A matter of accountability

Friday, 11 June 2021

What were Jacinda Ardern and Bill English told about Labour’s Raymond Huo and National’s Jian Yang before the 2020 election?

OPINION: President Franklin Roosevelt said about democracy, “The core of our defence is the faith we have in the institutions we defend.”

Transparency and accountability underpin that faith and to maintain it leadership in government and institutions of state must be seen to hold themselves accountable for their actions.

Two recent incidents of democratic accountability, however, raise more questions about maintaining that faith than they answer.

Chief of Defence Force Air Marshal Kevin Short says the HMNZS Te Kaha won’t be fully operational until 2022.

* Operation Burnham: the New Zealand military’s self-inflicted wounds will not heal by themselves

* Jian Yang, the National MP who admitted to training Chinese spies, retiring

* Over three hours of aerial footage of Afghanistan raid exists, NZDF says

The first is the decision by Chief of the Defence Force Kevin Short to take no disciplinary action against any member of the Defence force as a result of the serious internal failings found in the Operation Burnham Inquiry as well as a physical assault of an Afghani prisoner by a member of the SAS.

The Inquiry found “failings of culture in the upper echelons of NZDF – confirmation bias, lack of objectivity and rigour in scrutinising “facts”, unnecessary defensiveness coupled with an unwillingness to acknowledge error, failure to follow up inconvenient information, and non-compliance with the disciplines and obligations inherent in the principles of ministerial control of the military and responsibility to Parliament.”

Chief of Defence Force Air Marshal Kevin Short makes a statement on the inquiry report into Operation Burnham.

In other words, a gross breach of the principle of civilian control of the military, which caused defence ministers and a Prime Minister to mislead the public about Burnham.

The Inquiry’s last sentence: “How NZDF addresses its failings and goes forward will reveal its true character and the strength of its purpose.” By not taking any disciplinary action, the true character of NZDF remains, to quote another Inquiry term, “woeful.”

Short said legislation from 1971 required investigation within three years of any alleged offending, which had now passed. Furthermore, censure was rejected because there was “little benefit” to be gained from “events (that) are now over 10 years old…”

Little benefit to the NZDF I took him to mean because there is an undoubted benefit called democratic accountability, thereby strengthening civilian control of the military.

The decision is absurd. Air Marshal Short is effectively telling his institution if we stonewall, mislead, and obfuscate for three years (like we did on Burnham) we’ll be in the clear, a Defence Force Order on possible civilian harm obligations notwithstanding.

As for dismissing historic transgressions, imagine if judges applied this logic to Treaty injustices, or Royal Commissioners applied it to historic abuses in state care. Being accountable for wrongdoing reveals strength in the national character. Short’s choice shows weakness.

The second incident of concern is the sudden coincidental retirements of Labour’s Raymond Huo and National’s Jian Yang before the 2020 election.

Hit and Run co-author Jon Stephenson (right) and his Counsel Sam Humphrey arriving for the Operation Burnham inquiry into allegations that six Afghani civilians were killed and 15 injured in the SAS operation.

The first in a series of public hearings for the Government's Operation Burnham inquiry, which inspected claims in the book Hit & Run, which alleged six Afghani civilians were killed and 15 injured in an SAS operation. Hit & Run co-author Jon Stephenson (left) and his counsel Sam Humphrey.

The allegation is that the two forced retirements were stage-managed by Labour and National after receiving intelligence briefings over security concerns about each man’s relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.

If true, there are interesting questions of democratic accountability. How does government and Parliament hold itself to account if political parties in government and Parliament have been penetrated by foreign influences?

It seems to me a complex question because we have a national security overlay that is there for good reason but also prevents transparency, and through that openness, accountability.

My experience working for the Minister of Foreign Affairs reinforced the importance of the secrecy oaths taken and responsibilities that accompany the privilege of serving in that national security space.

So, when national security collides with party self-interest it is a very difficult space for the system, and professionals inside the system, to operate in. Transparency and accountability is at risk when hats are interchangeable.

If Jacinda Ardern was briefed in her role as Labour Party leader, because security concerns related to an individual in the political party she led, she still possessed a wider national security responsibility as Prime Minister. If briefed as Prime Minister, the same logic applies.

The accountability question is whether in multiparty government other political parties, if appropriately cleared, should have been briefed by officials or informed by the Prime Minister. Should the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee have been briefed or advised?

I don’t pretend to know the answer, but I think it’s an interesting question. After all, National and Labour are the only two parties that have led governments since 1935. If either has been compromised it’s a very big deal.

A party independent of Labour would have been able to scrutinise the intelligence and concur with the action taken, which would offer some check on an otherwise blurred set of interests. It seems to me that only the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security can provide any oversight for what happened here, but will they?

Given the woeful response to the Burnham Inquiry and the murky affair of two MPs sudden retirements, one’s faith in the institutions we defend is shaken.

Jon Johansson served as chief of staff to deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and now works for a Wellington based communications company. All views expressed in this column are his own.