KEY POINTS:
Prime Minister Helen Clark today questioned whether former Auckland District Health Board member Tony Bierre broke the law over a controversial laboratory contract.
Last week the High Court at Auckland overturned the decision by Auckland, Waitemata and Counties-Manukau District Health Boards to reassign pathology services from Diagnostic Medlab (DML) to Labtests Ltd on July 1 this year.
In a reserved decision, Justice Raynor Asher ruled that by accepting a proposal from Labtests, which included Dr Bierre, there was a conflict of interest and the DHBs failed to ensure that the tendering process was conducted fairly.
Miss Clark, who returned from the United States early today, said she had not yet had the opportunity to read the whole judgment or get full advice on it.
But she said: "What I can see is this -- Dr Bierre badly misled the board. The issue in my mind actually (is), has he committed an offence against the law in the way he behaved?"
She would not comment on whether the Auckland Regional Health boards had her confidence until a new contract was settled.
"I think we'll deal with those issues after we've got the lab contract secured," she said.
Miss Clark said the contract would get further scrutiny. "When the contracts are secured we can delve further into why the board persevered with the process and awarded the contract in face of a very obvious conflict of interest. That does disturb me."
A spokeswoman for Labtests said she had not spoken to Dr Bierre about Miss Clark's comments and there would be no comment until she had.
National Party health spokesman Tony Ryall questioned whether the public could have faith in Auckland region's district health boards considering Miss Clark was unwilling to express confidence.
"Aucklanders can't rely on the people who caused this shambles to fix the problem," he said.
"Auckland's health bosses must be held accountable, not given the reins for another go. This is a test of whether Labour wants accountability or not."
- NZPA
