Carter DavidRt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): Madam Chair I wasn't going to take a call but I've become now more concerned after listening to the Minister the Hon Chris Hipkins' attempt to answer some of those questions. My concern is that this legislation risks politicising the public sector. I think I can set the scene first by my own experience as a Minister in 2008 when the Ministry for Primary Industries—or the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry as they were in those days—came into my office. The director-general in those days was Murray Sherwin and he said to me amongst his senior leadership team We were here to serve the wishes of the previous Government. The Government has changed and we are now here to serve the wishes of your Government."—completely apolitical. I think New Zealand is hugely lucky to have such an apolitical State Service whereby their job is to serve the Government of the day.Then we have this legislation before the House and I think we're at risk of actually finding the Government having a role in politicising the State service. I want an absolute assurance that that's not the reason this legislation is before the House today. When you look at clause 4 "Section 117 amended (Employment of chief executive)" you get to the situation where ACC for example wants to employ a new chief executive. The board goes through a recruitment process and makes a decision. It knows the capabilities of the person it is attempting to employ. The board knows the expectations of that new potential chief executive. So it starts discussing an employment package around days off amount of holiday pay and most importantly salary and it comes to an expectation of what might successfully engage that person to become the chief executive of ACC—the sort of process that works with every board in the country whether it be a private board or a Crown entity. But then having finalised that package to the satisfaction of the potential chief executive whoops there's one more important step. They've got to rush off to the State Services Commissioner and get the State Services Commissioner to approve those negotiations.The State Services Commissioner hasn't been involved in those negotiations. He has no idea how capable this new chief executive may be. The only people who know that are the people who did the recruitment process—in other words the board—and if it's a case like ACC the board's actually appointed by the Government. But then you look at what's got to guide the State Services Commissioner and you look at section 117(2AA)(a) (b) (c) (d) and (e) and look at (d) "Government expectations:". That is politicising the Public Service. That's what that does. The Government now steps in and starts to determine whom they want employed as the chief executive of ACC because no longer do we have the independence we used to have with State entities.I think this is very dangerous legislation before this House and I'm just not convinced that the Minister himself has got his head around the issue. The last thing this country wants is to see the situation they have in the United States of America where a Government changes a new president comes in and all the institutional knowledge of the Public Service is effectively thrown out because they're all political appointments. That's where we could potentially head and I just say to the Minister that I hope he's given this real thought as to the danger of this legislation. I'm sure there wasn't an attempt when they introduced the legislation for that to be where it might lead to but I'm concerned it could lead to that.I go back to my opening statements about the way that I first engaged as a new Minister with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry as it was in those days; the way I was absolutely assured at the start that the Public Service was there to do its job in an apolitical manner. If there'd been an election the next day they'd have gone and started delivering the agenda of the next Government that was about to be installed. What we don't want is a Public Sector in this country that is in any way politicised and when you look at the process of appointments of chief executives whereby the responsibility to find a chief executive rests first of all with the board then they've got to get the permission of the State Services Commissioner and then the commissioner has to follow Government expectations we're in trouble."