KEY POINTS:
Prime Minister Helen Clark has been quick to claim international credence for the New Zealand Government's decision to "blow the whistle" on the Chinese toxic baby milk scandal.
But instead of taking credit, Clark should be ordering an official inquiry into why it took a full month from
the time our diplomatic staff in Beijing were first informed about the product quality issue to when the whistle was blown.
And, why it ultimately became necessary for her Government to rattle official cages in the Chinese capital.
The Prime Minister will not do this (of course) until the dust settles. But she should.
An official inquiry would inevitably sheet some considerable responsibility at the door of Fonterra, which is a joint-venture partner in the offending Chinese dairy company San Lu.
But in the past 48 hours, the Government has been concentrated on making sure that Fonterra's three directors on the San Lu board were not arrested as Beijing exerts its crackdown.
Trade Minister Phil Goff briefed Fonterra boss Andrew Ferrier yesterday that the danger appears to be averted.
The problem is that Ferrier has made much of the internal debates his executives held over whether they were doing the right thing by staying publicly silent over the poisonous contamination of San Lu baby formula.
The mere fact that his executives felt it necessary to ethically debate whether they should go public, when it was clear their initial decision to "be responsible" and push San Lu to deal directly with Chinese authorities had resulted in failure, should have sparked Ferrier to simply announce the contamination himself.
It may have caused some embarrassment to local officials, but Chinese consumers would have been thankful and Fonterra would retain its self-respect. Fewer Chinese babies would have got sick and maybe there would have been fewer deaths.
Fonterra's reputation elsewhere in the world would have been reinforced. Instead it is in the spotlight.
Now the company is trying to deflect further examination of its role by suggesting to journalists that undue focus on its actions will hurt New Zealand Inc's reputation offshore.
This disgraceful stratagem frequently gets pulled when politicians and officials want to shut down debate over Kiwi business mishaps.
Pity Ferrier and his team did not think about the consequences for NZ Inc themselves when they initially opted to stay publicly silent.
There are major questions over what information was conveyed to the Government by Fonterra after its three directors on the San Lu board - who include San Lu's deputy chairman - were categorically told about the melamine contamination on August 2.
New Zealand's diplomats in Beijing were initially briefed about a "product quality" issue by Fonterra representatives on August 14. Subsequent meetings occurred.
But it was not until September 9 - after Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton (a loving granddad) went ballistic at the previous day's Cabinet meeting over the damage being caused to Chinese babies - that the New Zealand Government swung into action.
Ferrier has tried to throw the scent away from San Lu by putting the blame for contamination at the feet of criminal middlemen, and upholding the Chinese joint venture's reputation.
But all the evidence out of China so far suggests that San Lu wilfully stayed publicly silent while it tried to orchestrate a quiet recall of products from supermarket shelves in some cases saying it was wrongly packaged.
In fact, the global giants Wal-Mart and Carrefour did not pull milk powder from their shelves until after the Beijing-ordered recall last week.
Even late last week, San Lu spokespeople were still passing off the melamine contamination as due to counterfeit products, when its executives had cast-iron knowledge that it was their own company's products which were poisoned.
An inquiry would also pinpoint to what extent New Zealand officials and Fonterra itself might have initially soft-pedalled the issue so as not to cause embarrassment to China during the Olympics.
China's own food control supervisors were sufficiently concerned that they had set up a special action plan to guarantee that all meat, dairy and eggs supplied to athletes would be safe to eat. Inspectors were sent to monitor the entire food supply chains for the Olympic Village.
In San Lu's case, its infant formula had not been inspected for three years. Even after an initial complaint linking San Lu to the outbreak of kidney stone disease in young infants earlier this year, no public action occurred.
By keeping public silence for so long, Fonterra will be seen by some as arguably complicit in a San Lu cover-up.
There has been a prior example where the Clark Government delayed the announcement of bad news so as not to cause embarrassment to China.
In 2004, it suppressed news that Beijing had refused to issue any new import permits for New Zealand meat so as not to spoil the signing ceremony for a trade and economic framework which was the first step towards getting the recent free trade deal.
The issue was raised privately with the visiting Chinese minister Bo Xilai. But it was not until Bo left New Zealand that the Government publicly acknowledged that our China meat trade was in jeopardy.
This suggests a mindset has developed here where "not giving offence to China" takes precedence over upholding our own values. There are valuable lessons to be learnt, if New Zealand has the courage to turn the microscope on itself.
