KEY POINTS:
I remember the scandal three years ago when the Canadian chief executive for the new Maori TV was found to have faked his CV. Even though an executive recruitment company was engaged to search for a suitable candidate and vet a shortlist, Maori Television took the public hit.
Politicians and talkback hosts had a field day. The media whipped up hysteria about the Maori Television board's incompetence in making such a basic error and not independently checking new appointees. It was touch and go whether the Government would close the new station. There was a clean-out of senior management and the board, but the mistake tainted the new station for its first year.
Compare that with the muted response we get with the apparently falsified employment credentials of Mary Anne Thompson, who was one of country's most powerful mandarins. Her pathway to power was smoothed by supposedly having a PhD from the London School of Economics.
Thompson was Winston Peters' top bureaucrat when he was Treasurer in the National-NZ First Government. When Jenny Shipley ousted Jim Bolger, Thompson moved into her office and at one time was the acting chief executive of the Prime Minister's and Cabinet office. According to National Party sources she was Shipley's right-hand and was more powerful than even Helen Clark's much-feared chief Heather Simpson.
Because of Thompson's supposed economics background, she played a senior role in nine National budgets. Her influence on Shipley and Peters, neither of whom is noted for their economic prowess, was a subject of political gossip.
Now it has been revealed that Thompson's qualification was bogus. If she hadn't been investigated after she was accused of using her power to get family members illegally into the country, she would never have been exposed.
Part of the immigration investigation was a series of simple phones calls to check her resume. As every junior human resources manager knows, checking backgrounds is standard practice. It seems the LSE has never heard of Thompson and certainly didn't award her a doctorate.
How does someone get into a position in which they have access to all our country's economic secrets, access to all Cabinet papers and are involved in probably every major Government decision for a decade without a basic employment check?
Thompson's parents emigrated from Romania when it was part of the Soviet bloc. Imagine a John Le Carre story in which a special operative is sent under deep cover into a Western Government and planted as chief adviser to a Prime Minister. We'd snigger at the obviously amateurish cover story in providing bogus qualifications. The Secret Intelligence Service, mandated to screen anyone employed in the Beehive, would expose the scam simply by getting a clerk to do a quick Google check.
But alas, it seems our SIS is too busy spying on the left. When the Alliance was in Government there seemed to be dossiers on several of us. Apparently, our crimes included being involved in protests against New Zealand troops in Vietnam, opposing Springbok tours, marching in support of a nuclear-free Pacific and standing on picket lines. We were told the SIS had photos, newspaper clippings and lists of unsavoury associates.
If the SIS was going to such lengths to protect ministries such as local government, consumer affairs and statistics from unreliable influence, one could only imagine what rigour it would undergo to protect senior ministries such as foreign affairs, overseas trade, defence and the holy of holies, the Prime Minister's office.
Maybe Thompson's case was an isolated lapse, but several mates who worked in Parliament at a senior level and have derided the SIS vetting system. Some people worked for two finance ministers and had access to all budget materials but were never checked because they refused to authorise the SIS to do so. Duh!
Richard Griffin, the silver fox himself, was chief press officer to Jim Bolger and one of his closest colleagues. Yet he has said he was never vetted by the SIS, despite having access to all defence, foreign affairs and trade information.
One mid-level politico who had no choice but to be investigated, remembered the only result of that operation was being shopped by the SIS to a district court for not paying an outstanding traffic fine. Hasn't the SIS got better things to do?
The SIS would send a weekly ultra-top-secret round-up of intelligence news that only the minister was allowed to read. Staffers would, of course, take a peek and find that it was mainly a precis of the latest Economist and Jane's Defence Weekly.
Maybe we could have saved a fortune by taking out a subscription for ministers to these two publications and installing CNN in their offices. And maybe employing some kid after school to check qualifications help to protect our national interests.
