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:11622. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):Thank you Mr Chairperson. It is something I like to be called. I want to start off with not entirely agreeing with Carol Beaumont my colleague whom I am following because I had a period as Minister of State Services and it is fair to say that for a period of time it was relatively frustrating. One of the frustrating things was the “siloisation” of the Public Service. You would have people who were doing exactly the same job from department to department but their conditions were all different. They were all higgledy-piggledy. We used to especially in areas of shortage—in those days we were not firing public servants. We were looking for good policy people and people who wanted to work hard in the implementation areas and there was actually something of a shortage of skills. One of the problems that Dr Cullen used to complain about occasionally to me as the Minister of State Services was that there used to be interdepartmental bidding. You know one department would bid for someone and someone would bid more and they would go back. I think it is fair to say that over a period of time salaries moved in a way that Dr Cullen was uncomfortable with as Minister of Finance.The other point I would like to make to the member is that unfortunately because too many of the chief executives especially in our early days had been appointed in the times of Bill Birch and others they were of the group who were much keener on having individual contracts and much less likely to want to bargain. In fact we had this awful intransigence on the part of many employers some of whom—the chief executives—actively resisted putting salary or wage levels into agreements. The problem was that under the law as Ministers we did not have the power to work towards a set of policies that were enforceable and could properly be implemented.That is why I would say that I—and I am going to sort of maybe admit that if this detail was carefully discussed within our caucus I missed it. But I want to say to my colleagues that in fact actually having Governments that have policies rather than high-level statements and policies that can be enforced in the hands of a good Government is a good thing—in the hands of a good Government. But you then go to the question about whether Parliament should be designing legislation on the assumption that Governments that are going to be using it are always going to be bad. What I want to tell my colleague Carol Beaumont is that good Governments will do good stuff and bad Governments will do bad stuff no matter what the law is. Therefore my view is that even from Opposition what we should be doing is developing the law in the format that we can use properly from November next year or at some point earlier if John Key gets the pip and tosses in the towel.So if members opposite can see division in the ranks over here it is probably true. You know there is a bit of difference of opinion as to approach. I would like to see more multi-employer arrangements within the Public Service and in fact where there are employment categories or employment classes I would like to see common conditions.While we are at it I will really get the frustrations going in saying that I worked for about 18 months trying to get some common leave provisions across the Public Service.Carol Beaumont: How about in collective agreements?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I wanted to get them into collective agreements yes. But you know some of the chief executives at the very thought that a Minister might have an opinion about having particular sets of leave arrangements that are common and that it would not matter if you were working in the Ministry of Social Development orin the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet—I will not mention Treasury because it basically did not have any common conditions. There were no collective agreements within Treasury at all. But even the organisations that had collective agreements shuddered at the very thought that someone might have the same set of leave or sick pay provisions that were the same in one agency and in the one next door where people were doing exactly the same work.There are a number of areas as a Minister I failed in and one of them that I failed miserably in was in my attempt to get a system going where common conditions could be developed for people who were doing very much the same work from agency to agency. The fiefdoms were absolute. The silos were not made of concrete; they were made of reinforced titanium and people could not move. People could not move from one to another.Actually if you are looking at areas like redundancy and things like that sometimes it is by far the best thing for the Public Service overall if a particular individual shifts from one agency to another—slightly better for them but sometimes because of the skills that are required it is better for the Public Service for the individual to shift. But when the conditions are so tight that in shifting from one agency to another the individual loses a whole pile of long service leave arrangements or sick pay or holidays or a number of areas it just does not happen and the Public Service becomes inflexible and staid as a result. So I say to my colleagues that the idea of having more than just common statements having policies that are actually implemented is something that I think is desirable.Carol Beaumont: Not instead of collective bargaining though.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well the member says not instead of collective bargaining. Actually it should be the employer’s position for the collective bargaining. My view is that the best advocate for common positions across the Public Service is in fact the Public Service Association. In fact it was the one with the most interest in having a Public Service that was relevant and flexible and people were employed.The problem with the approach that happened under Birch and is happening now—who is that cigar-smoking Minister? What is his name?Dr David Clark: Mr Coleman.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Coleman.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Jonathan.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman or Dr the Hon—which way? He is the one who gets on so well in the corporate boxes. The problem is that there are a number of departments where people are leaving and coming back as contractors. They are getting sometimes quite a handsome redundancy arrangement and coming back weeks later sometimes working only 3 days a week but for double the money. That is something that is outrageous and it is something that we have to work against. [Interruption ] Well this bill does not address it properly and it is a gap in the amendments that we are currently deliberating.The other question that I would like to ask the Minister of State Services—and I am not going to refer to the absence of the Minister but I will refer to the fact that the Minister of Labour who is in the chair might be familiar with the legislation and I am sure he is capable of reading the briefing notes that come up. What I would like to ask is what the implications of this bill are for the State Services Commissioner if in fact the State Services Commissioner is going to be used as the recruiting agent by the Prime Minister for the new Commissioner of Police. Are there any changes as a result?One of the early problems that we had when we were in Government was a man called Doone. There was a rapid appointment of a successor but that also highlighted for a number of Ministers that the recruitment process was just completely undefined. Itwas just up in the air; there was nothing. I would like to know whether there is something here because we have a very serious problem coming up. The heir presumptive for the position of the Commissioner of Police is someone who has very recently shown excessively bad judgment someone who has told the—