Breach of Ministerial confidentiality claimed

Press, 4 June 1988, Page 8

Breach of Ministerial confidentiality claimed

PA Wellington The seriousness of an apparent breach of Ministerial confidentiality last year by the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, has probably not been fully appreciated, says a former Treasury assistant secretary, Mr John Martin.

Mr Martin, a former Deputy Director-General of Education and Director of the Planning Council, makes the claim in a book which was officially released in Wellington on Thursday. The book, published by the Institute of Policy Studies, comprises three essays by Mr Martin on issues in the New Zealand

Public Service. In a section on the Official Information Act, Mr Martin criticised the way Mr Douglas last year released material concerning the previous National Government’s considerations on “think big.” He said ; the incident appeared to represent a “serious breach” of one of the conventions which had previously supported the relationship between Ministers and public servants.

“I doubt that its significance has yet been appreciated,” he said.

“The Government issued a memorandum under the name of the Minister of Finance com-

menting on the process of decision-making, including the advice of officials, in the previous Government about the so-called think big projects.” The book says this suggests that little will remain sacrosanct on a change of Government. . “Under the Cabinet office manual there has never been an absolute prohibition on the records of a previous administration being made available to its successors. the text of decisions must be part of the continuity of government.”

In other cases Ministers and officials must use reasonable discretion.

“The importance of the convention of reticence has a purpose in ‘encouraging governments to leave behind good records of their decision-making,’ as Mr Douglas has acknowleged. § “It also protects officials from some later witchhunt,” as the Minister also recognised. ,

Mr Martin said a deliberate effort should be made, on a bipartisan basis, to establish understandings in this delicate area “if New Zealand does not wish to move, almost by accident, towards a system where the crucial relationship of confidence-between Minister and adviser is at daily risk.”