'BLADDER-POLICE' FLAWED SAYS EXPERT

Air New Zealand's controversial bid to introduce random drug and alcohol
testing for its 10,000 staff drew references at a court hearing yesterday to
"bladder-police" and urine cheating kits.

Australian occupational health expert Dr Ian Gardner told a full bench of
three Employment Court judges in Auckland that drug-testing was an
unreliable measure of impaired performance, and open to cheating by
hard-core abusers.

This included buying "certified drug-free urine" on the internet for
self-insertion through a catheter to fool even the closest inspection.

Testifying for six aviation unions in a major legal challenge, Dr Gardner
said Air NZ's proposal leaned heavily on a punitive model from the United
States rather than genuine health and safety motives.

"The model's origins come out of a moral direction of the Reagan White House
to create a drug-free America - it was seen as a good thing to set the moral
tone."

Dr Gardner was the first witness in a hearing due to last all week, followed
by submissions in December from Business New Zealand, the Council of Trade
Unions and the Privacy Commissioner, whose interest is spurred by the
potential precedent for all workplaces.

Chief Judge Tom Goddard is hearing the case with Judges Graeme Colgan and
Barrie Travis. The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union is heading
the unions' challenge on behalf of about 5000 staff - but not including
pilots.

Dr Gardner refused to accept under cross-examination by airline lawyer
Robert Fardell, QC, that Air New Zealand's focus on drug education for the
good of workplace and aviation safety should mitigate concerns about
disciplinary sanctions.

Dr Gardner, who has worked for IBM and is a consultant to the Australian
Defence Force, said forced referrals to employee assistance schemes were
"not regarded as good industrial or medical practice, and may be unethical".

He wondered how informed, voluntary consent was possible in such cases, and
pointed to a lack of policy detail about the training of the
"bladder-police" who would collect urine samples.

Despite acknowledging the proposed testing technology as "gold-standard", he
said the mere presence of drugs or alcohol was a poor measure of impairment,
and no substitute for effective performance management by both supervisors
and workmates.

There was no evidence of a drug problem at Air New Zealand and he pointed to
an absence of research by ACC into substance abuse as a cause of workplace
accidents.

Dr Gardner conceded a possible case for testing pilots and other workers
such as crane operators if their employers had reasonable cause to suspect
alcohol or drug-related impairment.

But he said alcohol abuse was at least 10 times more likely than drugs to
cause workplace accidents, and criticised a proposed exemption by the
airline for limited liquor consumption for business purposes if approved at
a senior level.

Unions lawyer John Haigh, QC, said Air New Zealand's proposal was "highly
intrusive of some of our most fundamental rights: the right to privacy and
the right to refuse medical treatment".

The case

* Several hundred employers in industries such as forestry and construction,
and including Air NZ, already take urine samples to screen job candidates
for illicit drug use.

* Air NZ wants to extend the practice to random and other forms of drug and
alcohol testing for potentially all 10,000 of its employees, up to the chief
executive.

* Six unions covering half its workforce - including aircraft engineers and
cabin crew, but not pilots - are challenging its plans in a test case in the
Employment Court at Auckland.