Private sector values

So, the former chairman of TVNZ was slagging off his bosses and plotting to subvert select committee proceedings in what he thought was private, without thinking about the possibility that such communications might be subject to an OIA request. As DPF says, oh dear. At the same time, I can't help but feel that its a little rich for MPs (and particularly National MPs) to complain about it. Over the past twenty years, they've established these things called SOEs and CEs and CrOCs and stacked their boards and upper management with private sector appointees. And now they're shocked, shocked, that they've brought their private sector values with them, and perceive oversight by Parliament as an unjust imposition which is to be resisted and subverted. While I think that such attitudes have no place in the wider public sector, this was not an unforseen consequence (public policy advisors and academics have been warning about it for years), and there's a strong sense that MPs made their own bed in this case.

I am also deeply uncomfortable with a further investigation by the Privileges Committee on this matter. TVNZ and Boyce have already been spanked for attempting to manipulate evidence to a Select Committee and evade Parliamentary oversight. Any investigation will inevitably focus on Boyce's labelling MPs' "bastards" and the "enemy" - and its difficult to see how this is not contempt of Parliament. But think about that for a moment: we will have MPs sitting as judges in their own case, deciding on whether someone is allowed to say bad things about them. Even where the person is a public servant (and Boyce technically is not), that is getting dangerously close to lese majeste, and the precedent it would set - that people weren't allowed to be contemptuous of MPs - rather scary.

Boyce is on the way out, and in any case there are other processes which can be used here. The recent changes to the State Sector Act 1988 allow the State Services Commissioner to provide advice and guidence on integrity within the wider state services (which includes TVNZ), as well as conduct inspections and investigations of Crown Entities at the direction of the Prime Minister. I think using those mechanisms is a far better method to ensuring the wider state sector understands its obligations to Parliament than dragging someone before the Privileges Committee and in effect prosecuting them for ThoughtCrime.