Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield has responded to criticism of Ministry of Health workers appearing in a Labour Party video, saying staff were "thrilled" to see Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Labour took down a video on Sunday posted to its social media pages after being accused of politicising the public service because it featured a three-second appearance from Dr Bloomfield and other Ministry of Health workers.
ACT leader David Seymour argued it was "unacceptable for campaign videos to be filmed inside the Ministry of Health featuring public servants" and said Labour should "know better than abusing its privileged position" of having access to Government resources.
The video showed Ardern visiting an Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) facility and the Ministry of Health's national contact tracing centre on Thursday, and Dr Bloomfield said on Monday staff were stoked to meet her.
"What did happen was the Prime Minister wanted to come and visit the ministry to visit our instant management team and our contact tracing team and to be shown the national contact tracing solution, and we facilitated that visit," Dr Bloomfield said.
"There were a number of photos taken and some footage taken throughout that and I myself took a number of photos for staff members who were thrilled to see the Prime Minister and have the opportunity."
Dr Bloomfield said he only found out about Labour's video once it was up.
"I don't have any further comment on the story that arose over the weekend," he said. "The ad went up and that was commented on. It's now gone down or the footage has come down."
The right-wing Taxpayers' Union described the video on Sunday as "an election campaign" ad which had to be investigated by the State Services Commission.
National Party deputy leader Gerry Brownlee said on Monday State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes has been alerted to the video.
"It was completely inappropriate and I'm sure the commissioner will be reinforcing that view," he told Magic Talk.
"He's told us today that he's going to have a look at what happened and why and he'll make sure that all of the people who work for the state do recognise and do behave in a politically-neutral fashion that they're supposed to."
Brownlee said the video was not acceptable because if it was, "then we'd all be given a time which we could turn up and have a look at those things, but that's not possible at the moment".
Brownlee added, "I've got to be clear, I think the state servants who were used in that video would not have in any way colluded for that purpose. I think they didn't know what it was being used for."
Labour said it believed the video was within the rules, as it had no party branding on it.
"The video is an update on the Government's COVID response and specifically the work ESR and the national contract tracing team has been doing," a spokesperson told NZME.
However, the video was taken down for re-editing, "to remove any concern over public servants being shown".
Seymour said Dr Bloomfield's appearance in the video was "the hallmark of a one party state".
Dr Bloomfield has become a household name this year, fronting the Ministry of Health's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and often appearing alongside Ardern at the regular media briefings.
