Dear Minister,

I acknowledge your letter regarding the EPA and the

concerns the Public Service Commissioner has raised

with you about why he believes my recent LinkedIn

post breached the Code of Conduct for Crown Entity

Board Members (Code).

May I first apologise for any difficulty which the issues

you cover in the letter may have caused for yourself as

Minister or for the Government. That is not and never

has been my intent.

I enjoy and respect the role which I have as Chair of the

EPA (and the relationship I have with you). I am fully

engaged with EPA’s work with the staff and board. I

consider and I believe it is widely accepted that given

its resources and scope, the EPA delivers a valuable and

efficient environmental regulatory service to the

people of New Zealand.

This is, I believe, the first and only instance where you

have had cause to raise with me issues of this nature.

That distinguishes this instance from the matters

considered by the Minister of Health (where Minister

Verrall was of the view that on a couple of previous

occasions, matters about my public commentary had

been raised with me). Nor are the activities of the EPA

and its structure matters of political controversy in

themselves.

It is not uncommon for people on Crown entity boards

who are not career public servants to have other

interests and roles. As you are aware, in my role at the

EPA I have addressed such matters in respect to other

directors and always been able to find a pragmatic

solution.

I understand the general direction of, though I have not

had the benefit of being able to review the detail, the

views of the Public Service Commissioner. He has not at

any time discussed those views with me.

Based on my long standing experience as a company

and government agency director (noting that I am a

Chartered Fellow of the Institute of Directors and have

been awarded the CMNZ for services to governance), I

did not believe I breached the Code when I made my

LinkedIn post. Nor was (or is) it my intention to be in

breach.

The Code makes specific provision for the expression of

views by Crown Entity directors in a private capacity. In

such instances the significant constraint on public

commentary relates to not eroding the public’s trust in

the entity. You have not pointed to, nor am I aware of,

any evidence that such erosion of the public’s trust in

the EPA has occurred, or might result from my LinkedIn

comments. It may be that subsequent actions or claims

by other parties have had some impact on your

perception but not on the public and not from my

comments as such.

Notwithstanding my view, I am deeply apologetic for

the position we find ourselves in and it is clear to me

now that there was a difference between the

Commissioner’s interpretation of the Code and mine. I

would like to reassure you that all times I have acted

with the best of intentions, but I now appreciate I will

on occasion need to moderate publicly expressed views

going forward to meet your expectations of how such

public commentary will comply with the Code.

I would therefore like to meet with you to apologise in

person, to establish any protocols or procedures

(around future public commentary by me) which you

may consider necessary, to avoid any future

misunderstanding between us, and to ensure the

public’s trust in the EPA is maintained.

In relation to the second point you raise (on page 2 of

your letter), that my comments in the media this week,

somehow means that I misunderstand the

“constraints” I am under in terms of the Code, I do now

accept we have had some differences of

interpretation. The reason for my latest media

comments was because significant media attention

arose from the Minister of Health’s media release on 28

February (which stated that I had been removed from

my role of Chair of Te Whatu Ora). I have been

inundated with media queries as a result, and I

believed I needed to explain why I made the LinkedIn

post in my private capacity and how I genuinely did not

believe it would erode the public’s confidence in Te

Whatu Ora.
However, in light of your comments about what you

think is my ‘misunderstanding’ of the constraints I am

under, I would very much like to meet with you to

clarify matters (particularly as this is the first time such

an issue has arisen between you and me) and to ensure

you can have confidence in me as Chair going forward. I

am very happy to work with you on processes for my

public commentary going forward and to discuss any

commitments I could give you, to ensure we are never

in this position again.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Ngā mihi

Rob