Much of my work involves bridging the gap between policymakers and lawmakers. I have studied public policy at postgraduate level, and have worked on a wide range of public policy projects including ACC reform, as a member of the Whistleblowing Review Team (which lead to the passing of the Protected Disclosures Act) , and more recently reviews of the NZ Sports Drug Agency Act, the Alcohol and Drug Addiction Act, and others.
I act as counsel for a number of agencies such as FishServe, which carries out a number of functions under the Fisheries Act 1996, Veterans Affairs NZ, Sport and Recreation NZ and other public and private sector agencies. In this capacity I provide day to day advice on corporate matters, much as an in-house counsel does, and carry out other functions such as briefing and instructing Parliamentary Counsel and the Crown Law Office.
Quite a lot of my work is in the areas of information law, a niche which includes the Privacy Act, and common law tort of privacy, the Official Information Act, and other legislation, regulations and common law rules governing the collection, use and disclosure of official personal and confidential information.
This part of my practice includes training, advocacy, advisory and opinion work, privacy impact assessments, and policy work. My clients have included at one time or another over the last 12 years most government departments, including the Ministry of Justice, the Crown Law Office, and private sector organisations such as banks, insurance companies, telcommunications providers and others.
My interest in this area began in 1990, when I worked as an investigating officer in the Official Information Act team at the Office of the Ombudsmen, investigating decisions to withhold information under the Act. In 1993 I helped the first New Zealand Privacy Commissioner establish his office, and developed training and education materials, and investigation protocols.
I often provide commentary to the media, giving interviews to TV, radio and the press on contemporary issues relating to privacy, and the sometimes conflicting values of privacy freedom of information.
Hopefully I will soon be able to load some of my work in this area to this site. That depends of course on whether clients are comfortable with having the documents here. I will try and keep some current media reports, and public papers like conference papers and the like here for download.
One or two papers I’ve written are already on the web – such as this one, and another on education issues, which has been picked up by the UK Department of Constitutional Affairs.
Privacy Impact assessments of health sector information technology proposals are available here, and speaking notes for a presentation to the 2002 International Symposium on Freedom of Information and Privacy are here.
To see some of the issues I get asked about by media have a look at these stories.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz
http://www.computerworld.co.nz
http://www.stuff.co.nz
http://www.theindian.co.nz
http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz
Over the last ten years or so I have acted for a number of health institutions either in an advisory, or advocacy capacity. These have included public health services, private providers, and organisations such as the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners.
My interest in health law really started in privacy law, looking at the bounds of confidentiality and the mess of legal and ethical obligations. You can read a couple of papers I've written on the topic here .
From 1995 – 1997 I investigated and put together a case for a large number of former patients at the Lake Alice Child and Adolescent unit who alleged that they had been subject of sexual, psychological and medical abuse while held at the unit in the 1970s. That culminated in 2001 in the payment of $6 500 000.00 to close to 100 of those former patients. Further settlements were reached in 2003.
In 1997 I joined the legal team at the Ministry of Health as a senior solicitor and spent 18 months immersed in medico-legal matters from all perspectives, quality assurance and regulation, policy development, funding, governance and monitoring. Since 1999 I have also been a District Inspector for Mental Health.
I provided the legal advice to the New Zealand Cervical Cancer Audit which reported in December 2004. www.moh.govt.nz/cervicalcanceraudit
District inspectors are appointed by the Ministry of Health under the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992. We are all lawyers, and have functions of investigating complaints, conducting enquiries, inspecting mental health services and advising users of mental health services of their rights under the Mental Health Act.
My area of responsibility is the lower part of the North Island . If you have a query, complaint or compliment about compulsory mental health services go to my feedback page. If your complaint is not within my jurisdiction, I will either pass it on to the correct person, or let you know what options you have.
From time to time I am called upon to conduct inquiries and investigations into a variety of matters. I very much enjoy the challenge of this work. It involves getting to the bottom of things and unraveling sometimes inconsistent facts. It is very important to have a fair procedure and a thorough approach, finding the relevant facts, and assessing them against the right legal principles and tests to produce a useful outcome for the client.
These enquiries can range from the quite formal to the relatively low level. Some examples of enquiry process I have conducted include.
- Investigations under section 75, and Commissions of Inquiry conducted under section 95 of the Mental Health Act,
- Whether a government department intentionally or inadvertently mislead a Minister ,
- Allegations of bullying in the workplace,
- Allegations of serious wrongdoing under the Protected Disclosures Act 2000,
- Independent statutory reviews of permitting decisions made under section 329 of the Fisheries Act 1996.
In addition to carrying out my own investigations for clients and under the Mental Health Act, I've also worked for the Ombudsmen, advised on the conduct of investigations for the Privacy Commissioner and have acted as a special adviser to a Parliamentary Select Committee conducting and inquiry.
It's important to keep balance in life, and that goes for a law practice as for anything else. I get a lot of pleasure from other peoples creativity, whether that comes in the form of music, literature, dance, film, theatre or the visual arts. Over the years I have been able to assist a number of artists carry on their craft in a professional manner by helping with contracts, options, rights, and occasionally in resolving disputes. Sometimes I draft or negotiate contracts and sometimes it's just a question of giving advice about what is worth haggling over, and what is not.
If you have a book contract, a film deal, a recording contract, a TV programme idea, I'd be happy to point you in the right direction.
