It took no great insight to suppose that the main casualties of the report by the Office of the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor debunking the "meth contamination" hysteria would be the companies who for years made a profitable business out of testing buildings for "contamination". Well, it seems one of them is fighting back.
Miles Stratford is the founder of MethSolutions and, via his assiduous cultivation of unwary journalists, effectively the the face of the industry. This month, via the fyi.org.nz website, Miles made five Official Information Act requests related to to the report. Two of the five name me.
There's this one, headed Expert opinion on methamphetamine and addressed to the Minister of Employment, Willie Jackson:
Dear Willie Jackson,
Copies of written correspondence, meeting Minutes and participant notes relating to methamphetamine that have been held/exchanged with Russell Brown
Yours faithfully,
Miles Stratford
And this one, headed Communications regarding methamphetamine and addressed to the office of the Science Advisor:
Dear Office of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor,
Please supply the following information under the Official Information act:
Copies of written correspondence, meeting Minutes and participant notes between Anne Bardsley and the PMs Chief Scientific Advisor relating to methamphetamine.
Copies of written correspondence, meeting Minutes and participant notes between Anne Bardsley and/or the PMs Chief Scientific Advisor that have taken place with Phil Twyford relating to methamphetamine.
Copies of written correspondence, meeting Minutes and participant notes between Anne Bardsley and/or the PMs Chief Scientific Advisor that have taken place with the NZ Drug Foundation and/or Ross Bell CEO of the NZ Drug Foundation relating to methamphetamine
Copies of written correspondence, meeting Minutes and participant notes between Anne Bardsley and/or the PMs Chief Scientific Advisor that have taken place with Russell Brown, author of this article https://publicaddress.net/hardnews/we-ar...
Copies of written correspondence, meeting Minutes and participant notes between Anne Bardsley and/or the PMs Chief Scientific Advisor that have taken place with Dr. Nick Kim relating to methamphetamine
Yours faithfully,
Miles Stratford
Let me say here and now that I heartily support Miles' use of the OIA. And I welcome his inquiry as to my meetings, correspondence and other communications with both Willie Jackson and the OPMCSA and the report's co-author Anne Bardsley. Not least because there aren't any. (Although I would be flattered to think they read my reporting and commentary on the topic.)
The other three requests are this one to the OPMCSA, fishing for something in the report authors' communications with "overseas jurisdictions", another one to the same office which is a list of mostly silly questions, and this one to the Prime Minister, seeking communications between her office and Ross Bell, the executive director of the New Zealand Drug Foundation. (I have no idea whether there have been any such communications, but if there are I rather doubt that Ross has said anything that he hasn't said loudly and probably more rudely in public.)
Nonetheless, I wish Miles well with his use of this important democratic tool. And I wish him no luck whatsoever in seeking to operate his business in the objectionable and exploitative manner he has done in recent years.
PS: Thanks very much to Elise Alexandra for her tip about the requests.