New Year Honours: Retirement looms but work far from finished

New Zealand's first Privacy Commissioner, Bruce Slane, says the task of getting the Government and business to adhere to privacy principles is far from done.

But when his term expires in April, he will hand over to someone else to build on his 11 years of work.

The Aucklander's services to the law and community have been recognised with his appointment as a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

"Whatever I have achieved has been by working with others, not alone," Mr Slane said yesterday.

He had served a similar period in a previous public appointment - as chairman of the Broadcasting Tribunal from 1979-90 - and thought it was an appropriate length of service in one role.

He hoped to return to the private sector, write about the law and privacy and have more time for his work for the International Bar Association.

A former president of the New Zealand Law Society, Mr Slane is one of three members of the international organisation's management committee who are elected by 180 bar associations.

He expects his workload to increase now that he has persuaded the association to hold its biennial conference in Auckland in 2004.

Mr Slane said the achievements of the Privacy Commissioner office were hampered by its limited resources and a big caseload. Nearly 8000 complaints had been dealt with and about 1000 cases were in hand at any one time.

One of the best things his office had done was to set up an 0800 number advising on rights and obligations.

But he wanted the office to be able to spend more time helping the Government and its agencies and businesses to stick to privacy principles. The Privacy Act passed in 1993 was well regarded inside and outside the country, Mr Slane said, though he believed it needed a couple of amendments to gain adequate recognition by the European Union.

A survey his office commissioned had confirmed that New Zealanders valued personal privacy highly.

Privacy was vulnerable to moves for what seem to be good reasons at the time, and it was hard to preserve personal privacy and basic liberty, particularly in times of terrorism or conflict.

"We try to retain the safeguards and the oversight that is necessary to make sure that incursions made into people's privacy are not unreasonable and don't go any further than is absolutely necessary."

Mr Slane said that during his public work he had enjoyed the support of his family: wife Penelope, daughter Judith and sons Chris and Peter.

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