Leaflet ‘attempt to frighten’ P.S.A.

Press, 29 June 1983, Page 4

Leaflet ‘attempt to frighten’ P.S.A.

PA Wellington The Public Service Association yesterday rejected any suggestion that State workers should suppress information that might embarrass a Minister. The P.S.A. statement said that it “surmised” that a recent leaflet from the State Services’ Commission was an attempt to frighten public servants into withholding such information. The leaflet said that unless public servants were loyal to their Ministers there was likely to be pressure from the top to fill public service positions with political appointees. “Any attempt to suggest that to embarrass a Minister is to be disloyal, or that the prevention of Ministerial embarrassment some-

how overrides the legal requirements of the act, must be totally rejected,” the P.S.A. said. The leaflet, drafted by the chairman of the Commission, Dr Mervyn Probine, was timed to coincide with the introduction of the Official Information Act on Friday. The act, the main provisions of which aim to make all official information public unless there is a good reason for withholding it, also details in law some aspects of the relationship between Ministers and State servants. Dr Probine has said he first began thinking about the need for the relationship to be spelt out after a series of “political” leaks from within Government departments.