found the design of the operation was influenced by Thompson and Clark, with its use of ‘‘issue motivated groups’’, in this case meaning environmental groups pushing back against new areas of oil exploration.

Officials in the MBIE team were found to have blurred the lines between its role regulating the industry and its separate goal of promoting New Zealand as a place to explore for oil, building strong contacts with the industry but having almost no connection with environmental groups.

Elsewhere, a Thompson and Clark analyst – who at the time was also working for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry – created a detailed map depicting the connections and movements of hundreds of people linked to Greenpeace.

This was apparently done to provide ‘‘accurate information to MBIE and Police about threats to the oil and gas industry’’, but it was the oil and gas sector which paid for the research to be conducted.

The conclusion of the inquiry was that MBIE’S action ‘‘contributed to a perception of bias by some stakeholders’’. This is a charitable statement. The report looks like bias to someone with no connection to the environmental groups involved.

For MBIE, the only good news is that the allegations concerning it are somewhat more historic. But the report should still prompt serious reflection from government departments.

Inquiry head Doug Martin said yesterday he did not believe any particular public servant knew they were doing anything wrong.

But this may actually make the situation worse. If Martin is right, we are not reading about public servants acting improperly, we are reading about public servants who appeared to be seduced by private investigators, without considering the implications for democratic rights, or the need to remain neutral. Weeding out improper behaviour may take work, but it seems the report exposes examples where public servants need to be told what their job involves, which would be a far more fundamental problem.