The PM made 2020 the COVID election but David Seymour claims a Labour Party promotional video showing Ashley Bloomfield at the Ministry of Health is a step too far.
“On Saturday ACT leader David Seymour claimed Ardern was ‘’politicising the public service by making Labour Party campaign videos featuring public servants”.
How can the public have faith that the Ministry of Health will be held accountable for mistakes if its helping Labour with its campaign?’’ Seymour said.
“We need to know whether Ashley Bloomfield agreed to be part of the Labour Party campaign advertisement, or whether Labour is abusing the civil service.”
Under the Electoral Act there is no hard and fast legal opinion on using public servants.
“Wellington lawyer and electoral law expert Graeme Edgeler said there were no laws or ‘’Electoral Act prohibition’’ on videos like this.”
But if there is no issue then why did the Labour Party very quickly remove the video to edit out the offensive section, while claiming no breach of electoral rules?
“A spokeswoman from the Prime Minister’s office said they believed the video was within the rules, and it had no Labour Party branding on it.
But we are taking it down to re-edit, so as to remove any concern over public servants being shown.’’
The first issue then, is if Bloonfield gave permission, he agreed to be included in a Labour Party promotional video. It is illegal to use a known individual’s image without their express permission.
“…if an agency or organisation (with a few exceptions – like the news media) has taken photos where individuals can be identified, under the Privacy Act, they must not disclose or publish that photo unless they’ve got consent or another exception applies.”
Bloomfield’s serious transgression is that he contravened the government Code of Conduct for State Servants. By representing a political party Bloomfield is not displaying impartiality.
“We must maintain the political neutrality required to enable us to work with current and future governments.”
Very poor Mr Bloomfield, very poor indeed. The Labour Party panicked when their fine and upstanding frontperson of the COVID campaign (which is now the Labour Party campaign) and nominee for New Zealander of the Year (along with Mittens the cat and the PM) badly let them down.
This is not the first time Bloomfield showed poor judgement. Under Level 4 lockdown he was caught out not following his own social distancing guidelines.
The PM made this a COVID election and Bloomfield, the public’s golden boy, has turned the COVID election on his head by tarnishing the office and destroying his credibility. If this is simply poor judgement a public apology might suffice but the more serious accusation of using his position to influence the public vote toward Labour in the election deserves Bloomfield’s immediate resignation.
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