Comments on: The Right to Rally

By: A public servant’s right to protest « Red Alert

A public servant’s right to protest « Red Alert — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:37:44 +0000

[...] of Labour that staff were not to attend a rally on pay equity held at Parliament.

By: graham lowe

graham lowe — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:35:01 +0000

thank you trevor for admitting that.off all the things in the last 9 years that proberly was the most distastefull .all though i am a tory i am also a father of four daughters.it seemed to me that years of struggle for equality and equal rights for women means nothing when the power of the state was used to crush a young women.i would be upset it the national party did that stuff as well

By: Wayne

Wayne — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:36:43 +0000

You know the Tories are a pack of hypocrites when they call moral equivalence after a years of screaming “corrupt!”

By: Tim Ellis

Tim Ellis — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:22:21 +0000

Mr Mallard, did Jim Anderton resign after he blocked Ms Setchell’s appointment to MAF?

By: Trevor Mallard

Trevor Mallard — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:19:04 +0000

Remember both the Minister and CE resigned following the Setchell affair. She was not well treated.

By: Kaine T

Kaine T — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:10:51 +0000

Interesting question. I think, Grant, that the Department of Labour would say it was protecting staff from a conflict of interest and in that regard, you do have to have some sympathy. The SSC guidelines advise fairly clearly that basically, officials must behave in a manner that would not be detrimental to the work of that particular Ministry.

Whilst I understand and support the idea of Pay Equity, I have some sympathy with DoL in this instance given the nature of its work. However, this is always the question isn’t it… How far can those guidelines be expected to extend. For example, there will be numerous public service staff who support your campaign, and good on them for doing so. It is not defensible to say they cannot, no matter how senior they might be.

But, officials must implement the policy of the government of the day, it is tasked with providing advice without fear or favour, and we know they do. However, when a decision is made, officials must be aligned with that decision or the running of government becomes a difficult task indeed.

I don’t sound particularly supportive here do I.

Political neutrality is a have, it doesn’t exist, the State Sector is a political thing, it is tasked with the implementation of policy of the government of the day, it cannot therefore be neutral. Politicisation happens when political oepratives influence due process, such as the purchase advisor situation Chris Hipkins raised, which wouldn’t have been an issue if they were paid by Ministerial Services.

So, long windedly I think the answer is yes they should be allowed to attend except for where it presents as a professional conflict of interest.

By: graham lowe

graham lowe — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:23:35 +0000

Remember madeline setchell what was her crime she lost her job and was blacklisted from MAF why? thats right her boyfriend worked for national. were you then standing up for that young womens rights then

By: George D

George D — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:16:22 +0000

George, National seemed to grandstand pretty well and it never hurt them.

Measuring yourself by the National Party of 2005-2008 is a pretty low hurdle to pass.

By: Grant

Grant — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:16:06 +0000

good to see this is a matter of interest! First off, lets be clear, if you read the DOL email that was linked in the original post the message is very clear to staff that they should not be at the rally.

I have never pretended that everything was perfect in terms of these sorts of issues under Labour, and I actually said as much in the post.

The essential question remains should public servants have the right to go to a rally on Pay Equity(at lunchtime I might add) or another issue or not?

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:00:12 +0000

Grant I agree with your post as long as the Public Servants remembers who they are serving while on our pay, that is neither Labour or National

@Raymond – The problem is that Labour spent the last nine years massively increasing the size of the civil service and stacking the new appointments with the Labour party faithful of the ultra-Left.

The reason for this is that Labour and their anti-Kiwi coalition partner the Greens knew that they would eventually lose the legislature but wanted to maintain as much control as they could of the executive.

I’m all for letting civil servants protest government policy.. and sacking those that do. It’s a neutrality test.