By EUGENE BINGHAM
The Government and the late Justice Peter Mahon were butting heads even before controversy erupted over his report into the Erebus disaster.
A forgotten stash of documents uncovered by the Herald show tensions mounted as his work neared completion.
Within weeks, he was embroiled in a public row with the Prime Minister, the late Sir Robert Muldoon.
In one letter to the Department of Justice, a furious Justice Mahon accused officials of challenging his independence and suggested they were responsible for a possible leak of his report into NZ's worst air crash, which claimed 257 lives.
His allegations were taken so seriously that officials raised the matter with the cabinet before hitting back with a strongly worded reply.
The stoush, which began after a department head had queried expenses incurred by Justice Mahon's royal commission of inquiry, is detailed in the uncovered department files.
Documents relating to the administration of the inquiry into the 1979 Air New Zealand crash were rediscovered last year along with other papers on events involving the former department, such as the Rainbow Warrior bombing.
The Herald obtained access to some of the files under the Official Information Act last week.
Justice Mahon fell out with the Government after he cleared the flight's crew of responsibility for the disaster and instead laid the blame on the airline. He accused Air New Zealand witnesses of perpetuating an "orchestrated litany of lies" at the royal commission hearings.
Sir Robert rejected the findings and challenged Justice Mahon to name names during a heated row through the media.
But the Justice Department papers show the Government and Justice Mahon had fallen out before his report was completed.
Officials who were in charge of administering the commission wrote to him in early April 1981 telling him they could not justify the cost of several flights taken by a commission staff member who flew to Wellington to hand-deliver parts of the report to the printers.
Justice Mahon wrote back, saying the $450 cost was necessary to ensure the contents of the report were not prematurely released. He then questioned the right of the officials to query him about such matters.
"If your letter of reprimand had been sent to me in connection with my judicial work, then needless to say I should have used it as a basis of a memorandum to cabinet asking for a searching inquiry into an irregular attempt by a Government official to discipline a High Court judge," he wrote.
Justice Mahon also suggested Justice Department officials might have been responsible for an apparent leak of some of his findings.
The Secretary of Justice, Mr (now Sir) John Robertson, told Justice Mahon he was being unduly sensitive and said it was the only time officials had queried anything.
Mr Robertson rejected the suggestion of a leak from his department.
Another letter in the files shows that the Government had some advance warning of the outspoken nature of Justice Mahon's report when the commission's air consultant, Sir Rochford Hughes, wrote to Mr Robertson in September 1980.
Sir Rochford, who was writing to Mr Robertson to ask for his parking and travel expenses to be covered by the Government, gave some insight into the inquiry's thinking.
"The only way to find out how to untangle this sorry mess has been to discuss a lot, unofficially, with pilots, officials and earlier passengers and then to call witnesses to bring it out in evidence.
"It also is a constant task to ensure that the legal experts don't become too academically involved and keep them on the real issue of why a DC-10 in good order with an experienced crew is driven into a mountain at less than 1500 feet at 270 knots! I think it may prove to be a classic report on an accident arising from multiple causation.
"Recommendations as to how to remedy the defects may well be unwelcome in some quarters and I will be interested to find out how outspoken our excellent judge will want to be."
Air New Zealand challenged the findings in the Court of Appeal, which ruled that Justice Mahon did not have the authority to conclude that there had been a conspiracy.
A shattered Justice Mahon resigned from the High Court and was further demoralised when the Privy Council upheld the Court of Appeal's judgment.
Strife at top dogged Erebus crash probe
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