By Eugene Bingham - 60 Minutes Producer
In the immediate aftermath of a 60 Minutes interview, people react in different ways. It’s an odd time – the interview proper is over, but everyone has to stay put while the camera operator finishes off some shots.
Sometimes there are tears, many times there are laughs, other times people want to clarify what they’ve said during the interview.
Following our interview with Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne last week there was stone cold silence.
It had been a tense interview, so what was he thinking, reporter Paula Penfold and I wondered.
Turns out he may have been silently composing his next Facebook update. Funny, I never picked Peter Dunne as a social network kind of guy.
But the next morning, there it was on his wall – a shot across the bow of 60 Minutes, a post titled “A test of TV3’s integrity”.
This was followed up with an email from his office clarifying his position about his dealings with the liquor industry, but, after checks of what he had to say, we’re left puzzled.
Just what could possibly have got Dunne - leader of the one-MP party United Future, known as the middle man of New Zealand politics – so wound up? If you saw our programme, Big Booze, you’ll have an idea.
Click here to watch the 60 Minutes piece Big Booze from Wednesday night's programme.
One of the areas we wanted to look at in the story was the lobbying going on around the Law Commission review of our liquor laws. Who is advocating what? And who are they talking to?
Last year, a group calling itself Alcohol Action formed to fight for changes. They’re advocating a “5+ Solution” of things like changes to the purchase age, outlet locations, and how booze can be advertised. The solution has some pretty hefty backers – 450 of the country’s most senior doctors and nurses for a start. That’s some lobby.
Alcohol Action was happy to talk to us for the story and we interviewed one of its medical advisers, Professor Doug Sellman, an addiction specialist.
As for the liquor industry, our two largest companies, DB and Lion refused to be interviewed. DB’s head is also chairman of the Brewers Association.
We did talk to the association’s medical adviser, an Auckland University associate dean. But as for anyone who works fulltime for either of those liquor giants or the chairman of the association, there was no one.
At the end of last year, we sent Official Information Act requests to Justice Minister Simon Power and Dunne asking who they’d talked to about alcohol during 2009 (when the Law Commission review was underway).
Power sent us a list of 13 meetings (and two conferences).
Power’s list boils down to four meetings with officials/bureaucrats/Government appointees, seven meetings with the liquor industry or retailers, and two meetings with what could be called groups which want change.
It should be pointed out that the original question asked for details of any meetings with “representatives of the industry, either companies, lobbyists, or other agents or representatives of interests” during 2009.
Power’s response said he’d interpreted the question to include not just the commercial arm of the industry, but wider stakeholder groups.
Dunne’s initial response listed just three functions he had attended with the industry – a Brewers Association reception, a Bledisloe Cup test courtesy of Lion Nathan, and the Hospitality Association awards dinner in Taupo.
Dunne’s response noted that he also met various parts of the sector including the Alcohol Advisory Council, Non-Government Organisations and various industry representatives.
We went back and asked him for details of those meetings.
He supplied a list of four – two with the Brewers Association, DB and Lion Nathan; one with spirits manufacturer Diageo Australasia; and one with the breweries, NZ distillers and NZ winegrowers.
The second response also said he had met with ministry officials, the Law Commission, and held regular meetings with the Alcohol Advisory Council (ALAC), which reports to him and comprises a board appointed by the Government.
So, four meetings and three functions with the industry, in addition to the meetings with officials and other state entities. According to his office, topics included the setting of the ALAC levy and the Law Commission review.
We checked with Sellman, from Alcohol Action, to see if he had sought a meeting with Dunne. Surely the lobby group backed by senior doctors and nurses would want to talk to the associate Minister of Health about its “Five+” solution?
In actual fact, Sellman had asked for an appointment last year but was knocked back, told in an email from Dunne’s staff on August 4: “…he is aware of your thoughts in the areas of alcohol and addiction and the planned focus for the alcohol campaign”.
When we interviewed Sellman, we asked whether he was offended by the fact he could not get a meeting with the minister in a year when the industry had engaged with him seven times. He was conciliatory towards Dunne saying, “these are busy people and that needs to be remembered”.
With regards to the industry, he said: “I do know just how clever and how polished the alcohol industry is at their lobbying activity. I just take my hat off to the alcohol industry. I think they’re true professionals.
“What intrigued me was that [Dunne] through his secretary told me that he already knew my views about alcohol so he didn’t need to meet me,” said Sellman. “But I would’ve thought that he probably knew the views on alcohol by the alcohol industry.”
You’ll have seen in the programme what Dunne had to say about Sellman when asked about his refusal to meet him. Needless to say he didn’t believe it was worth his time.
But what really seemed to annoy Dunne was any inference that he had taken the time to meet with the liquor industry when, according to the response we’d had from him, there had not been any meetings with the other side of the debate.
He took extreme offence at a question from Penfold about whether he had a responsibility to give equal airtime to both sides of the debate, saying “that’s a very silly way of looking at it”.
In any event he insisted that, despite the information he had previously given us, he had met with “the other side”. We pointed out we had asked him for details of those meetings. He said it was no secret and he would send them.
And so it was a bit of a surprise when he went on Facebook. “Here is a test for the credibility and integrity of TV3 - 60 Minutes… We will today provide TV3 with my diary records showing that I also had had 50 meetings with alcohol groups not associated with the industry - including the Ministry of Health, the Law Commission, the Police, the Salvation Army, addictions workers and treatment providers,” he posted.
Read the full text of Peter Dunne's Facebook post here.
The list of 50 included three yet to happen. Last year, which is the period we originally asked about, there were 40 meetings.
Of those 40, 23 were with Ministry of Health officials or ALAC – both of whom report to him – three were with the Law Commission, two were with the police.
Four meetings were with other official groups of various types: the UN Office of Drugs and Crime, the WHO, a ministerial council on drug strategies in Brisbane, and the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs. Three were speeches he gave at conferences.
That leaves five meetings which could be construed as possibly anti-industry lobbying. We decided to find out about those meetings.
First we call the Downtown Community Ministry which met with him on December 2: no, they told us, it was not a meeting specifically about alcohol. Dunne had come along with other community leaders to see the issues facing the ministry’s clients. Yes, for some alcohol is an issue, but mostly it’s about homelessness.
Next check, the NGO Provider Forum, October 19: the agenda for that meeting, on the Ministry of Health’s website, shows that Dunne spoke on the topic of “NGO Challenges and Opportunities for Changing Times”. The meeting was attended by 170 NGO representatives from across many sectors. Could that be called lobbying of the minister over alcohol issues in the way an office meeting with Lion or DB is? We don’t think so.
(We query this with Dunne’s office which responds: "While the provider forum was not specifically about alcohol we have included it in the list of meetings and events due to the value of canvassing stakeholder opinion in these settings. The Minister was able to use the opportunity to speak with a variety of people. The Minister spoke at the Forum just prior to lunch and then spent time speaking with a number of stakeholders during lunch.")
Next appointment: what about the Life Education Trust, whom he met with on May 5? No, they tell us, that was not specifically about alcohol issues. It was to present a Columbia University study on dealing with the collective social costs of drugs.
That leaves two meetings: one with the Salvation Army, which told us they had indeed talked to the minister about alcohol issues, specifically taxation of liquor; and one with respected Scottish expert Dr Peter Rice, brought to New Zealand by ALAC for its conference last year.
What does all this mean? No one, least of all us, is suggesting anything untoward or corrupt. What we were interested in was who is talking to whom about the review of our liquor laws.
Why was Dunne so defensive?
It’s clear he does talk to a range of people, though he’s not prepared to meet Sellman and, as you’ll have seen he is “amused” by the support of some of the doctors and nurses.
Sure he had many meetings with ministry officials and ALAC, but they couldn’t be described as lobbying and that’s what we were trying to find out about. The Salvation Army lobbied him about what it wants around taxation of liquor, and he discussed the issues with a Scottish expert.
It’s also a fact Dunne had four meetings with the alcohol industry and was hosted by them at three functions, including an All Blacks test.
Then again, he doesn’t see those meetings as lobbying as you’ll have heard in the programme. Rather, his discussions with the industry about the review were “informal chats”, he said.
“It’s a reasonable conversation between people who know each other.”
Peter Dunne's list of meetings over alcohol, 2009
Simon Power's list of meetings over alcohol, 2009