Campbell sacked

Radio NZ reports:

Health New Zealand’s board chairperson Rob Campbell has been sacked over a political attack he made about the National Party’s Three Waters policy.

Campbell took to LinkedIn at the weekend to criticise National’s Three Waters policy as a thin disguise for dog-whistling on co-governance.

The comments drew swift criticism from both sides of the political aisles – National saying they were “appalling” while Prime Minister Chris Hipkins described them as “inappropriate”.

Directors of Crown Entities are supposed to act in a politically impartial manner under the Public Service Commission’s code of conduct.

Campbell is accountable to Health Minister Ayesha Verrall in his Te Whatu Ora role – this afternoon Verrall confirmed she had sacked him.

“I have raised with Mr Campbell serious concerns about the political nature of his recent social media comments,” she said.

“I no longer have confidence that Mr Campbell is able to exercise the political neutrality necessary for his role at Te Whatu Ora.”

This is the right call, and respect for Chris Hipkins who would have made the ultimate decision. I may be wrong, but I suspect his predecessor would not have sacked Campbell and would have tried to claim he spoke wearing a different hat.

If what Campbell said, had been said by someone who was merely a board member of relatively minor quango or entity (say Standards NZ) then there could be a path through it without sacking. But Campbell is the Chair of the national health agency, responsible for providing almost every public health service in NZ. It would spend close to $30 billion and his level of seniority would be akin to an agency chief executive almost.

Campbell would not rule out taking legal action over the matter saying it was one possible line of action.

Ha good luck with that.

Now the focus will go on his other role as Chair of the Environmental Protection Agency. If his comments disqualify him as Chair of Health NZ, then surely David Parker must also remove him as EPA Chair.

It is a pity as Campbell has significant business and commercial skills. But he seems to be totally lacking understanding of the public sector code of conduct, and still maintains he has done nothing wrong.

There is a difference between constructively disagreeing on a proposed policy and effectively calling the Leader of the Opposition a racist. If he had merely critiqued National’s policy, and left put the insults, he again might have survived.