Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: What real employer would do what the Ministry of Justice did?
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If you haven't yet caught up on the drama involving the former Lotto presenter and the gold-bar smuggling operation, you need to hear this because it basically involves your taxpayer money.
The chap's name is Russell Harrison. You might remember him from the Lotto draws. He went on to a job at the Ministry of Justice as a Kaiārahi, a Family Court navigator.
He took the job in June 2021 and later that same month he was charged with money laundering after meeting a man in an Auckland cemetery, where the man handed him $420,000 in cash. We now know that money was the proceeds of drug offending, although frankly, you could probably have guessed that at the time.
He then went to New Zealand Gold Merchants and bought six gold bullion bars. Ten days later, he flew to Turkey to deliver them to the head of the Comancheros.
When he was charged — bearing in mind he'd been in the job for less than a month — had he even turned up to work 20 times? I don't know. But when he was charged, the Ministry of Justice stood him down from his job and kept paying him his full salary for five years, right up until two weeks ago when he pleaded guilty.
If you look at the salary range for that role, he may have received as much as $564,000 of taxpayers' money while sitting at home and drawing out the court process, all the while collecting an income.
Everybody I've spoken to, including an employment lawyer, says this guy should have lost his job within months. The employer could reasonably have given him a few weeks but by the two- or three-month mark they should have sat down and sorted this out.
An employer does not have to wait for the courts to find somebody like this guilty. They can conduct their own independent investigation and determine for themselves whether dismissal is justified based on the available evidence and, for example, the likelihood that the employee has committed the alleged offences.
We don't know why the Ministry of Justice didn't do this because they're not talking about it. Instead, all we know is that they took an approach we are beginning to see repeatedly across the public sector: not really having much regard for the fact that this is absolutely taking the mickey out of the taxpayer.
They simply kept spending the money on him for five long years.
Now, hands up: which employer in the real world would keep you on full pay for five years after you're charged with helping the Comancheros?
Answer: no one.
Actually, disclaimer: the public service. But that's not the real world.
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