Defence Of Public Servants’ Ability

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29766, 8 March 1962, Page 16

Defence Of Public Servants’ Ability

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, March 7. The Public Service Association “ has come to the conclusion that a full public inquiry is necessary” into the Nelson cotton mill agreement “so that departmental files may be brought into the open,” said the association’s general secretary (Mr D. Long) in a statement today. “References by the Minister of Labour (Mr Shand) when speaking at Otematata, to the part played by public servants in the Nelson cotton mill agreement are in effect an attack on their competence and on the competence of the entire Public Service,” said Mr Long. “The Government has available through all its agencies all the information necessary to be fully informed on the issue. What are we to make of a chairman of the Cabinet subcommittee on Government Administration who attacks public servants when he knows quite well that public servants are debarred by their position from giving

full facts on the situation — facts which could show it in a very different light? “The competence of the Public Service has been put so much in issue over this matter that my association has come to the conclusion that a full public inquiry is necessary so that departmental files may be brought into the open and the lips of public servants so far sealed r ay be unsealed. “It appears to have be< i forgotten that a former Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr Holloway) has already accepted full responsibility for the agreement. In this he clearly confirmed the principles and practice which determine the respective roles of and relationship between the Government and its servants.

“Mr Shand, it would seem, is prepared to repudiate the doctrine of ministerial responsibility and make scapegoats of public servants who at all times have been acting according to ministerial instructions.

“The cotton mill agreement is not the only example of this alarming and dangerous trend in ministerial thinking. At the very same Otematata meeting, in fact, Mr Shand involved by implication, Government servants in responsibility for the commencement of the Maraetai II project. This too might well be examined in open inquiry so that the facts may become known and responsibility be put squarely where it belongs,” said Mr Long.