Bureaucrats should ask before they go snooping
The Government needs to set clearer expectations about acceptable methods of investigation for public servants. This week, the Herald revealed the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment spent $112,000 hiring a security firm to teach staff how to use fake social media profiles to gather intelligence.
The document outlining the contract was posted on MBIE’s website on the day State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes released a report which showed government agencies including MBIE had used private investigators Thompson & Clark to secretly record insurance claimants and spy on protesters — a decision Hughes called “an affront to democracy”.
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has promised senior ministers will be briefed on the MBIE course, saying Kiwis should be able to go about their business “without the fear of bureaucrats peering into their social media”.
However, he added that the training might be useful for Immigration staff trying to track international students who used student visas as a back door to New Zealand residency.
Jones’ answer suggests the training could well be a hamfisted attempt to deal with a legitimate problem. Government departments have been caught asleep at the wheel on a number of fronts for many years, often because they clung to a mantra of light-handed regulation instead of taking decisive action.
The former Building Industry Authority failed dismally to stop the leaky building crisis 20 years ago because it believed the construction industry would monitor itself. The Qualifications Authority and Immigration New Zealand were too slow to act on illegal behaviour in the lucrative export education sector, preferring to give repeat offenders second chances for years instead of prosecuting.
The same overly cautious approach led to the resignation last month of NZTA chief executive Fergus Gammie, after it emerged that his agency had not been checking warrant of fitness providers properly. More than 20,000 suspect warrants have been issued and at least one death has been linked to the inadequate checks.
It must be tempting for ministers and bureaucrats to conclude that at times it is necessary to put the rulebook aside to get the job done. In fact the opposite is the case.
If public servants need more powers, they should push to get them and politicians should debate the proposed changes in public. If officials can show they need greater legal authority or even training in the arts of subterfuge to curb criminal behaviour, they may win official support.
But such decisions must not be made in secret, with the appearance government departments have suspended the rules, including natural justice.
It seems the professional culture of some government departments needs an overhaul.
This newspaper is subject to NZ Media Council procedures. A complaint must first be directed in writing, within one month of publication, to formalcomplaints@nzherald.co.nz. If dissatisfied, the complaint may be sent to the Media Council, P O Box 10-879, The Terrace, Wellington 6143. Or use the online complaint form at www.mediacouncil.org.nz Include copies of the article and all correspondence with the publication.