Casey Costello said officials were undermining the government’s harm reduction approach to reducing smoking rates in response to criticism over the quality of information she provided to justify cutting taxes on heated tobacco products.
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

Civil servants have complained of a “chilling effect” on democracy after Associate Health Minister Casey Costello accused health officials of undermining her efforts.

It comes after Health Minister Shane Reti joined Costello and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on Tuesday morning in questioning the professionalism of ministry staff.

Ministry emails, revealed by 1News On Monday, a senior adviser criticized the quality of information provided by Costello to justify cutting taxes on heated tobacco products.

The employee wrote: “It’s not so much that all studies are crap… (but that they are) selective… not up to date… and do not represent current evidence.”

In response, Costello said the emails showed: “once again, officials are undermining the government’s harm reduction approach to reducing smoking rates.”

“I spoke to the Director-General about the importance of maintaining public sector standards of integrity and political neutrality,” she said.

A ministry spokesperson told RNZ that director-general Diana Sarfati later apologized to Costello for “the unprofessional nature of the comments” and did not represent an official ministry position.

PSA and Labor respond to minister’s criticism

Civil Service Association national secretary Kerry Davies said Costello’s remarks were outrageous and “unacceptable in our democratic system”.

“Officials are there to give robust advice so that ministers can carefully weigh all the evidence and make good decisions,” Davies said in a statement.

“In this case, the official responsible for this matter was simply doing the job that taxpayers expected of her. She was pointing out flaws in the evidence provided by the minister herself to justify a $200 million tax break for tobacco companies.”

Davies said the PSA would make a formal complaint to the new Civil Service Commissioner, fearing the minister’s attack would have “a chilling effect”.

“Here we have an inexperienced minister who is bullying civil servants because she is simply not satisfied with their advice,” she said. “How is this good for our democracy?”

Speaking to reporters in Parliament, Labor health spokeswoman Ayesha Verrall said the official’s actions did not warrant an apology.

She pointed out that the health advisor had backed up his analysis with ample evidence: “Since when did it become wrong, in internal emails, to call something crap, crap?

Verrall said Costello should not be surprised by the scrutiny of her actions given that she was overturning “decades of public health consensus” about the harms of tobacco.

Costello: ‘It wasn’t all shit’

Speaking to reporters in Parliament on Tuesday afternoon, Costello described some of the department’s work on tobacco reform, including the latest correspondence, as “useless”.

“It was just revisiting things that didn’t need to be revisited,” she said.

“This process has been difficult. As you have seen, documents have been leaked. Apologies have been made numerous times.”

Costello disputed the characterization of the information she provided – “it wasn’t all crap” – and said the PSA and Labor had misunderstood the issue.

“If there hadn’t been a problem, the general manager would not have apologized. She admitted there was a problem.”

Costello said she saw the apology as “the end of the matter” and praised the “fantastic people” on the front lines working to help people quit smoking.

The Minister of Health and the Prime Minister are also not impressed with the ministry

Also speaking in Parliament, Reti said he understood Costello’s frustrations. He said civil servants must demonstrate appropriate “coolness” and support collective decision-making.

“You just have to wonder if that (language) was professional,” Reti said.

“Free and frank advice is what you expect from your officials, I don’t agree with that, but there are professional ways of conveying this information. »

Reti said the Director-General had reassured him that she was ensuring appropriate policies and procedures were in place.

Separately, Luxon said Costello had legitimate questions about the department’s conduct and highlighted their failure to inform Costello of a conflict of interest.

“They have been unacceptable, totally unacceptable,” Luxon said.

Last month, New Zealand’s first leader, Winston Peters, identified another health official working on tobacco reform as Verrall’s sister-in-law and claimed Costello was never informed of the conflict.

In response, the department defended its employee, saying she followed all the correct rules, but the department failed to convey them.

In this case, Labor also criticized Peters for naming and attacking a civil servant who could not defend herself and had done nothing wrong.

Responding to the allegations in person for the first time on Tuesday, Verrall categorically denied that her sister-in-law had ever disclosed anything to her: “Absolutely not, she is completely professional.”