John MacDonald: What happened to public service accountability?

Author: John MacDonald,
Publish Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2026, 12:20pm

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MBIE chief executive Nic Blakeley denied he and other officials had misled committee members in March. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Whatever happened to accountability and consequences in the public sector?

They’ve gone, it seems. With no one at the Ministry for Business, Innovation & Employment or Immigration NZ copping it for misleading MPs about throwing $33 million of taxpayer down the drain.

And I’m with this business professor from Victoria University who is saying today that heads need to roll.

What’s happened, is an investigation has found that officials from MBIE and Immigration NZ misled Parliament when they turned up to a select committee hearing in March.

They were asked how things were going with their upgrade to Immigration NZ’s security technology which, they knew full well at the time, had been scrapped months earlier.

They knew it had been scrapped. But they didn’t let on. Even when one of the MPs asked about making sure the project was on track and not turning into another public sector IT disaster.

They could have said: “Err not good news, actually peeps. We pulled the pin on that project a few months back. And we don’t really have anything to show for your $33 mill.”

But they didn’t say that. They fudged it. And that’s putting it politely.

Parliament’s Privileges Committee, which looked into this, says these officials “misled” Parliament. But we know what that really means, don’t we?

Not only was it bad enough that they blew $33 million of taxpayer money with nothing to show for it. Not only was it bad enough that they didn’t tell anyone about it. And not only was it bad enough that they didn’t fess up to MPs when they had the chance.

On top of all that, nothing’s going to be done about it. No consequences.

The committee that did the investigation seems to think that naming and shaming these officials is punishment enough. Which I completely disagree with. I also disagree with the decision by Public Service boss Sir Brian Roche not to accept the offer from MBIE boss Nic Blakeley to resign.

After all this came to light, Blakely said to Sir Brian that he was prepared to be the fall guy. But Sir Brian wouldn’t accept Blakely’s offer to resign.

Why’s that? Because he’d only been in the job five minutes.

So what? Which is exactly what Professor Geoff Plimmer from Victoria University’s School of Business and Government is saying today, as well.

He says what happened was an insult to the entire public service and public servants need to get the message that they can’t get away with this kind of thing. Do they ever.

Which is why I think Sir Brian Roche got it wrong.

It doesn’t matter how long he’s been in the job. Because, as it stands now, no one is copping it. And I can’t accept that.

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