KEY POINTS:
Annette King, one of the most experienced Cabinet ministers in the Government, is a shrewd operator.
Her affability masks an ability to get a tough job done without causing too many public ruffles.
But King's political reputation is now threatened by the way her successor as Health Minister is handling a "conflicts of interest" row at Hawkes Bay District Health Board involving the minister's husband, which appears to have resulted in the skids being put under the job of whistleblower, named as Deborah Houston in Hawkes Bay Today.
The amount of ducking and weaving that has gone down at the Beehive since the Herald on Sunday went public with an allegation that King's husband Ray Lind had - while still chief operating officer for the district health board - been one of two managers to pressure Houston over her decision to blow the whistle on a breach of conflict of issue rules by a serving board-member, is a troubling matter.
At the start of the week, Prime Minister Helen Clark and Health Minister Pete Hodgson were saying there was nothing to the allegations.
They have since appointed a three-person team to inquire into the affair. One member of that team is arguably comprised by his own status as a political appointee and the terms of reference do not deal with the heart of the matter.
What is troubling is the fact that Lind now holds a senior position at the board member's firm, Healthcare of New Zealand, while his boss Peter Hausmann continues to remain as a ministerial appointee on the DHB despite the fact his company was removed as preferred bidder for a $50 million contract after Houston drew attention to emails between him and senior board managers discussing details of the bidding process.
This breach flew in the face of an assurance Hausmann gave the health board that he would not be involved in the controversial contract bid, which resulted in Healthcare being ejected from the bidding process after a board sub-committee probe.
In most commercial situations where a board member has been found by his peers to have crossed the line, that person would be asked to resign.
But Hausmann remains on board as a ministerial appointee, although he has stepped aside while the current inquiry proceeds.
The only person to walk the plank in this shameful affair is Houston, who found her job restructured from under her several months later despite seeking protection under the Protected Disclosures Act for the information she conveyed to board chairman Kevin Atkinson.
When the affair came to light, the whistleblower spoke with management. Her notes of that meeting quote Lind as saying: "This is very, very serious. It is at ministerial level. We need to de-escalate this." Houston said she was uncomfortable with the meeting and wanted legal representation. Then, according to her notes, chief executive Chris Clarke and Lind said: "I had to remember management had power over me - in terms of my job security - so it would be best if I not protect anyone."
Instead of seeking to silence Houston with a payout, there should have been inquiries into why management at the DHB pushed her out the door. But the Government's team has been issued with terms of reference that do not even focus on the main point - the alleged muscling of the whistleblower.
The review team - Syd Bradley (the Labour-appointed chairman of Canterbury Health Board), lawyer Michael Wigley, and Dave Clarke (a former chief executive of Counties Manukau DHB) - is being asked to examine three areas:
Hausmann's past and current conflicts of interest as a member of the district health board.
The management of those conflicts by the board and Hausmann.
Any other matter that arises through the investigation.
In the background is the fact that King bypassed the usual appointment procedures when she put Hausmann on the board in mid-2005.
Atkinson was not given a chance to interview Hausmann first, or make his concerns known over the potential for conflicts of interest. King was no longer Health Minister at the time that Houston received Hausmann's email on January 10, 2006. She relinquished that portfolio to Pete Hodgson in the post-election Cabinet reshuffle in late-2005.
But Hodgson did not withdraw Hausmann's appointment after Healthcare NZ was ejected from the bidding process.
Similar, and quite toothless, terms of reference were dished up to Noel Ingram when he started his inquiry into former Cabinet minister Taito Phillip Fields' dealings.
It's clear that the Government has still to learn some lessons on this score. I'm sure if King was still Health Minister, she would insist on an obviously independent body to get to the bottom of events.
