Letter to the editor: response to Katherine Rich

[...]the assertion that "both the State Services Commission and the Office of the Auditor-General found there was no basis to the conflict of interest allegation that had been made by professors Connor and Sellman at the time" is incorrect on at least two counts. The request for investigation was not made by professors Connor and Sellman, but by a group of 34 senior population health researchers and practitioners, 33 of whom had first written to then Prime Minister John Key about their concerns, as reported in the media at the time.4 More importantly, the State Services Commission (SSC) did not find there was "no basis" to the concerns raised about conflict of interest. [...]there was no substantial investigation carried out and no judgment that the concerns were baseless, but the OAG letter (which is available online5) did make it clear that New Zealand law provides few safeguards to protect policymaking from commercial conflicts of interest.