The ‘tea tape’ that’s been on the news for the last week or so seems like, if you’ll pardon the analogy, a storm in a teacup.
   PM John Key and Epsom candidate John Banks invited the media to record them chatting, then dismissed them. One cameraman, Bradley Ambrose, left a recorder on the table. From what I can gather, he did so accidentally. I believe him, and this country, the last I looked, believed in a presumption of innocence. Except when it comes to the internet.
   Unfortunately, the PM didn’t see it that way, and because, by his admission, the police have so much time to investigate matters these days, claimed that the recording was illegal. Four media outlets were searched by police over the matter, and over interviews with Mr Ambrose.
   The PM has his right to advance his opinion and I will defend any citizen’s right to do so. However, I’m not that convinced that both Messrs Key and Banks could expect that their conversation took place in private.
   The submission in court yesterday—the time-worn one of the reasonable person’s expectation that they would be overheard—would have got a nod from me, though Winkelmann J. has declined to rule on the matter.
   Both men are public figures, and while we Kiwis are generally very good at giving people the space they need to chat, it’s reasonable to assume portions of the conversation, though not the whole thing, would be overheard by a bystander, with or without a tape recorder.
   I ran for a much smaller office than the PM and for the duration of the campaign—and even a year before it began—I watched myself over what I talked about in public places. I still do. And I didn’t even win.
   When you put yourself out there, sadly, you sacrifice a little of your privacy. The two Johns have put themselves out there for a lot longer, and with a much greater profile, than I ever had.
   During the campaign, one of my advisers warned me that if I were to chat to any opponent, I must do so in private, because you simply never knew who could hear you. That’s for a local body election. You’d reasonably expect the stakes to be higher for a General Election.
   I am reminded of one private conversation from a public figure that took place in Wellington, which was shared with me by a member of the public. He revealed that that public figure was a potty mouth, complaining about a family member. He was, consequently, shocked to notice that such a discussion would take place in a café setting.
   To me, that’s the typical sort of thing you’d reasonably notice of a recognizable public figure.
   It is only reasonable that we would have been interested in what they had to chat about. If we were there, not as a member of the media, the odd key phrase would have caught our attention. If we walked by, we might have been accidentally picked up a bit ourselves.
   The issue, for me, is whether a recording made of the conversation in its entirety is private—but I think back to the Wellington incident where the member of the public overheard the whole thing.
   If it were anyone who had never run for office, then the reasonable expectation is that the conversation was private. But we are talking about two men who have plenty of experience—and who should know that private conversations take place in private forums. You don’t invite the media along, and once things get sensitive, follow the same rule as with uncomfortable public displays of affection: get a room.