Editorial: Anti-smoking groups have hard task to regain credibility

The Government was deservedly embarrassed, and so, presumably, was the Ministry of Health, when it was revealed in Parliament that the ministry had paid anti-smoking pressure groups to promote the prohibition of smoking in bars and restaurants. But the parties that have suffered the least criticism so far are those that have done themselves the most harm: the three anti-smoking groups who signed up to this sorry deal.

Two of them, Ash and the Smokefree Coalition, became well known names in this country thanks to their fiercely independent pursuit of the tobacco industry and the credibility of the information they hurl at the industry's defences. Their favourite weapon in argument has always been to discredit contrary research by suggesting that it was commissioned or assisted by tobacco companies. How unfortunate, then, that these two groups, and another called Aparangi Tautoko Auahi Kore, should have signed up to be paid propagandists for the ministry and the Government.

The contract that Ash signed with the ministry stipulated that they would not criticise each other without first raising the matter of concern with the other. If Ash wonders what the harm can be in a clause such as that, imagine what Ash would say if it learned a group promoting smokers' freedom had done such a deal with the tobacco industry. Ash would never let them hear the end of it, and quite rightly.

Independence is a valuable commodity in public debate - valuable to an advocacy group and to the public. Groups such as Ash and the Smokefree Coalition cannot expect to retain a place in the smoking debate once they become uncritical paid agents of the ministry. If that is the role they want, they cannot complain if people decide they might as well hear directly from the ministry. The public would be the poorer for the loss of an independent contributor to debate, a contributor willing and free to criticise the health authorities if necessary.

The ministry has paid the three groups a total of $2.1 million to promote what it calls "a supportive climate" for the Smokefree Environments Act. Ash, for its slice of the payola, was supposed to appear on TV, radio or in newspapers at least 50 times a year, to publish and distribute media and political bulletins and liaise with MPs. The public knowledge that they have been paid to attract media attention will no doubt colour their reception now.

As for the ministry, the most disturbing element of the deal is the hiring of Ash to "liaise with MPs". If that means lobbying them, as Act's Rodney Hide suggests, it is a breach of the public service code. Public servants serve the Government in a nonpartisan sense. They ought not, without their minister's permission, pass information to MPs outside the Government, let alone seek to persuade them of the merits of a piece of legislation.

The Associate Minister of Health who had to answer for these contracts when they came to light was plainly as surprised as anyone to discover what the ministry had done. There are good reasons to keep the public service out of political lobbying activities, and for the same reasons public officials should not engage others to lobby on their behalf.

The extraordinary element in this whole business is that Ash and the other groups would have needed no inducements to bang the drum for a bill banning smoking in bars and restaurants. They probably feel the bill should go further in some respects- pressure groups are congenitally unsatisfied - but it is hard to see how criticism of that nature would trouble the ministry. It would make the bill seem moderate.

The only conclusion can be that the ministry did the groups a kindness because they needed the money. And that leaves a further question: how long have anti-smoking advocates been in the pay of the state? They have work to do to recover their credibility.