Bill and Fran on Hawke’s Bay DHB
Bill Ralston and Fran O’Sullivan both write in the HoS on the Hawke’s Bay DHB. We’ll let ladies go first, and quote Fran first:
Atkinson believes the inquiry should have addressed other issues that the former board recently uncovered. These include the secret emails between Hausmann and the executive, which Ryall told Parliament showed Hausmann changed tender documents to his advantage. Ryall said both parties withheld these and they came to light only after independent forensic analysis of the back-up tapes.
This also highlights why independent external inquiries with powers to compel evidence are preferable, to inquiries like Ingram and this one which are limited in what they can do.
And now Bill speaks:
When neither you nor your spouse is having an affair it is probably best that you do not write letters and make public statements denying any shagging is going on.
This is political common sense 101, yet former Health Minister Annette King has done exactly that in a breathtaking act of stupidity, neatly adding the missing ingredient of sex to the scandal surrounding the Hawkes Bay District Health Board.
I said much the same. An MP or spouse having or not having affairs is not a matter for the media, but by having written the letter (while Minister of Health), it has meant the issue does hit the public domain.
After the board was controversially sacked by new Health Minister David Cunliffe, King went public, alerting media to the sex rumours. Now, when confronted by reporters with questions about the letter, she accuses the media of being part of a “dirty tricks campaign” and refuses to confirm the letter exists, saying she cannot find it on the ministerial database, avoiding the question of whether she wrote it privately to the board employee.
Heh, I am trying to imagine the look on the face of the Ministerial Secretary if it had been done through the office and entered into the database. First of all how do you classify a letter which threatens someone over alleged affairs by the Minister’s spouse. I doubt it would fit in any of the standard categories!
The report is more interesting for what is not in it than what is. It doesn’t cover whether King should have appointed Hausman; it doesn’t comment on the fact that board staff gave Hausman tender documents ahead of rival bidders; it doesn’t look at Lind’s involvement with the whistleblower or Hausman’s company.
Yes, once again anything like the above was ruled out of the terms of reference.
Perhaps most of all, the report failed to acknowledge that the DHB became a “culture of mistrust and dysfunctional” only after King appointed Hausman.
And it was all predictable. Appointing a board member against the advice of the Chair flies in the face of good governance. If you are going to do that, you should replace the Chair.
Meanwhile, Cunliffe continues to threaten the sacked board with further investigations of what it may have been up to, King burbles on about a dirty tricks campaign against her and the combined local bodies, and the sacked board prepares for legal action against the Government.
It is a mess that won’t go away until there is a full, transparent, independent inquiry into what happened.
Indeed. And if we don’t get one in 2008, maybe a new Government can order one in 2009?