Fran O’Sullivan opens up a can of blunt journalism and shines some much needed light onto the whole Bronwyn Pullar fiasco:
ACC whistle-blower Bronwyn Pullar has claimed another scalp with the precipitant resignation of respected businessman John Judge as the corporation’s chairman.
When Judge took on the top role he would not have expected to be brought down by a rogue ACC claimant who had sufficient pull with then ACC Minister Nick Smith to persuade him (against all political commonsense) to write letters on ministerial letterhead on her behalf.
Nor would Judge have expected that the ACC claimant would also have had sufficient clout to persuade another fellow director – John McCliskie – to organise a “face-to-face” meeting between herself and ACC management to sort out her long-standing issues with the corporation.
Nor would Judge have expected that an ACC claimant would roll up to the meeting accompanied by a former National Party president.
Nor would Judge have expected that the advocate would open the meeting by dumping a political bombshell that “an email had been sent to Bronwyn … and it contained thousands of elements of highly sensitive information”. Nor would Judge have expected the claimant to pump the email to friendly journalists, tape his officials …and so forth.
That is very strong writing from O’Sullivan. You can feel the enmity.
Sit for a moment in the seats of the two ACC officials who were deputed to meet Pullar last December. When Boag opened the meeting by dropping her bombshell, of course it would be seen as an implicit threat. Why do it otherwise?
Exactly. The threat was implicit, it may have been unsaid as the sneaky recordings show, but the threat was there, else why even mention it?
The ACC managers should have stopped the meeting at that point and immediately informed CEO Ralph Stewart of the massive privacy breach. That they didn’t do this attests to obvious pressure they must have been feeling when they knew a board member was the catalyst for the meeting. But it’s too late for the “what might have beens”.
And that presure came from McCliskie who was one of Pullar’s former bosses…he is now gone, but Fran O’Sullivan notes:
But the scandal over the privacy breaches has yet to be lanced.
It won’t be long before McCliskie – who is one of Pullar’s former bosses, also comes under pressure to leave the ACC board. McCliskie was the ACC director who she asked to intervene on her behalf.
By Judith Collins now ditching McCliskie, the boil is oozing puss everywhere. Unf0ortunately the CEO has also gone from ACC, but Fran O’Sullivan couldn’t have known that when she wrote her article yesterday.
I find it strange that TV3 and the Dominion Post/Phil Kitchin seem to have a different view on events than almost every other journalist including Fran O’Sullivan.
