A press release from the New Zealand Labour Party by Grant Robertson
It is well past time for John Key to take some responsibility for the misuse of power and information by his Minister Judith Collins, and follow through on his last warning to her, Labour MP Grant Robertson says. “The evidence released this week shows John Key’s staff and Ministers are directly involved in the kind of negative politics and smears that put ordinary New Zealanders off engaging in the political process. It is time for the Prime Minister to show some leadership and take responsibility for these actions. “Nicky Hager’s book includes new examples of the way in which Judith Collins has misused information that she only had access to because she is a Minister. New Zealanders have a right to expect better of the Ministers who act on their behalf. “Two examples stand out, which John Key needs to hold Judith Collins to account for. First, she was involved in a campaign to smear a staff member in the Ministerial Services team as part of a distraction from issues being raised about Bill English claiming housing allowances in 2009. “Despite there being no evidence to suggest this staff member had done anything wrong, he was attacked in several blogs by Cameron Slater. The book released this week reveals that Judith Collins sent information about this person’s name and job to Cameron Slater as he prepared these attacks. “This is an appalling example of a Minister misusing her power to attack an innocent public servant. By his inaction John Key is telling New Zealanders that this is acceptable behaviour. “The book also contains emails from Cameron Slater that report conversations with Judith Collins about the unauthorised release of ACC information that went to Bronwyn Pullar. The emails record that Slater had talked to the Minister about the case and that he received information about what Bronwyn Pullar was doing that could only have come from Judith Collins. “As Minister for ACC that would be a gross breach of the confidentiality expected when dealing with ACC. John Key needs to investigate this to show once and for all where the leak of this sensitive information came from. “The evidence presented this week shows that Judith Collins sent many messages and emails and made many phone calls to Cameron Slater that smear and denigrate political opponents and even innocent public servants. “That is not what New Zealanders are paying her a Ministerial salary for. John Key needs to stop being so relaxed about serious issues. He needs to take some responsibility for her actions and follow through on the many warnings he has given Judith Collins,” Grant Robertson said.
12. KEVIN HAGUE (Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his reported comments regarding ACC that he “backed the corporation’s harder stance, saying it should continue and there was no evidence legitimate claimants were missing out”?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I think the member might find that that was poetic licence taken by the *New Zealand Herald. I stand by my actual statement in response to a question, which asked whether I had any concerns that ACC is prioritising its bottom line over entitlements for claimants, to which I responded that I had not seen any real evidence of that. I also said that what has got to be carefully monitored is that we are not throwing people off the tail, or their support from ACC, if it is neither legally correct nor fair.
Kevin Hague: How can he be sure that legitimate claimants are not missing out when almost half of those long-term claimants who have appealed ACC’s decision to exit them in 2012 are found by *Dispute Resolution Services to have been wrongly kicked off?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: There can and will be isolated cases where someone has not been treated fairly, and that is against what I think is appropriate, which is why I said on Monday that it had to be legal and fair. I would point also to the advice that I have in relation to *Dispute Resolution Services that over the past 6 years the average percentage of disputed decisions found in the corporation’s favour is 71.8 percent.
Kevin Hague: How can he be sure that legitimate claimants are not missing out when, of those decisions of ACC upheld by Dispute Resolution Services that are subsequently appealed at the District Court, around half of those are overturned?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: As I said earlier, I cannot be sure in every case, which is why I said earlier in the week that it is very important that the corporation deals with people in a way that is both
legally correct and fair. It is also important that people have an avenue to test their rights, if they believe they have not been fairly treated, and people do. The Government separated Dispute Resolution Services from ACC, to emphasise its independence. As I said in answer to the last question, in terms of disputed decisions, 71.8 percent are found in the corporation’s favour.
Kevin Hague: Is he aware that a core competency required in ACC case manager job descriptions is that case managers “can decide and act without having the total picture”, and does he agree that the full picture is needed if the numbers of cases overturned on appeal are to be reduced?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No; that is an operational matter that should be put to the chief executive, or at the very least the *Minister for ACC.
Kevin Hague: Can the Prime Minister confirm that the average over 6 years of decisions by ACC that have been upheld under review in fact masks a trend whereby, in the last 3 years, those decisions have been below the 70 percent target that the Government has set, whereas in the preceding 3 years they were above it?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No. What I can say, as I said in response to earlier questions, is that over the past 6 years the average percentage of disputed decisions that are found in the corporation’s favour is 71.8 percent. The average percentage of elective surgery decisions found in the corporation’s favour is 64.6 percent. In the year to date the percentage of elective surgical decisions found in the corporation’s favour is higher than the rate under a Labour Government. But can I make this one point, and that is that the corporation deals, to the best of my knowledge, with about 1.5 million claimants a year. There are some very technical and difficult cases for everybody in amongst that. But for the most part we should be congratulating the corporation, because I think that for the most part it does a good job for New Zealanders.
Kevin Hague: What action, if any at all, has the Government taken to improve the quality of ACC’s decisions, given the increasing number of decisions that are being taken to review, and ACC’s repeated failure over the past 3 years to meet its contracted target of having at least 70 percent of its decisions about long-term claimants upheld at review?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: As I said earlier, Dispute Resolution Services was made independent from the corporation to help in that regard. In terms of the success rate in favour of the corporation, it is very high, as I have been saying. There will always be individual cases, but for the member to make the case that, because a few cases go against the corporation, everything is broken there, is just simply incorrect.
Kevin Hague: I seek leave to table an ACC document. It is the job description for a case manager in claims management.
Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Freud was famously quoted (or possibly mis-quoted, translating from German to English can be a bit tricky) as saying his definition of good mental health, or “normal neurosis” was to “Live, love and work.” It seems John Key’s definition is much simpler: Work. Both our Prime Minister and the current Minister for the ACC have both revealed their lack of understanding of the world of disability and welfare by their answers to recent questions about the performance based targets at the ACC:
“She [Ms. Collins] said measures that helped ACC encourage people back into work where appropriate were “a good thing”. NZ Herald, June 22, 2012.
“In the last 12 months, we have seen an increase in the number of people winning at both the review and appeal stage” says Dr Denise Powell, president of Acclaim Otago (Inc). “We are extremely concerned that ACC seems be making reckless decisions especially as they relate to the exiting of people from the long term claims pool”. In the house today, Prime Minister John Key referred to the appropriate process available for people to challenge ACC decisions, that they believed to be incorrect. “What Mr Key is not acknowledging is the very real stress that having to fight for entitlement has on people.” Dr Powell claims that a significant number of people who lose their entitlement don’t actually follow through with the review and appeal process because of physical, mental and financial restraints. “While technically ACC is correct when they say the review process is ‘free’, in reality it is a litigious environment. ACC has the use of taxpayer’s funds to hire outside legal representation, which they do, as well as having an in house legal team, which is blatantly unfair.” The disentitled client on the other hand often has just lost their income and has to rely on family and friends to pay for legal representation. While costs can be awarded at both review and appeal, the levels of those are nowhere near what the actual costs are to have appropriate representation. Powell gives an example to illustrate her point, “We have a member who has just won back their entitlement to weekly compensation after pursuing justice through the review and appeal process. The legal bill amounted to over $30,000 and the emotional toll was huge. Unfortunately, such stories are all too common.” "ACC should be making robust decisions based on people’s clinical presentation and need rather than saying to clients, 'If you don’t like our decision you can take it to review' because in reality that process should not abdicate ACC from making good decisions in the first place,” Dr Powell concludes.
An article from the New Zealand Herald by Adam Bennett
ACC decisions to cut long-term claimants loose from entitlements have been overturned by independent reviews at a higher rate since the corporation adopted a tougher approach to them three years ago, new figures show. But Prime Minister John Key yesterday backed the corporation's harder stance, saying it should continue and there was no evidence legitimate claimants were missing out. ACC monitors what it calls its "review uphold rate" - the percentage of formal reviews of ACC decisions that are decided in favour of the corporation - as "an important measure" of the quality of its service. The rate gives "a key indicator of whether the proportion of ACC's decisions that comply with the legislation has changed". Its target in recent years has been a 70 per cent success rate at review. Figures provided by the corporation yesterday showed that when it came to long-term claimants on weekly compensation for 2 years or more, it was meeting that target easily in the three years to 2009. In that time the review uphold rate for claimants managed by the specialist Recover Independence Services (RIS) division was between 73 per cent and 77 per cent. But the corporation adopted a tougher approach to long-term claims in early 2009. In June 2010, then-ACC Minister Nick Smith and ACC chairman John Judge signed a three-year deal setting out a "priority" that the corporation would get rid of 1150 long-term clients a year. It had 13,157 clients when the service and purchase agreement was signed. In 2010 the RIS review uphold rate fell to 64 per cent, was 66 per cent last year and just 55 per cent in the 10 months to April this year. Green Party ACC spokesman Kevin Hague said the review figures showed that ACC's "much more aggressive tone" since the 2010 agreement had led to clinically inappropriate decisions in dealing with clients. But Mr Key said aiming to move people out of long-term support was the right goal because "it's very expensive and secondly unless it's appropriately applied we'd have too many people on it".
An article from the New Zealand Herald by Tapu Misa
ACC Minister Judith Collins says the Government wants to restore public trust and confidence in ACC. This comes in the wake of the Bronwyn Pullar affair, which saw the ritual sacrificing of several ACC heads last week, including chairman John Judge. But maybe it's ACC that needs to trust more. As former National Party president Michelle Boag argued on 60 Minutes last week, ACC's culture problem is that "they treat all their clients as potential fraudsters". "They sometimes refuse to accept the facts about people," she said. "They are constantly trying to disallow people. I know there are people who rort the system, we see that all the time, but not everybody is rorting the system. "And when you look at the fact they'd spent nine years trying to get Bronwyn [Pullar] to work fulltime when she can't - look at the man hours involved in that. Look at the effort." They sound a lot like Work and Income. Claimants and their advocates have long complained about ACC's culture of "disentitlement" and a "faceless, uncaring corporation". In 2010, the Herald received about 400 complaints from claimants who felt they'd been unfairly denied coverage; many of them had their claims reversed on appeal. But, ironically, the most telling blow has been struck by a former National Party activist and her friend Boag. Pullar is a serious adversary, even with a brain injury. A former businesswoman, she seems as obsessive and distrustful as anyone would be who's been consumed by a protracted war with a Government behemoth. She keeps records of everything; she uses sophisticated software to show who accesses her ACC file and how often. And she records meetings and holds on to the files of thousands of ACC claimants sent to her in error. She seems to have good reasons for her lack of trust given email correspondence in which an ACC staffer she'd never met described her as having a "narcissistic personality disorder" and wrote that she'd "fleeced ACC for 7 years". In a clear breach of ethics, he'd discussed Pullar with an assessor who was supposed to be independent, and accessed her file multiple times despite being taken off her case. Both Pullar and Boag have copped harsh criticism. But however clumsily they pursued Pullar's case, and whatever the merits of her claim, the real issue, as the Employment Law Experts group argues, "is the many thousands of claimants who are treated like Bronwyn Pullar, or worse. Many of those people become worn down by the ACC 'machine' to the point where they just give up ... When broken people languish on sickness benefits for years and years because they can't get the help they need, we all lose, both economically and from a humanitarian point of view." That Pullar, with her high-powered connections, has had to resort to increasingly desperate measures, shows how hard it is for most claimants to make any headway. "It's very complex," Pullar told 60 Minutes reporter Melanie Read. "It's a medical-legal argument and unless you are physically and mentally, emotionally and financially able to fight it, you won't win." Judith Collins promises a culture change but it's not clear how different her culture will be from her predecessor's as minister, Nick Smith. Before he became a casualty of Pullar's nine-year war with ACC, Smith had gone to a lot of trouble to convince everyone that ACC was so broken and broke that it needed urgent and radical surgery. That seemed to involve carving off the best bits of ACC to feed a ravenous insurance industry, and cutting genuine claimants off at the knees (if they still had any). As one amputee found, not even the loss of a limb spared her from being referred to in derogatory terms and treated shabbily. As a senior ACC manager noted in a leaked presentation, a pendulum swing since 2009 under the current Government and board leadership had seen a focus on "value for money and where we could achieve savings". John Key told TV3's The Nation at the weekend that John Judge had done everything the Government had asked of him. He'd presided over a corporation that banked a surplus in excess of $3.5 billion in 2010/11. So it doesn't seem likely that anything will change. Collins' comments about privacy and information security being top priorities for ACC, and the need for staff to use more appropriate language in their communications, seem almost willfully off-beam. It's clear that ACC's issues arise from a fundamental disconnection between the philosophy that underpinned its original social intent - for which we New Zealanders gave up our right to sue - and the commercial creature it has become. In a speech last year, Sir Owen Woodhouse, the architect of the accident compensation scheme, argued that the ACC's original purpose was being ignored "by those who imagine the ACC is merely commercial insurance under another name". ACC and the principles that underpinned it had unanimous support when it was created in 1974. If we are to abandon its social welfare intent for a commercial one, it should be a matter for national debate.
A press release from the Labour Party by Andrew Little
The Prime Minister should relieve Judith Collins of the ACC portfolio and appoint a Minister who is capable of dedicating themselves fully to the job, says Labour’s ACC spokesperson Andrew Little. “ACC is in the deepest crisis it has faced since it was created 38 years ago. The board and senior management are dysfunctional and that is filtering through to have a detrimental effect on the millions of Kiwis who make claims every year. “Judith Collins is too bogged down with privacy complaints and with pursuing litigation against Opposition MPs. She’s not focused on the job. She’s essentially snookered herself and is using these issues as a reason for avoiding answering questions about the dire state of ACC. “This is not in the best interests of New Zealanders who deserve to have a fully-functioning accident insurance system and a Minister who is capable of providing the strong leadership needed. “It’s time for John Key to step in and sort the mess out. He should remove Judith Collins from the portfolio and appoint a Minister who can focus their full attention on turning ACC around,” said Andrew Little.
An article from the New Zealand Herald by Isaac Davison
Prime Minister John Key and ACC Minister Judith Collins have refused to back ACC's most senior executives in their dispute with claimant Bronwyn Pullar but do not want to speak more before two inquiries are completed. Mr Key said there were "genuine questions" over statements made by Accident Compensation Corporation leaders about the organisation's police complaint against Ms Pullar. The corporation has come under new pressure after Ms Pullar released a secret recording of a meeting with ACC to TV3's 60 Minutes which appeared to show she made no threats. The corporation last week insisted Ms Pullar had threatened to make public thousands of accidentally released client files despite the police clearing her of any offence. Asked about the ACC's complaint to police, Mr Key said: "I can't answer those questions about whether the complaint was accurate or the basis for that complaint. They are valid questions but you need to direct those to [the ACC chairman] or the minister." He later added: "There's some genuine questions that would need to be answered about the rationale for the statements that were made by executives at ACC." Mr Key said he would not comment further until investigations by the Auditor-General and the Privacy Commissioner were completed. Mrs Collins refused to discuss Ms Pullar's allegations but issued a statement saying it was a high priority to rebuild the public's trust in ACC. "I cannot emphasise enough how seriously I view recent privacy-related issues. Privacy and information security are the biggest challenges facing ACC at present," she said. "At this stage, I am not yet satisfied ACC's privacy provisions and protocols are appropriate, or are being complied with to the level they should be." Ms Pullar also alleged that ACC chief executive Ralph Stewart would have known that no threat was made in the meeting because he had heard the secret tape in its entirety soon after the police complaint was made. He did not reveal this to reporters when asked about the tape last week. She argued that the complaints were "sideshows" to the organisation's mishandling of her file, serious privacy breaches, and increasingly unfair treatment of long-term beneficiaries. The Green Party repeated calls for ACC head John Judge to stand down, saying he had overseen the mishandling of files and the programme of removing claimants from its books. The long-running dispute between Ms Pullar and ACC led to the resignation of ACC Minister Nick Smith from the Cabinet and a legal stand-off between his successor, Mrs Collins, and Labour MPs Trevor Mallard and Andrew Little.
An article from Stuff by Danya Levy and John Hartevelt
Prime Minister John Key is backing further action taken by ACC Minister Judith Collins. Labour MP Trevor Mallard - who along with fellow MP Andrew Little and Radio New Zealand has been threatened with a defamation suit by Collins - today said he had received another letter from her over the matter. Mallard, Little and Radio NZ had previously been given a deadline to apologise over allegedly defamatory comments they aired about Collins. Mallard and Little said they did not respond to that letter. Mallard today said he now had another letter from Collins setting a new deadline of this Thursday for an apology. Speaking from Jakarta where he was leading a three-day trade mission, Key said he hadn't discussed the second request for an apology with his minister. "Fundamentally it's a matter for her now and those individual parties." However, Key said he supported Collins in what she was doing. "But it's a matter for her to resolve." The second letter included a requirement that Mallard hand over the emails he had received upon which he had based some statements about Collins. "It's a letter which has factual errors and is confused," Mallard said. "There certainly are some opportunities in it for us not to go to court, which would involve an apology, which I doubt anyone would advise me to give in the circumstances." Mallard said he would take further advice over the matter but had "no current intention" to respond to the latest letter. Little had also received a second letter, Mallard said. A spokeswoman for Collins said it would be inappropriate to comment.
The decision by the Auditor General to launch an inquiry into aspects of the Bronwyn Pullar saga that will not be examined by other investigations shows that there is more to the matter than just breaches of privacy says the Green Party. “John Key said no further investigation was needed. The Auditor General’s decision shows he was wrong,” said Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman. “We asked the Auditor General to investigate this matter, and we are glad that she has decided to do so. “The Auditor General’s decision shows that there are important matters of public interest to do with the ACC saga that are not covered by the Privacy Commissioner or police inquiries. “It was always clear that there are matters raised by this case that are outside the scope of the other inquiries, so it is sensible the Auditor General is now looking into them. “We are pleased the inquiry will look at the actions of the ACC board and chair which on the face of it has been questionable. “It is critical that all the issues raised are resolved so trust in ACC can be restored.”
3. DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all statements made by him and on his behalf?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I stand by all statements made by me and those people authorised by me to speak on my behalf.
David Shearer: Does he stand by his statement that people gambling in a casino are “in a better environment than, say attached to maybe a pub”; if so, what evidence does he have to support that statement?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I most certainly do stand by that statement. Let me quote a few things for the member’s education. For a start-off, an Australian professor from the *University of Adelaide said the **National Association for Gambling Studies conference in 2008 considered Skycity’s host responsibility programme as probably the most advanced in the world. If one looks at the number of people presenting themselves for harm, on average that is around 1.9 percent of people, yet those who are presenting themselves for harm in non-casino environments are 3.8 percent. If one looks at those presenting themselves for gambling treatment, the majority cite non-casino gaming machines as their primary source of problems.
David Shearer: Why is he proposing the creation of $23 million to $28 million a year of private wealth through an increase in gambling over what would otherwise occur, when all the evidence shows that this will cause harm for thousands of New Zealanders?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Firstly, I would utterly reject the number that the member is quoting. Secondly, I think it is worth having a bit of a look at gambling machines. Let us just take a look at pokie machines in the Auckland area. In 2004 that number in the Auckland area was 5,111; today that is 4,227. The number is, as the member can see, in the order of around 900 fewer, and will continue to go lower even if a deal is done with Skycity over time.
David Shearer: I seek leave to table a document by Goldman Sachs on 23 March that sets out clearly that the amount of funds that Skycity will earn from the gambling bill will be between $23 million and $28 million.
Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
David Shearer: Is he aware that Goldman Sachs has estimated—and obviously he is not—that Skycity would make $23 million to $28 million a year of additional profit from the increase in the number of pokie machines; if so, does he regard this and his changes to the Gambling Act* as legislation for sale?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: In terms of the latter point, no. In terms of the first point, the member answered his own question earlier, when he said that that is Goldman Sachs’ assessment. If one goes and has a look at the—[Interruption] Well, the deal actually has not been concluded yet. I might add, when we were out announcing that we were doing a deal with Len Brown in Auckland, he was quite a little lamb chops before the election, because Len Brown knew as well that it will create 1,000 jobs in its construction, 900 jobs ongoing, hundreds of thousands of visitor nights for a convention centre, tourists that will be spending twice as much in New Zealand, and that by the way, the number of gaming machines is going down, not up.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I want to hear this question.
David Shearer: Does he stand by his statement about the ACC Minister that he “directly asked her the question on two occasions” as to whether the leak of the email sent by Michelle Boag* came from the Minister, her office, or an agency she was responsible for; and what occurred after the Minister’s first denial that required him to ask her a second time?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes, and that was because we had two conversations in which both times, actually, the Minister offered that.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! It is just impossible to hear. I accept that both sides have been guilty of a lot of noise today, but it makes it so hard to hear.
David Shearer: Further to the answer given on his behalf last Thursday, did his office contact Cameron Slater* on the question of the leak of the Boag letter?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No, it did not.
David Shearer: Did he chair the Cabinet appointments and honours committee* that appointed his Helensville electorate chair, Stephen McElrea,* to the board of *New Zealand On Air?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes, and it was the same one that appointed Michael Cullen to New Zealand Post.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The smaller parties at the back are not guilty in any way in this; it is the main parties at the front here whose noise is unacceptable.
David Shearer: Did he at any time last year indicate to the receivers or the ANZ Bank that the sale of the Crafar farms to *Shanghai Pengxin would be considered favourably by his Government after last year’s election?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No.
Mr SPEAKER: I had not even called the *right honourable Prime Minister. The question asked whether the Prime Minister stood by all his statements or those made on his behalf, and then the supplementary questions are ranging over a range of issues that are not necessarily—Order! I want to make sure they do not depart too far from the primary question.
David Shearer: Does he think that the interference of senior National Party members in all of these incidents leads to a perception of political interference, special treatment, or cronyism?
Mr SPEAKER: Order! What troubles me about that supplementary question is the primary question asked about recent statements, but that supplementary question does not refer to any particular statement. The question—unless I am reading the wrong question—asked: “Does he stand by all statements made by him and on his behalf?”, and several supplementary questions have not referred to any statement made by the right honourable Prime Minister. I listened very carefully to that last question. I heard no reference to a statement made by the Prime Minister. I do not want to deprive the member of his questions, so if the member can relate it to a statement by the Prime Minister, I would be very grateful. Please relate the question to the primary question.
David Shearer: Do his answers to the supplementary questions relate to a sense of the incidence of—a perception of—political interference, special treatment, and cronyism?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No, and that is why the New Zealand public support this National Government so strongly.
5. CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) to the Minister of Justice: Why has she declined to accept the Law Commission’s recommendation, supported by the Privacy Commissioner, to increase the Privacy Commissioner’s investigative powers, including by giving her the power to issue compliance notices, and to conduct information-handling audits?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice): The member is quite wrong.
Charles Chauvel: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I took care in wording the primary question. The Minister has had time to consider it. I wonder whether she would like to—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. The Minister said the member had made errors in his question. She said it was wrong. I cannot know whether the Minister is right or wrong. The solution is to pursue the Minister with incisive supplementary questions.*
Charles Chauvel: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Primary questions go through an authentication process through the Office of the Clerk, so it is not as if a groundless proposition is being put to the Minister here. I wonder whether you might just think about whether or not this is a precedent we want to see followed in future.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The process of the Office of the Clerk approving questions—just because the question has been validated—does not make the question right. There may be support material provided to validate a question, and the Clerk’s Office accepts it, but that does not mean that any supposed fact or statement contained in the question is correct. That is up to the Minister. The Minister has asserted pretty emphatically that something in this question is not right. It is worth pursuing that to find out what it is.
Charles Chauvel: Without the powers that the Privacy Commissioner says she needs to do her job, how can the House have any confidence that the Privacy Commissioner will be able to fully investigate high-profile or important privacy breaches, such as the question of whether the Minister, or any one in her office, improperly disclosed the *Bronwyn Pullar email and associated information?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: There are, in fact, a range of responses that the Law Commission has suggested we make in terms of the Privacy Act. However, I note that the member who has just resumed his seat was in a Government that was in office for 9 years and did not address them—
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —but the Privacy Commissioner—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I invite Charles Chauvel to repeat his question.
Charles Chauvel: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Without the powers that the Privacy Commissioner says she needs to do her job, how can the House have any confidence that the Privacy Commissioner will be able to properly investigate high-profile privacy breaches, such as the question of whether the Minister, or any one in her office, improperly disclosed the Bronwyn Pullar email and associated information?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: The member is yet again wrong. The inquiry by the Privacy Commissioner is—and this is all I can really say on it—relating to privacy matters in ACC and what has happened to particular emails and other documents. It is not specifically about my office. So that is wrong. But the Privacy Commissioner already has powers under section—[Interruption] Do they want to hear it or not, Mr Speaker?
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: The Privacy Commissioner already has a range of powers, which she set out for the Hon Trevor Mallard and me. They are, obviously, broad powers and roles under section *13 of the Privacy Act; also under section *90 to freely obtain information and make inquiries; under section *91 to require information and evidence to be produced and to summon witnesses; and under section *76 to require a person to attend a compulsory conference. There is an obligation to comply with the requirements of the commissioner, set out in section *92. There are also other relevant powers. In fact, there is the entire Privacy Act, and I suggest that member reads it.
Jonathan Young: What is the Government already doing to implement the recommendations from the Law Commission’s review of the Privacy Act?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: The Government has already acted to address the immediate need for better information-sharing for public service delivery through the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill*, which is expected to be passed later this year. The Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill will improve the rules around the collection, storage, and use of personal information, while ensuring there are safeguards in place to protect an individual’s right to privacy.
Charles Chauvel: Why is the Minister exacerbating the Privacy Commissioner’s inability to press fully for answers in this matter by invoking the public interest defence in this House as a ground for refusing to answer legitimate questions from members, thereby further preventing relevant information from entering the public domain?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: The member is quite wrong, again. This is actually an issue for the Privacy Commissioner, and as an independent body, which she is, she needs to be free to conduct her investigations without the sorts of lies and manipulations that people have said in this place.
Charles Chauvel: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I invite you to reflect on whether that answer was in order, particularly the final phrase of it.
Mr SPEAKER: I heard what the Minister said. A member cannot accuse another member of lying. I am not sure the Minister actually did that. She referred to lies and things in this place. I do not like ruling more and more stuff out. It was certainly on the margins—I accept that, absolutely.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With respect, if that was not offensive to this side of the House, then it was a description of her own behaviour that she was talking about. That is the only way she can survive the challenge from the honourable member over here. He says it was offensive—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have heard the member, and I think the member’s point is not unreasonable. I think the Minister should get to her feet, please, and withdraw and apologise.
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Yes. I withdraw and apologise.
Mr SPEAKER: I thank the Minister.
Charles Chauvel: Why is she further trying to prevent relevant information from entering the public domain by threatening news media and members of this House with meritless defamation proceedings, and just what is it that she has to hide?
Hon JUDITH COLLINS: The Minister of Justice has no ministerial authority or responsibility for that, and that member should know better.
An article from the New Zealand Herald by Adam Bennett
ACC Minister Judith Collins will continue her legal action against two Labour MPs and Radio NZ but has decided to pay the hefty legal costs herself rather than asking the taxpayer to foot the bill. Ms Collins is suing Trevor Mallard, Andrew Little and Radio NZ for comments they made during an interview on the state-owned broadcaster over the leak of an email sent to her by former National Party president Michelle Boag. Yesterday, Ms Boag denied she was seeking Ms Collins' intervention in her friend Bronwyn Pullar's ACC claim in the email, which was sent just a few days before ACC referred the case to the police last month. Ms Collins said the alleged defamation occurred "in relation to me carrying out my duties as Minister for ACC". "Even though I am fully entitled to do so, I have not asked Cabinet for funding", she said. "I trust that Mr Mallard and Mr Little are prepared to fund their own defence." Prime Minister John Key said the matter was not discussed at yesterday's Cabinet meeting as Ms Collins had already decided not to ask her fellow ministers to approve the funding. That was consistent with what she told him last Wednesday night when he first discussed the matter with her. Mr Key was saying as late as Sunday that it was not known whether the Crown or Ms Collins would pick up the bill, but yesterday said she had informed him of her decision that morning. Labour leader David Shearer said his two MPs would pay their own legal costs and indicated Labour would keep up its attacks on the Government over its handling of the ACC fiasco. "Labour will continue to ask questions about the massive privacy breach at ACC. We will also continue to hold the Government to account in terms of allegations of cronyism." Meanwhile, the Herald has now seen a copy of Ms Boag's email to Ms Collins which was leaked to the Herald on Sunday. The email is dated March 14, just two days after news broke of the massive privacy breach at ACC. Ms Pullar was subsequently identified as the source of those reports. In the email's final paragraph, Ms Boag tells Ms Collins: "It would be good to reach an agreement with Bronwyn on the way forward so that the issue can be put to bed, she can get on with trying to reduce her dependence on ACC in the future by rebuilding her consultancy business and the ACCcan get on with more productive tasks." Last night, Ms Boag said the email referred only to the December meeting. "I wasn't asking the minister to do anything." The email also explains why communications between Ms Pullar and the ACC ceased after the December meeting also attended by Ms Boag where ACC alleges Ms Pullar said she would tell the media of the privacy breach unless she was given a two-year guaranteed benefit. "Bronwyn had advised ACC that as she was getting married in early January ... she would be unable to respond to any communication for six weeks."
Michelle Boag's March 14 Email to ACC Minister Judith Collins *Some names removed - denoted with an ellipsis
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON BRONWYN PULLAR ACC CLAIM 1. Bronwyn Pullar suffered a head injury in a bicycle accident in December 2002. Prior to this she was a highly successful senior marketing executive who was respected by her peers. Following the accident, Bronwyn suffered significant cognitive impairment and in the first two years following the accident, both her insurance company and ACC did not respond appropriately with rehabilitative care that would have allowed her optimum recuperation. As a consequence Bronwyn suffers serious fatigue every day, gets headaches and has cognitive impairments which affect her ability to pick up errors in her writing (she requires assistance to check all her communications as she often makes mistakes that she does not recognise. This did not happen before the accident). 2. In 2007 Bronwyn reached a confidential settlement with the insurance company who had covered her for income protection insurance. This followed five years of extensive engagement during which time the insurance company mishandled her claim, breached privacy and lost her file, amongst other things. 3. Prior to the accident Bronwyn was always meticulous. After the accident this meticulousness became obsessive - she records all communications in detail, focuses on minutiae and has interpreted some of ACC's actions as conspiracy rather than mistake - with some justification. For example, an ACC Doctor was found to have colluded with a medical assessor to pre-determine an assessment for Bronwyn, alleged fraud in internal emails and after he was removed from the case, attempted to obtain Bronwyn's personal medical records from her GP while fraudulently posing as a person authorised by ACC to collect this data. It was this considerable breach of her privacy that was the subject of Bronwyn's complaint to ACC. It was in response to this complaint that ACC inadvertently sent to Bronwyn a file containing thousands of names, contact details and summary statistics regarding matters of review, branch identifiers and dates. I have full details of this particular breach of privacy if you want to see them. It should be stated that while this staff member was apparently "reprimanded" he remains on staff with no apparent consequences. 4. Addressing the issue of the major privacy breach - I am sending you under separate cover an email from Bronwyn enclosing the details of the meeting held in December, at which I was present, where, after years of extensive mishandling of Bronwyn's claim and after she had approached a board member, senior management (Phil Murch and Hans Verbene) met with us to attempt to come to a reasonable settlement on the way forward. The documents in the email I am forwarding to you represent the objectives Bronwyn had for the meeting, which included recognition that she was unable to work a full time week , but allowed her some space (two years) to get on with trying to re-establish her consultancy business. Bronwyn also asked for the privacy breach to be investigated. 5. At that meeting in December Bronwyn advised the ACC managers that a serious breach of privacy had occurred. As she says in her email which follows, it was verbally agreed in that meeting that on agreement on the way forward, Bronwyn would return that document. We walked away from that meeting thinking we had an agreement which Mr Murch would put in writing. When it was received 8 days later, it did not reflect our discussions, including the fact that it only allowed her one year to re-establish her business rather than two years, which she did not regard as sufficient. 6. You will see in the correspondence attached to the email I am forwarding that while Mr Murch asked for the return of the data, he did not acknowledge that this would be contingent on reaching an agreement acceptable to both parties, which was our understanding. It also needs to be stated that Bronwyn had advised ACC that as she was getting married in early January and organising the wedding was placing substantial pressure on her impaired cognitive state, she would be unable to respond to any communication for 6 weeks. This was responsible for the delay in any further negotiation with Mr Murch. 7. You should also be aware that Bronwyn has an email tracking device that allows her to know when her emails are opened. Following the meeting in December, the email where she was inadvertently sent the unauthorised data was not opened until 12 March 2012. If ACC had been serious about getting the data returned and investigating the breach, then surely the first thing they would have done on returning to the office would have been to go through all emails to her to see what material had been inadvertently sent. As I said, this was not in fact done until the story had appeared in the Dominion Post. 8. It is also important to note that the email sent to the Dominion Post journalist contained no names, no contact details or identifiers. Bronwyn blacked out all this information and only left undeleted summary statistics of review data, review dates and branch statistics. Therefore she has not breached the personal privacy of anyone on that spreadsheet. 9. Bronwyn has also advised that she complained to the Privacy Commissioner, the Ombudsman and the State Services Commissioner about the privacy breach made by ... (referred to in 3. above), in each case forwarding an email received from ACC about the actions taken in respect of Dr ... . It was this email responding to her complaint that contained the unauthorised spreadsheet. Bronwyn deleted the spreadsheet from the email she forwarded to the Privacy Commissioner and the Ombudsman, but inadvertently failed to delete it on the copy she sent to ... at the State Services Commission, who therefore is the only other party to now hold that file after Bronwyn has deleted it from her hard drive and her email system (an assurance that has been given to ACC). 10. This saga is one of extensive incompetent handling and privacy breaches, no doubt consuming thousands of hours of ACC management time. Since the meeting in December Bronwyn has been asked to undergo further assessments. It would be good to reach an agreement with Bronwyn on the way forward so that the issue can be put to bed, she can get on with trying to reduce her dependence on ACC in the future by rebuilding her consultancy business and the ACC can get on with more productive tasks. Please feel free to call me with any questions.
An article from the Herald on Sunday by Joanne Carroll and David Fisher
Online security has been tightened at ACC after some claimants bugged emails to see what case managers were doing. Bronwyn Pullar, the woman at the centre of the ACC security scandal, has revealed she used email tracking software to get updates of activity with her file - a detail already revealed by Michelle Boag to ACC minister Judith Collins. It is the latest twist in a scandal which has engulfed the National Party, pitted former president Boag against her political friends, cost former ACC minister Nick Smith his Cabinet job and embroiled Prime Minister John Key. An investigation by the Privacy Commissioner is under way into the accidental sending of client information to Pullar. Police are also investigating ACC's claim Pullar tried to trade the information for a benefit. Pullar identified a staff member who had opened her email before it became public, exposing the bug she had planted in her email, feeding information back to her. The Herald on Sunday understands a review by ACC identified other claimants were using similar tactics to monitor their claims. A spokeswoman said: "ACC tightened its IT security following revelations that email tracking software was being used to track emails sent to the organisation without the knowledge of the recipients." The existence of the bug in the email had already been revealed by Boag to Collins. In the email leaked to the Herald on Sunday which exposed Pullar's identity, Boag wrote: "You should also be aware that Bronwyn has an email tracking device that allows her to know when her emails are opened." Meanwhile, a man who received claimants' confidential information intended for ACC for three years says the corporation stopped the stream of information only after he billed them for fax machine toner and paper. Jon Styles, of Style Group, an acoustic consulting company based in Parnell, said he started getting faxes from different ACC suppliers to his office about three years ago. "The faxes were mainly from treatment providers and comprised claims for expenses and cited the names and contact details of the individuals concerned and also details of their treatment," he said. He said he did not know why he was receiving the faxes and tried sending them back and alerting ACC. "Sometimes the faxes could involve up to 40 pages of supporting documents for the claims which would clog up our fax line for ages and use up our toner and paper. Eventually I got so fed up, I decided to invoice ACC for the lost time, paper and toner - an amount of something like $350 plus GST. Only this action got ACC to listen," he said. "After much debate and issuing a credit for the invoice, I stopped receiving faxes." He shredded all the faxes he received. ACC spokeswoman Stephanie Melville said ACC was sorry it took so long to stop the faxes. ACC beneficiaries Mike Rogerson and Garth Paul have also reported being sent other claimants' files.
An article from the New Zealand Herald by Deborah Coddington
Despite the Prime Minister's plea, everyone has not "moved on" from the ACC security breach debacle. It's hugely significant that John Key has twice asked his ACC Minister if she leaked the email from Michelle Boag. His statement on Wednesday was disingenuous: "I've got no reason at all to question her." Obviously he'd already questioned her, and gone on the record about it. Debate now swirls around who did leak this private email that Boag, former National Party president, sent to Judith Collins. Collins sent it to ACC chairman John Judge and chief executive Ralph Stewart. She insists neither she, nor anyone in her office, leaked it. Before the Boag communication was published in this newspaper, we did not know the person who received in error from ACC a spreadsheet with more than 6000 names was Bronwyn Pullar, National Party stalwart, and that she'd badgered former ACC Minister Nick Smith, and other National MPs, for months seeking favours in her fight with ACC to get a benefit. So when her name became public, it was only a matter of time before we knew about the two letters Smith wrote on ministerial letterhead. But though Smith went quickly, the controversy won't die. Now there is to be an inquiry. There are so many things wrong with this picture, and in so many ways. First: why is the taxpayer-funded ACC even expected to pay compensation to someone who, we now know, has already received a million-dollar payout from a private insurance company for her bicycle accident, the same accident for which she's seeking an ongoing benefit from ACC? Can you imagine the scandal that would have erupted if media discovered a National Party insider, with a little help from her MP mates, had secured an ACC benefit because she fell off her bike the day after a night on the town with more of her right-wing mates, lived in a $700,000 apartment, and was already supported by the income from a million-dollar trust, courtesy of another insurance payout? All from the same accident? Another puzzle: Boag has stated that Collins told her if she (Boag) wrote to her, she would have to pass the communication directly on to ACC. Boag is a very smart operator and I just can't understand her charging ahead and sending such a self-incriminating email to Collins if she knew it was going to be sent on to the chairman, and the chief executive, of ACC. Unless Collins was being set up. But there were brain fades all around in this sorry saga. Pullar certainly wasn't thinking straight. She's not a whistleblower, as some insist on calling her. A whistleblower would not have held on to other people's private information from August to December, then allegedly threatened ACC senior managers with it. A whistleblower would have gone straight to the Privacy Commissioner. But this is all about Pullar. When her name became public and her "friend" Smith had to resign, instead of shutting up and going to ground, she kept on digging, blathering away in public. She couldn't even apologise to Smith in private, but hogged the spotlight, then bagged ACC again. And yes, it was a stupid thing Smith did, but it speaks volumes about the type of representative he's always been. Every time he's been in hot water, it's because he's taken his advocacy for constituents a little too far. He's forgotten to think about himself and the consequences for his own career, and that has been his downfall. This time he thought it was for a friend, but a friend wouldn't have asked him to intervene for her in the first place.
Key Points: • Collins set to survive ACC scandal but defamation actions expected to fail • “Beehive staffer” most likely culprit for Boag email leak • Police expected to investigate while new stock launched on probability of Prime Minister announcing an inquiry • Nick Smith looks safe from further sanction and has 1/3 chance of being re-appointed a minister by year’s end • National appears unaffected by scandal with new stocks on next TVNZ poll launched overnight • Labour still favoured to win next New Zealand election
An editorial from the Manawatu Standard by Michael Cummings
Cabinet Minister Judith Collins has been labelled "thin-skinned" for threatening legal action against two Labour MPs and a news organisation over the ACC privacy fiasco, an accusation that is either sound or scurrilous, depending on whose side you're on. While some will argue Ms Collins is being, in NZ First leader Winston Peters' words, "a tad hysterical", others will say she has every right to protect her reputation if she thinks it's been unfairly besmirched. What seems far more clear-cut, though, is the political wisdom of such a heavy-handed response from the ACC Minister. Quite simply, there is none. This Government has lost complete control of its agenda, lurching from faux pas, to own goal, to scandal as its message is drowned out by a cacophony of peripheral noise. Ms Collins might feel personally justified in taking defamation proceedings against Radio NZ and Labour MPs Andrew Little and Trevor Mallard, but she's only throwing fuel on a fire her Government needs to extinguish. Ms Collins has been questioned about who leaked an email containing personal details about ACC claimant Bronwyn Pullar, but says she's "100 per cent certain" the leak wasn't from her or her office. If she's so confident of her position, it would have been eminently more sensible to hold her ground and let the saga blow over. Instead, she's thrown the parliamentary press gallery another angle to the controversy, which will fill column centimetres that could have otherwise been dedicated to what the Government is trying to achieve to better the lives of New Zealanders. Much like Prime Minister John Key's handling of the so-called "tea tapes" controversy, Ms Collins' strong stance has only upped the ante, when taking a bit of short-term political pain and moving on would have been much smarter. National needs to pull itself out of the political mire it's in and get back on message. At the moment, the Opposition is having to do little more than watch the Government repeatedly punch itself in the face, then rub a bit of salt into the wounds. While the public finds the intrigue surrounding political scandals mildly entertaining, they're far more interested in issues that affect their daily lives – the state of the economy, the cost of living, the standard of health services, the availability of jobs. If National is to shake itself out of its funk, it needs to be far more disciplined in managing the political agenda. It needs the public to be discussing the merits of its policies, not the thickness of its ACC Minister's skin.
An article from the New Zealand Herald by Adam Bennett
Labour has rubbished Michelle Boag's explanation of why John Key's name was used in support of her friend Bronwyn Pullar's $14 million insurance claim in 2007 while Mr Key was Leader of the Opposition. Former National Party president Ms Boag was in damage control mode yesterday as the ongoing ACC fiasco, centred on her ACC claimant friend and former party activist Ms Pullar, drew in the Prime Minister and other prominent party members. It emerged this week that a letter Sovereign Insurance wrote to Ms Boag in 2007 referred to 28 people it identified as members of Ms Pullar's "claimed support/advisory team" including Mr Key, Dame Jenny Shipley, and former minister Wayne Mapp. But Ms Boag yesterday denied the names were a list of supporters. "One of her advisers, anticipating that a confidential settlement might be reached, said it would be wise to include all the people who were aware of the dispute so that if any of them asked afterwards, Bronwyn would not be accused of breaching confidentiality." But Labour's ACC spokesman, Andrew Little, said that explanation lacked credibility. "I have severe doubts that what she said is the case," he said. In a statement yesterday, Ms Pullar said she recalled only one conversation with Mr Key where she made him aware of her situation and that was before he became leader of the National Party. "I was very distressed at the time and I took the opportunity to vent my frustrations. "He listened politely, but I did not ask him to do anything and he did not offer to assist." Mr Key denies being involved in a support team for Ms Pullar. Sovereign yesterday said it would not release the correspondence that preceded its 2007 letter unless Ms Boag and Ms Pullar gave their consent. Ms Pullar refused to do so. Ms Pullar is the woman who was mistakenly sent the private information of 6700 other ACC clients in July last year and allegedly tried to use it as leverage to secure benefits. Police are now investigating. And the Privacy Commissioner is investigating ACC's privacy policies and matters around the leak of information to the media. Opposition parties want an independent inquiry into Ms Pullar's use of her political links in pursuit of ACC claims for cycling injuries.
An article from the New Zealand Herald by Adam Bennett
Prime Minister John Key was last night dragged into the widening ACC scandal and forced to deny a report he was part of a group of senior National Party figures who backed Bronwyn Pullar's bid for a $14 million insurance payout. Mr Key's denial came at the end of a day in which ACC Minister Judith Collins sued Opposition MPs over allegations she leaked an email relating to Ms Pullar, and Ms Pullar claimed she used "stealth" software to monitor ACC's handling of her claim. It also emerged in Parliament that the Green Party recently received the sensitive information about 6700 ACC claimants that was sent to Ms Pullar, sparking the affair, but returned it to the corporation. TVNZ current affairs programme Close Up last night said it had received a letter written by Sovereign Insurance to former National Party president Michelle Boag in 2007. The letter named 28 people, among them prominent National Party figures including John Key and former Prime Minister Dame Jenny Shipley, as supporters of Ms Pullar as she sought a $14 million payout from the company in relation to injuries she suffered in a 2002 cycling accident. The claim, Sovereign said in the letter, was "greatly in excess of her entitlement". Ms Boag is a long-standing friend of Ms Pullar who supported her during her battle with ACC, including attending a December meeting with ACC which has sparked investigations by the police and the Privacy Commissioner. In the letter, Sovereign noted, it had been given a list of members of Ms Pullar's "claimed support/advisory team". The list included Sir Selwyn Cushing, Mr Key, Dame Jenny and Dr Wayne Mapp. Mr Key was at the time the Leader of the Opposition. He has said he met Ms Pullar when he first entered politics - which was shortly after her accident - but had not had any contact with her since he became National Party leader. Last night, he issued a statement saying: "I have not been involved in any 'claims support' or 'advisory team' for Bronwyn Pullar. "The claim in the letter that I was part of such a team in 2007, or indeed any other time, is wrong." Dr Mapp, a former minister who was an MP at the time, last night told Close Up he had met Sovereign to discuss the matter "I simply facilitated some meetings ... they ultimately led to a settlement." The Herald understands that settlement was in excess of $1 million. Ms Pullar did not respond to the Herald yesterday. The letter preceded those that Nick Smith wrote in support of Ms Pullar's ACC claim while he was ACC Minister and which led to his resignation from Cabinet last week. Green Party co-leader Russel Norman last night said the Sovereign letter "raises the question of whether John Key did declare his full involvement in this case". "It also raises the question of whether, in the conduct of his private investigation into Nick Smith's conflict of interest, he too had a conflict of interest. "These are questions that only an independent inquiry can legitimately answer." Ms Collins, the current ACC Minister, yesterday initiated defamation action against Labour MPs Trevor Mallard and Andrew Little and also Radio NZ over allegations about the leaking of an email sent by Ms Boag to Ms Collins concerning Ms Pullar's claim. She demanded an apology from the pair, but Mr Mallard said Ms Collins' action was "an attempt to gag members of parliament, inside and outside of the House". Meanwhile, it was reported that when Ms Pullar emailed Dr Smith's letter to ACC in support of her claim last year, she did so using software enabling her to track each time it was opened and who it was forwarded to without the knowledge of the email's recipients. Internet security expert Peter Gutman, of Auckland University, said such "web bugs" were uncommon. "Spammers use it on a massive scale, and beyond that it's used only by security geeks."
The Green Party says it is now essential an independent inquiry is held into the Bronwyn Pullar affair following the release of correspondence that potentially implicates John Key in the saga. John Key is listed as a supporter of Bronwyn Pullar in a letter to Sovereign Insurance regarding her multi-million dollar private insurance claim in 2007, when he was the leader of the opposition. “This raises the question of whether John Key did declare his full involvement in this case,” said Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman. “It also raises the question of whether, in the conduct of his private investigation into Nick Smiths conflict of interest, he too had a conflict of interest. “These are questions that only an independent inquiry can legitimately answer. “In Parliament John Key ruled out an independent inquiry that could have revealed this potential conflict of interest. “An independent inquiry would establish if the Prime Minister had a conflict of interest at the point that he investigated Nick Smith. “If it is true that the Prime Minister has no knowledge of being named in the Sovereign letter, or that his support of Bronwyn Pullar was as he has previously described it, then he has nothing to fear from an independent inquiry. “New Zealanders have the right to have confidence in the propriety and actions of their Government. Only an independent inquiry can assess that,” said Dr Norman.
A letter leaked to TV ONE's Close Up draws a link between Prime Minister John Key and attempts by former National Party president Michelle Boag to persuade an insurance company to pay up $14 million. It's the latest twist in a saga that started with Boag advocating for her friend and former National Party activist Bronwyn Pullar who suffered a head injury in 2002. The letter, sent from Sovereign Insurance to Boag in 2007, was passed on to Close Up anonymously. The letter names National Party heavyweights, including Key and former Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, in an attempt to get more than $14 million to settle an income insurance claim by Boag's friend Bronwyn Pullar. Sovereign says the claim was "greatly in excess of her entitlement". Boag and Pullar are close friends and have a long association through the National Party. Pullar helped Boag successfully campaign for the party's presidency. The wider party links emerge in the leaked correspondence with Sovereign noting: "We have been supplied with a list of 28 named people who are members of Bronwyn's 'claims support/advisory team'. This list includes prominent individuals such as Sir Selwyn Cushing, John Key, Jenny Shipley and Wayne Mapp." At the time Key was National Party leader and in opposition. After the resignation of minister Nick Smith for writing a letter in support of Pullar, the Prime Minister described his own relationship with Pullar as distant. "I first met her when I came into politics in 2002. She was friends at that point with Michelle Boag and continues to be so," Key said at the time. "I saw her at a few National Party events. For the life of me I can't remember seeing her ever since I've been a leader of the opposition, so it would be a good five or six years."
Claim 'wrong' - Key Key issued a statement today saying he has not been involved in any "claims support" or "advisory team" for Pullar. "The claim in the letter that I was part of such a team in 2007, or indeed any other time, is wrong." Sir Selwyn told Close Up he had gone in to bat for Pullar and he said Sovereign's then chief executive conceded to him they had handled her claim badly. The letter claims Wayne Mapp, who was an MP at the time, also had a meeting with Sovereign. "I simply facilitated some meetings," Mapp told Close Up. "They were very professional and proper meetings and they ultimately led to a settlement." Mapp says he does not know who put the list together. "I've not seen this particular letter myself. What I did was assist Bronwyn, who was assisted by Michelle, for her to be able to get compensation for her injuries based on the insurance policy she was paying for." Dame Jenny Shipley told Close Up she was not aware of any list and had not attended any meetings. She said she did not want to get drawn into it. The Sovereign letter also addresses what it considers threats by Boag if it did not pay the multi-million dollar claim. It states: "For nearly 18 months Bronwyn and her advisers, including yourself personally, have been saying to us that if we did not settle Bronwyn's claims against us in a way acceptable to Bronwyn that she would 'go to the media'. The inference we drew from this was that you would seek to obtain media coverage that would be detrimental to Sovereign." Sovereign Insurance, which is now part of the ASB group of companies, eventually settled a lump-sum payment thought to be over $1 million. Boag initially told Close Up she could not remember the letter and that she does not even remember writing to Sovereign herself. When prompted about the list of prominent people, she said that was Sovereign's definition and she had never supplied any list. On the issue of threats to go to the media, Boag said that was redundant as she had already at that stage talked to the media. Pullar did not return Close Up's calls.
Renewed calls for inquiry The Green Party says it is now "essential" an independent inquiry is held into the ongoing saga. "This raises the question of whether John Key did declare his full involvement in this case," Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said in a statement tonight. "It also raises the question of whether, in the conduct of his private investigation into Nick Smith's conflict of interest, he too had a conflict of interest. "These are questions that only an independent inquiry can legitimately answer. Key has ruled out an independent inquiry to look into potential conflicts of interest. "If it is true that the Prime Minister has no knowledge of being named in the Sovereign letter, or that his support of Bronwyn Pullar was as he has previously described it, then he has nothing to fear from an independent inquiry," Norman said. Otago University political scientist Bryce Edwards said with Mapp admitting he gave his consent for the letter, "there's a lot of smoke" and Key needs to front up. "He has to answer a bit more than just saying 'oh I wasn't part of any team'," Edwards told Close Up. Edwards described the letter as a "remarkable insight" into how the New Zealand political class operates. "It shows how people operate using their well connected friends to basically intimidate people. I think a lot of people will be astounded by this. "There's nothing necessarily illegal about that but it does bring up a sense of legitimacy. "Would the public see this as legitimate to use these connections. I don't think they would."
