More Polynesian bureaucrats wanted

Press, 7 June 1983, Page 9

More Polynesian bureaucrats wanted

( PA Wellington Maoris and Pacific Islanders are grossly underrepresented in the State service, particularly in positions of power, says the Deputy State Services Commissioner, Mr Peter Boag.

“You tend to find them filled by people like me—- — middle-aged, male. Despite efforts to look at things objectively we are doing so through restricted eyes, culturally and sexually,” he told a meeting organised by the Institute of Public Administration.

Mr Boag said Maori and Pacific Island employees made up “barely 5 per cent” of the 87,000 strong public service — regardless of oc-

cupational class — compared with 9 to 10 per cent of the wider New Zealand workforce. Mr Boag said racial relationships was the most vital question facing New Zealand and “time is not on our side.” White New Zealanders had in the past pictured themselves as nice, tolerant, understanding people but tensions were much closer to the surface than they liked to admit and things had never been the same after the overstayers controversy of the mid-19705. He said New Zealand had not developed the sort of State service appropriate to the community of 1983.

However, he did not favour a quota system to increase numbers because this was likely to invite union resistance and irrelevant argument. “Change has to be achieved without backlash from the majority culture.” He said the merit system, on which promotion was based, should be reviewed to see if all appropriate criteria were being taken into account. Too much weight was given to educational qualifications which were not always overwhelmingly important, he said. What was needed was exact definitions of jobs and the attributes required to fill them. He said Government departments were already involved in a scheme which aimed to get well-qualified Maori and Pacific Island school leavers into the public service. This year 230 suitable positions had been approved and over 450 in the two preceding years. While this was a longterm solution, training courses for serving officers were being run at Wellington and Auckland multicultural centres as well as training programmes for majority groups within the service to enable them to achieve positions of power. A report on the running of the public service in a multi-cultural society compiled after" a conference at Waahi Pa in Huntly, was almost completed, he said.