Kerre Woodham: What will it take for public servants to be held accountable?

What will it take for public servants to be held accountable for their most egregious mistakes? Not even talking the little faffy silly ones. We're talking really, really big mistakes. Never was a group of people more misnamed than public servants. The current generation are not servants of the public, for the most part – many of them appear to have absolute contempt for the public they are supposed to serve.  

The latest and perhaps the most salutary is the MBIE boss Nick Blakeley. The Privileges Committee has found that Blakeley and former Immigration New Zealand head Alison McDonald deliberately misled, what you and I might call lying, deliberately misled Parliament. And the Privileges Committee said their conduct was an insult to the public service. That is damning. The reason why, in a select committee hearing back in March, Blakeley and McDonald were asked about the progress of an expensive biometric upgrade program, and they failed to disclose that the project had already been cancelled. When the truth was revealed that the people responsible for the failed program had just kept going, just kept taking taxpayers' dollars knowing that the money was going to be wasted, when asked direct questions about it, they lied.  

Immigration Minister Erica Stanford was quite rightly apoplectic. Blakeley has offered his resignation to Public Service Commissioner Brian Roche, who rejected it on the basis that Blakeley had only been in the role six weeks. Yeah, but he lied, and so did Alison McDonald. And despite Blakeley uttering weasel words on Heather du Plessis Allan's show last night, explaining just how the lie came about, he should have been sacked. 

NB: The committee found that the incomplete information that we provided amounted to a contempt of Parliament, to deliberately misleading Parliament. That's extremely serious and I'm deeply disappointed that the ministry and myself have fallen well short of expectations. At the time, there were budget and commercial sensitivities that we understood couldn't be discussed in a public forum. We got that wrong, we should have taken a different approach. That's what I said to the Privileges Committee when I gave them evidence. 

HDPA: So you went to Brian Roche, and you said that you're prepared to quit, and he said don't? 

NB: I offered my resignation. He came to his judgment. He pointed out one of the factors. 

HDPA: What was his judgment, Nick? Did he say don't quit? 

NB: One of the factors that he took into account was that I hadn't long been in the role. That was also noted in the Privileges Committee. 

HDPA: Who cares? You're the one sitting there fibbing. That's the most important thing. Nick, did he say to you don't quit? 

NB: He said he thought that would be the wrong response and that he will be holding me account for how I respond and that is what I'm focused on doing now. 

HDPA: Yeah, well, that's disappointing. I think you should have quit because how are we going to know next time that you're telling the truth or just giving us a Nick special? 

NB: Look, I have accepted the finding, I've apologised, I'm fronting up and I'm going to be fixing it. We're going to be much better prepared in future for select committees. 

God, I love my colleague. While I do believe that nothing short of a public flogging in the town square will begin to drive the message home to public servants that they need to be more accountable, more responsible, more careful in how they spend our money, more like the private sector and taking ownership for snafus, until the public floggings begin, a good grilling from Heather du Plessis Allan will do as a good down payment. No wonder she's the broadcaster of the year, second year running. A "Nick Special" may well enter the lexicon as a euphemism for a lie.  

We think 'Gliding On' and 'Yes Minister' are clever, funny comedies from yesteryear, but public service incompetence, public service lies, public service cover ups, public service treating ministers like children, it's alive and well. And when it involves the wasting of so much taxpayer money, when it involves complete and utter contempt of Parliament, nothing my Minister needs to worry her pretty little head about, I'll deal with this, throwing good money after bad so your own incompetence is not exposed, when you're asked directly about it, you lie, when it involves bringing the good hard working members of the public service into disrepute, there is nothing bloody funny about it.