Editorial: NZ Post's gagging bid insults public

The powers of the earliest parliaments stemmed from the right to grant money to the ruling monarch. From this power developed the more general functions of oversight, the representation of persons or groups in conflict with the Executive and the use of Parliament as a forum to discuss the issues of the day. Even today, however, one of the parliamentarians' most important roles remains the supervision of public expenditure.

Scrutinising and evaluating the spending of taxpayer money is every bit as important as examining the details of laws and legitimising their passage. For Opposition MPs, it is as much a responsibility as a right.

A grasp of such tenets of parliamentary government seems to have deserted Ross Armstrong, the New Zealand Post chairman. Thus, he feels able to level an accusation of "fiscal treason" when the National leader, Jenny Shipley, quite properly raises questions about the wisdom of devoting $78.2 million of taxpayers' money to the setting up of a NZ Post-run People's Bank.

Topping such intemperate language was always going to be difficult, yet Dr Armstrong has managed it with some ease. NZ Post's pursuit of a gagging order to stop Richard Prebble releasing the business plan for the new bank is worse than posturing. It is dangerous.

Effectively, an enterprise owned by taxpayers is seeking to stop taxpayers learning important details of a fraught commercial venture which they are funding to the tune of almost $80 million. Yesterday, NZ Post won an interim injunction in the High Court. Pointedly, however, that injunction did not infringe Mr Prebble's right to disclose information under parliamentary privilege, a right he exercised.

NZ Post excuses such tactics on the grounds of protecting its commercial interests. If Mr Prebble were to release the business plan, it argued, the only beneficiaries would be the bank's rivals. But it is hard to see how existing trading banks would derive much benefit. Clearly, they have no great desire to service the clientele which seems destined to be the constituency of the People's Bank. The whole rationale of the new bank is to fill the void left by trading banks after they closed branches and raised the fees paid by small depositors to temper the need for cross-subsidisation. If those banks have little or no interest in the People's Bank's client base, what exactly are the commercial interests needing protection?

It seems altogether more likely that NZ Post's reluctance to see the business plan aired related to contents that did not flatter the bank's prospects. Already, selected details of an early draft divulged by Mrs Shipley advise that the bank would not be able to offer services as cheaply as originally envisaged. Quite reasonably, the National leader has also suggested a separate independent appraisal by Cameron and Co paints a bleak picture of the bank's viability. That appraisal has been denied to the public, despite taxpayers' clear interest in any business assessments or advice that the Government has received.

NZ Post's tactics against both Mrs Shipley and Mr Prebble can suggest just one thing - the Cameron appraisal and the business plan held by the Act leader do, indeed, contain information boding ill for the People's Bank: the sort of information which concludes that a bank boasting a clientele of small savers and frequent users will struggle to survive without further doses of taxpayer money; the sort of information which suggests NZ Post would never have embarked on the venture if it had had to use its own money.

That, of course, would reinforce Opposition claims that the People's Bank owes nothing to a sober assessment of risk. Its birth is the price dictated by the Alliance for keeping the Coalition functioning smoothly. That is a desperately poor excuse for spending almost $80 million of taxpayers' money. It is even less of an excuse for seeking to stifle the legitimate flow of information.

Public debate of issues becomes hopelessly constrained without such information. And that invites the undermining of public confidence in the democratic process - not just, as the Alliance leader would have us believe, the prospects of his pet project. If a gag is needed, it is on those who would stop MPs from doing their job.