KEY POINTS:
By now one thing is very clear from the Benson-Pope affair, that there are hugely conflicting views about what constitutes political interference, about what constitutes an unacceptable conflict of interest and how to deal with them. It needs to be sorted.
Two reasonable people, Richard Griffin and Jenni McManus, on Agenda this morning, held diametrically opposed views.
The extreme view held by the State Services Commission is epitomised in the way that Mark Prebble himself dealt with his brother Richard as an MP. I remember Richard telling me when I did a profile on Mark, when he was appointed to head DPMC, that Mark as a Treasury wallah would not allow himself to be alone in the same room as Richard for 20 or years, as a protection for himself.
Contrast that with Helen Clark's own experience in 1989 when as Minister of Health, she not only sacked the Auckland District Health Board that included her husband, Peter Davis, she did not give him any advance warning the night before when she knew the axe was going to fall.
So intolerant has the current view become that Ministry for the Environment head Hugh Logan says he would have kept Madeleine Setchell out of BP's office even if BP himself had said he had no problem with it. How ridiculous.
On the issue of political interference, Prebble, according to his deputy Iain Rennie yesterday, is happy that ministers "have a say" in who they deal with.
Yet when Benson-Pope's adviser Steve Hurring sought the advice of Clark's office after having initiated his inquiries about Madeleine Setchell, the advice given (by chief of staff Heather Simpson) was to keep the minister well away from it. How come Prebble's view varies so much with Simpson's.
All this is is not just the domain of politics. In journalism, confidentiality is paramount and we deal with every day. I am working with or have worked with a variety of colleagues whose relationships could pose problems if there were an extreme intolerance - one who flatted with a DomPost journo; another who flatted with a Labour press secretary; another whose partner worked for TVNZ; another whose partner worked as a policy analyst in an important Govt department; and another, Kevin Taylor himself before he left to work for John Key, whose partner, Madeleine Setchell, worked in communications for a Govt dept. Sometimes it is more important to trust people's professionalism than pander to mistrust.
From Clark's continuing comments about Logan - again on Agenda this morning - it looks like the blow torch is turning on him and a good thing, too. But it needs to be about his own failings and the punishment proportional to them. He avoided telling the truth. Benson Pope misled. Sure, if he had been upfront about the conversation he had with BP about Setchell, Benson-Pope would probably still be in a job. But he should not be made a scapegoat for Benson-Pope's deceptions.
