Editorial: Be sure your sins will find you out

Skeletons tell no lies. Whether they are embedded, like the 60,000-year-old Mungo Man, in an ancient lake or hidden in the metaphorical cupboards of Rangi Whakaruru or Linda Chavez, they remain. And when found, they illuminate. The hidden secrets uncovered this week of the child-abuse campaigner and the would-be politician continue a long and shameful tradition of public leadership masking private hypocrisy.

How is it that individuals with such personal skeletons can ever convince themselves that they are fit to take public roles, often lecturing against the very malfeasance in their pasts? Time and again, politicians, public servants, campaigners, entertainers and sportspeople thrust themselves forward with reckless disregard for their own unsuitability to serve.

Sometimes it is hubris - an excess of ambition and pride which ultimately causes the transgressor's ruin. Sometimes it is the narcotic lure of the fabled 15 minutes of fame. Some plainly just hope that no one will ever find out; that the dark side of their past will not emerge. Others claim forgetfulness or to have attained forgiveness in courts held to be higher than public opinion.

Both Ms Chavez and Mr Whakaruru broke the laws of their lands and proceeded to assume leadership roles without making their transgressions - and presumably regret - known to the public or even their supporters.

The cabinet nominee of President-elect Bush claimed not to have known she had committed an offence by having an illegal immigrant stay in her home and work for "spending money." In all likelihood she would have stood no chance of gaining nomination in the first place had she informed her master. But surely she could have had no doubt that once she exposed herself to the process of Senate confirmation hearings for the position of Labour Secretary, the cupboard door would be thrown open on her own illegal labourer. The rigours of the American system have claimed many a nominee for political or judicial office, including Zoe Baird, the Clinton Administration's original choice for Attorney-General in 1993, for not paying taxes for her own immigrant nanny.

The scrutiny and disclosure are laudable. While individuals can change, putting past misdemeanours behind them, learning from them and still having much to offer in public service, the first step must be to declare that they erred. In the US, the authority of cabinet or judicial offices is strengthened, not demeaned, by the rigorous personal vetting upon which Ms Chavez chose to gamble her name.

The Whakaruru case is closer to home and closer to the bone. Here, the great-uncle of a boy killed by his stepfather chose to be a campaigner and the public face of a high-profile television advertisement against child abuse. He now admits, after televised testimony from his own stepdaughter, to being a wife and child abuser. Because he did not tell the campaign leaders - broadcaster Liz Gunn and former All Black Michael Jones - of his past, he has caused them and their cause vast embarrassment and has inevitably withdrawn from the campaign.

Whatever could he have been thinking? By any reckoning he was well-intentioned in wanting to do something about an issue of national concern. It could have been very different. Had Mr Whakaruru simply told his colleagues of his offending and remorse, and made his change of heart the public reason for his campaign rather than hidden it from view, New Zealanders would have given him the benefit of the doubt. The horror at his conduct would remain, but his ultimate message may have been equally compelling.

In failing to front up while seeking public support he is hardly alone. In the New Zealand context the list of public figures found out by their own pasts is long and growing: Dover Samuels and Morgan Fahey are two of recent times.

The lessons are simple. The public has a right to trust in and believe those who choose to lead. People seeking public backing or support must be able to win that trust by virtue of their personal history and character. Openness is the only way to ensure that trust. Voluntary disclosure, while clearly a distressing personal option in the short term, makes it possible. Hauraki MP John Tamihere was subject to a raft of accusations last year but had informed the Labour Party in advance of his selection of the drink and driving offences concerned and was able to show that, while he had a past, he had not, at least, concealed it from those putting him forward. Involuntary disclosure, as in the allegations against Mr Samuels and Mr Whakaruru, carries its own judgment.

In this latest case the manner of the disclosure reflected poorly not only on Mr Whakaruru but on Ms Gunn, who, thrust into a deepening controversy, made things worse by comments on the young woman's motivation which showed precisely the wrong attitude for someone leading a foundation purporting to put children first.

Just as there can be no tolerance of child abuse, there can be no tolerance of those who keep from the public personal information which has the potential to compromise their positions of influence and undermine the very causes which they espouse.