Mallard Trevor: State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11706. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I want to thank you Mr Chairperson for giving me another call even if it is slightly before when I thought I was going to have it. I would like to focus in this call back where I completed my previous call and that is on the responsibilities of the State Services Commissioner with regard to the development of senior leadership in the Public Service. I want to reiterate the comment that in my opinion quality leadership in the Public Service is important.In the end despite the interjections from some of my colleagues we are never going to compete for chief executives on the basis of the money that they get. I do not have much doubt that the particular individuals in the private sector could earn more than they do in the public sector and repeated Hays surveys have shown that to be the case. In fact there is a pretty clear hierarchy of incomes in senior positions which goes first private sector; then after that generally State sector organisations other than the Public Service; then the Public Service; then local authority politicians; and then central government.Andrew Little: Community organisations.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well community organisations like Parliament as the member said. But there is a hierarchy that works in that way vis-à-vis the Hays surveys. Therefore when the State Services Commissioner is fulfilling his tasks under this legislation the State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill money is not going to be the main thing that is going to get people across the line into senior Public Service positions.It is worth looking at those two words “public service” because there is a major element of public service involved in this. Although it is my opinion that having loyalty to a particular agency for which you are working at a specific time is important what is more important is that the individuals within the Public Service are in fact loyal to the Public Service overall and to the common good of the Public Service rather than to the particular agency that they are working for at that time.Although some things probably go beyond some of the privacy things that we find acceptable today back in the not too distant past—certainly within my memory—they had a thing called a stud book whereby you could look up people who were employees in the Public Service and you could see when they became public servants. You could see their career history and their particular level of appointment and what their currentsalary was. Apparently we have moved on from that level of transparency. I am not sure why because I think—Andrew Little: They’ve got Novopay now. You can do it on your own.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well the problem with Novopay of course is that people do have the ability to adjust their salaries. Unfortunately the ability to deliver is not particularly good.The point I am attempting to make is that we have to be offering to the people whom we expect to be leaders in the Public Service something that is challenging where they feel that they are doing some things that are extra and that involve basically making New Zealand and making the world a better place. I hate to do it but if I move over slightly to my left and look across the Chamber I can see—Hon David Cunliffe: Move to the left?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: There is not much room on my left politically.Hon David Cunliffe: There’s me. There’s me.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The member is certainly not on my left politically that is for sure. We just need to see the policies he implemented when he was in Government. We will just leave that on one side now. Interjections like that are not helpful Mr Cunliffe. I am actually looking at John Hayes at the moment. I think he is a very good example of someone who was a relatively senior public servant and who in his area of work and especially in the western Pacific made a real difference.John Hayes: And the Middle East.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well I do not know the member’s details. That might have been before my time. I think he managed to get some peace in the western Pacific. I do not know whether he totally succeeded in the Middle East though I understand that his close friend Mr McCully is about to bring peace to the Middle East. I just want to say one thing. I am not going to hold my breath. I am not going to hold my breath for that.Andrew Little: Let him have a go. Let him go over and have a go.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: In fact I think he is there. Well I do not know. He is either there or he is going or he has come back.The point I am making—and I am almost inviting John Hayes to take a call—is to say to him that the difference that he made as a public servant in the world was more important than some marginal cash that there was some degree of job satisfaction that was involved. I can see that he is nodding and it is not through sleep. That is the case for many people who are true public servants. There are a lot of them who could earn significantly more money in a private sector situation.One of the unfortunate things that is happening under the policies of this Government is that as these massive mergers changes and reconfigurations occur people are effectively invited to apply for redundancy—I think they call it “rightsize” now. Back in the day it used to be called firing people. As these ministries are being downsized far too often there is a general invitation to people to take redundancy. Unfortunately often the people who take redundancy are those people who have the skills and talents that are vital to the organisation. They take redundancy and generally it takes about 2 weeks sometimes 6 weeks for the organisation to work out that it has a gap that it is required to fill and what does it do? It contracts the person back in often for 3 days a week often for more than it was paying them before anyway and they have got a redundancy payment as well.Hon Shane Jones: They’re mates of the Government.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well some of them are mates of the Government and some of them are just people who are sick of being treated badly by Ministers and like to have the option of providing the advice which generally goes through senior peoplewithout the indignity of having to attend on Ministers’ offices which I understand in a number of cases is something that is dreaded by public servants. Again I make no reflection on the Minister of Revenue who is currently in the chair.You just have to wander up Lambton Quay often enough and have a number of friends—I have friends whom I have known for 35 40 or 55 years in some cases—and you can just sense this from their body language. They are all proper public servants but you can sense from their body language as they come out of the Beehive when the meetings that they have had have been proper and courteous and professional and when they have been in a meeting with Tony Ryall or some of the other people who are not good Ministers. To be fair to the Minister in the chair the Minister of Revenue I make no reflection on him yet. The only comments that I have had about that Minister are about a total lack of understanding and people are just beginning to understand the issue and questions about where he got the advice—was it joined-up advice to cut puppies up?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I ask the Minister in the chair: has he been applying the rules that sit within this legislation to get the advice that would sacrifice dogs for drug dealers? That is a relatively simple question. We want to stop drugs but where do Ministers these days get such silly advice—