Editorial: Doone affair puts all in a poor light

Opinion

The Prime Minister rightly faces intense questioning of her integrity following revelations that she encouraged a false media allegation against a police commissioner subsequently forced from office. Political opponents accuse her of abusing both her power and the principles of natural justice by confidentially "confirming" the allegation against Peter Doone, even while her Attorney-General was considering his future.

The allegation was that Mr Doone intervened to prevent a constable trying to breath-test the commissioner's girlfriend by saying, "That won't be necessary". The newspaper, the Sunday Star-Times, subsequently withdrew those words and apologised, saying it accepted Mr Doone had not said them. Helen Clark's involvement was, unusually, revealed in a legal defence the paper prepared for a defamation case which Mr Doone had brought against it. She had been a confidential source and expected her identity to be protected by longstanding journalistic convention.

There are three issues here. One is whether the Prime Minister should act as cheerleader for an allegation against a public servant under official scrutiny. The second is whether she believed to be true what turned out to be a false statement when she offered, repeatedly, her "verification" of the phrase in question. The third is whether the newspaper should have indirectly but deliberately forced a confidential source out into the open.

Opposition politicians, of course, are concentrating on the first two questions. And they are right to do so. The apparatus of government had responded to earlier publicity over Mr Doone's exchange with the constable by initiating two official inquiries. Helen Clark's Cabinet had already sent Mr Doone a written indication of its concerns. For a Prime Minister, no matter how accessible and responsive to the media, to allow herself further intervention over five separate telephone calls with the paper suggests a crude political intent.

On the pivotal issue of whether she thought the words "That won't be necessary" to be true when she "verified" them and gave the story an effective green light, there is only her word on which to rely. Helen Clark has erred, terribly, in the past when she called a man convicted of manslaughter a murderer. She paid the price for that defamation. In general, she is a politician of some precision and rigour. Enough, in this case, to suggest that whoever or whatever was her source had been vouching for the veracity of the ill-fated words. Yesterday in Parliament the Prime Minister intimated that the words had never been hers, but those of the reporter.

There would be no political controversy had publisher Fairfax not decided, in its own interests, to manoeuvre the Prime Minister into the open. On one level there is merit in full facts being available to the public. However, the newspaper had chosen not to do that in its original report. It did not name her, presumably for good reason and probably after accepting her assistance on condition of confidentiality. To subsequently apply legal pressure to obtain her evidence is a sorry development for journalism and for the public. In future, as Helen Clark has intimated, politicians and many other holders of information of public interest, including whistleblowers, may decide that the personal risks are just too high for the public good.

There is one, arguable, reason for voiding the agreement of confidentiality and that would be if Fairfax believed the Prime Minister had knowingly lied, therefore invalidating any mutual trust. However, the publisher has already said publicly that Helen Clark simply verified what it already knew. If it was a lie, it was another source's lie and the removal of confidentiality has not applied to that person.

No one emerges from this affair with credit. Mr Doone should have stayed in the car. The Prime Minister ought to have kept out of the fray once her Government initiated a formal process against Mr Doone. She and the newspaper needed to be right, not flatly wrong. And the publisher ought to have respected, not violated, the principle of protecting sources.