Groser Tim: General Debate 
Groser Tim: General Debate 
[Volume:640;Page:10700] 
TIM GROSER (National) 
: 
 It has not been a stellar moment in New Zealand politics in the last couple of weeks because actions by this Government have called into question two issues—two principles—that lie at the heart of political balance in New Zealand. The first issue is the so-called electoral reform legislation and the second is the very poor treatment accorded to Madeline Setchell which raises the issue about the political neutrality of the Public Service and that is what I wish to concentrate on. 
In the history of the democratic politics of our kind issues of principle are not fought out in a seminar and they are not fought out academically; they are always fought out over a very specific issue. Anyone even remotely familiar with the history of this Parliament and its antecedents knows that to be the case. That is why this case of Madeline Setchell deserves very considerable thought by people who are interested in the future of the political process in this country. 
I sometimes wonder whether people realise how unusual the matter of political balance in New Zealand really is. It rests to a very very large extent on convention or to find another way of putting it on common decency. We do not have a written constitution in the sense of having a consolidated single document to constrain the executive. We do not have an executive separated from the Parliament as in the case of the United States. We do not have a bicameral Parliament to act as a check on the untrammelled power of the executive. 
Most times our system works pretty well but it rests to an unusual extent on convention or common decency. One of the principles at the core of that convention is indeed the political neutrality of our Public Service. Yes one can see the political tentacles reach down into the Civil Service of the United States and many other administrations precisely because they have other elements in their constitution to restrain the power of the executive. But in New Zealand we rest to a very large extent on convention and decency. And this case has compromised one of those elements. 
I have spent 30 years in the Public Service and I am very proud of the New Zealand Public Service. I believe that it is corrupt in the least possible sense of any Public Service that I have ever come across. Is it excellent? In my view it is patchy. It is excellent in parts and mediocre in other parts. But is it politically neutral? In the experience that I have had it is incredibly politically neutral. 
I know a huge number of the senior public servants in this country understandably. Anyone who has worked for 30 years in the Public Service—in Treasury in foreign affairs in the Prime Minister’s department and in the old Department of Trade and Industry—would be in the same position. I know four chief executive officers extremely well on a personal basis. These are people I have worked with for 30 years in some cases. These are people with whom I have had thousands of hours of conversations. 
I tell the House that however difficult it may be to believe for people in the Labour Party who claw their way into the institution by an obsession with partisan politics I have no idea—absolutely no idea—what the chief executive officer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade does when he goes into the ballot box what the head of the Prime Minister’s department thinks when he goes into the ballot box what the heads of the divisions of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry think when they cast their votes or what the Secretary to the Treasury does when he casts his vote. I have not got a clue and the reason I have not got a clue is that in all the hundreds of hours that we have had discussions on every conceivable subject we never ever discuss this. It is absolutely a private matter and that is the reason that I have no idea about the personal and political preferences of senior advisers. I think that is a magnificent thing that we should cherish in this country because it lies at the heart of political balance. 
If the Prime Minister thinks this issue has just gone away by casting a few red herrings on the waters I think she will find to her cost that it is very much a live issue.