Committee could be reformed

Press, 11 March 1987, Page 9

Committee could be reformed

By

PETER LUKE

in Wellington Wellington’s regional social impact committee could yet be reconstituted, the Minister of State Services, Mr Rodger, suggested yesterday. Mr Rodger disbanded the committee on Monday, claiming it had neglected its real task and instead produced inflammatory political statements.

State employees who needed help to cope with restructuring would not be affected, however, because the work of social impact liaison staff would continue, he said yesterday.

Instead of reporting to

the committee, they would now report to the Internal Affairs Department. This arrangement would continue “until such a time as the committee is reconstituted or other alternatives considered,” Mr Rodger said.

If the committee was re-formed, one person likely to be missing from it would be the Wellington regional secretary of the Public Service Association, Mr Francis Wevers. It was Mr Wevers who incurred the wrath of Mr Rodger on Monday by publicly criticising the pace of change of corporatisation.

At issue in the dispute between the two are

whether Mr Wevers should have gone public to criticise corporatisation, and what the role of a regional social impact committee is. At least one other member of the Wellington committee has expressed surprise at Mr Wevers’ statement on Monday, and it is likely that Mr Rodger believes that Mr Wevers should have gone to the State Services Commission rather than the news media.

Mr Wevers yesterday rejected an assertion by Mr Rodger that he had confused his two roles — committee member and P.S.A. official. His statement on Mon-

day had been made as a P.S.A. regional secretary, not as a committee member, Mr Wevers said. Mr Wevers also defended the work done by the Wellington committee. He said Mr Rodger had been wrong to suggest that the committee had ignored its task of helping people adjust. Work had been done, but it was also important to identify what mistakes had been made in the current round of corporatisation, he said. If these problems were not recognised, they could crop up again if the Ministry of Works and Development and the Department of Agriculture

and Fisheries were restructured later this year.

“The Government, did not want the public to hear there had been serious problems as a result of the changes that are occurring.” People were being expected to make lifetime decisions in too short a time and with insufficient information, Mr Wevers said.

Many of Mr Wevers’ criticisms were based on a report written for the committee by Mr Paul Swain. A spokesman for the Internal Affairs Department said that the Swain report would not be made available to the public.