P.S.A. Remarks ‘Improper’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31071, 28 May 1966, Page 1

P.S.A. Remarks ‘Improper’

(Neto Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, May 27.

The Minister of State Services (Mr Holyoake) would be asked to consider whether any action was required to deal with the circumstances of public servants making contentious public statements about Government expenditures, the Minister of Finance (Mr Lake) said today.

Mr Lake said he was con-! corned about a reported statement by the president of the Public Service Association (Mr W. E. B. Tucker)

that ‘‘as Government employees we have some authority for saying that Govern-

ment expenditure is already

pruned to a degree that may be excessive.”

Mr Lake said that he was asking the Secretary of the Treasury to make a full investigation of the evidence, if any, on which this claim was based.

“It is clear that such a charge amounts to an imputation that Government policies

are not being given full and proper effect because of excessive financial stringency,” Mr Lake said. “As tar as 1 am aware this is not so.”

The Minister said that he could not accept such a charge. Nor could he accept that

public servants had the right to make such an allegation

in public. “If in the unlikely event that a public servant came into the possession of evidence w'hich would support such a claim his first duty

would be to report the matter to the head of his department,” said Mr Lake. The use of such information to mount a public attack on the Government would be a quite improper use of departmental information obtained in the course of employment. “I realise that statements by the executive of the Public Service Association on all kinds of non-Public Service subjects ranging from bomb tests to the price of beer usually have a predictable political content but little of substance which calls for a reply. I “However, the part of the recent statement to which 1

take exception is in a quite different category and in the public interest I feel obliged to ensure that this matter is carefully investigated,” said Mr Lake.