M.O.W. engineers now ‘disillusioned, bitter’

Press, 21 April 1984, Page 8

M.O.W. engineers now ‘disillusioned, bitter’

PA Wellington The two senior Ministry of Works officers who lost a court appeal on Wednesday against their transfer from Dunedin, have good reason to feel disillusioned and bitter, says the Public Service Association. “They know, and so do their colleagues, that they were arbitrarily singled out as the scapegoats for alleged deficiencies over cost estimates for which a number of people were responsible,” said the PS.A. president, Mr Colin Hicks. Last February the State Services Commission transferred the officers, Messrs Russell Bullen and Chris Reid, from Dunedin to the Ministry’s head office in

Wellington. The transfers followed a report alleging inefficiencies in the Ministry of Works’ Dunedin office after a series of cost overruns on irrigation and construction projects. Messrs Bullen and Reid appealed that the transfers were for or in lieu of disciplinary measures and as such were invalid under the State Services Act. But the Chief Justice, Sir Ronald Davison, dismissed the appeal, saying the transfers were for administrative and not disciplinary reasons. He said the Ministry planned to restructure the management of the Dunedin office and the two men were transferred because it was considered that they did not fit into the proposed

system. “It was a case of putting the right persons in the right jobs. They were not demoted. They were transferred to head office at their existing grades and at the same salaries.” Mr Hicks said Sir Ronald’s judgment did nothing to “erase the unfairness of the treatment meted out to Bullen and Reid.” “They and their families must now be uprooted against their will, regardless of other personal costs,” he said. “Whatever the Chief Justice may say to the contrary, Bullen and Reid know the transfers are punitive, that their careers are now in tatters and that their reputation as engineers is damaged,” Mr Hicks said.