The leaking of confidential government documents to media can be valid – and vital. But when leaks become torrential, they can do real damage.

When a Cabinet paper about foreign housing investors became at least the fifth major document to be leaked since Christopher Luxon took office, Kieran McAnulty saw an opportunity for a gag. “I walk my greyhound twice a day and she has less leaks than this government,” Labour’s housing spokesperson told Newshub – leaving thousands of viewers to add a mental “boom – tish”, while others fumed about the death of the distinction between “less” and “fewer”. 

This is, however, a serious issue. As Newshub’s Jenna Lynch pointed out, leaks of Cabinet papers – highly sensitive proposals being placed in front of the nation’s ultimate decision-makers – have generally been “incredibly rare”. But alongside the foreign housing paper, this government has already seen the leaking of David Seymour’s proposed Treaty “principles” and advice about the repeal of Fair Pay Agreements, among other documents.

Is it wise for public servants – by far the most likely culprits in each case – to act in this way? As a journalist, I know leaks can be vital – and valid. Time and again, politicians and state bodies embark on morally dubious courses of action. And it is not always realistic to expect public servants to resolve issues internally. Confronting one’s superiors is often, as the phrase has it, a career-limiting move. And sometimes principled objections are simply brushed aside.

Leaking assumes particular importance in contentious cases where there is no prospect of timely disclosure of the relevant information. Take Guyon Espiner’s revelation that associate health minister Casey Costello had asked for advice on freezing tobacco taxes, a story based on documents RNZ had “seen” thanks to persons unknown. Because Official Information Act (OIA) requests for policies under active consideration are almost always refused, it is hard to see how else this information could have been made public. 

But given the extraordinary nature of the story – a health minister advocating policies likely to damage health – disclosure was clearly in the public interest. The story revealed a senior minister repeating corporate propaganda about cigarette companies being “on their knees” and nicotine posing no greater problem than caffeine. It exposed the fact that misleading the public is not, under this government, a sackable offence. And it may have helped strengthen Luxon’s resolve not to freeze tobacco excise. (In her defence, Costello did ultimately recommend a continued increase, at least for this year.)

But not all leaks are so valuable. The leaked advice that repealing Fair Pay Agreements would harm vulnerable workers was, frankly, unsurprising: anyone paying attention already knew those were precisely the people the agreements were designed to help. And the documents were likely to emerge eventually. Since the government was never going to abandon the repeal, the leak served no purpose.

Indeed it could, as part of a wider trend, cause real damage. Of course confidential documents emerge under all administrations; in opposition, National’s Nicola Willis got wind of Labour’s plan to remove GST from fruit and vegetables and – to a more limited extent – the Treasury’s research into wealth taxes. But the leaks are now starting to become torrential.

Ever since the National-led coalition won power, rightwing commentators have been warning of a conspiracy by public servants – sometimes in cahoots with the “leftwing” media – to obstruct Luxon’s plans. Commentators have even begun talking about “the Blob”, a conspiracy theory borrowed from Britain’s Tories, who conjure feverish images of an amorphous network of public servants and journalists blocking their every move.

There is little truth to this, here as elsewhere. Public agencies can, and do, abuse their control over information to “go slow” on ministerial projects – but they are just as likely to do this to leftwing politicians as rightwing ones. The New Zealand Transport Agency under Julie Anne Genter is, reportedly, one of the totemic examples.

If unjustified leaks continue, though, the conspiracy theories will take on the sheen of truth. And the consequences of diminished ministerial trust in the public service could be severe. 

This government already has a low-level dislike, sometimes veering into contempt, for public servants. (If you don’t believe me, just listen to Chris Bishop on the subject of Kāinga Ora officials.) Should ministers start to feel, with some justification, that they cannot trust public servants with confidential information, they will hold their plans and information ever-tighter, diminishing scrutiny and leading to more sub-par policies. Or they may seek counsel elsewhere, effectively privatising advice. An oppositional relationship with civil servants will be cemented, leading to further moves to diminish the public service and bulldoze through policies against agencies’ advice.

A public-sector leak should be a last resort, employed only when it is absolutely justifiable in ethical terms and there is no other prospect of the information becoming public. Most Cabinet papers, after all, are released once they have been approved and have thus made the shift from proposal into firm policy. (In very few countries does this happen, incidentally.) In the same way, many documents eventually fall under the ambit of the OIA. Which opens up the safe, time-honoured and legitimate method of getting state information into the public domain: quietly telling a journalist which documents to request.