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State Services Commissioner ‘unfit for the job’ says Little

State Services Commissioner ‘unfit for the job’ says Little

The new Labour leader Andrew Little has called for the State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie to be stood down after his handling of the Roger Sutton sexual harassment case.

"The idea of calling a press conference so he can give his version of events, that sounds to me more like a State Services Commissioner in the form of Iain Rennie taking leave of his senses and being unfit for the job," Mr Little told TV One’s Q+A programme.

Mr Little told Q+A Mr Rennie must be an investigated in terms of ‘his fitness to hold that job.’

“What Iain Rennie did in allowing the press conference to go ahead, and you know cheered on by the Head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, John Key's Senior Public Servant who looks after him, that was just such a departure from the standards that we ought to expect of those whose job it is to maintain standards in the Public Service. I think now we're entitled to conclude that Iain Rennie is unfit for the job, and there's got to be now an investigation into his fitness to hold that job,” he says.

When asked about the Roast Busters case Mr Little told Q+A, he was, “..very concerned actually about this growing tendency for the way prosecutorial discretion is exercised by the Police, it seems to be much more conservative. Once upon a time the Police had a view, particularly with serious offending that is wasn’t their job to be sort of judge, jury and executioner. If there was enough to take a case, enough evidence, give it to the courts and let them decide.”


Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE and one hour later on TV ONE plus 1. Repeated Sunday evening at 11:35pm. Streamed live at www.tvnz.co.nz

Thanks to the support from NZ On Air.

Q+A is on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/NZQandA#!/NZQandA and on Twitter, http://twitter.com/#!/NZQandA







Q + A
Episode 38
ANDREW LITTLE
Interviewed by HEATHER du PLESSIS-ALLAN

SUSAN Andrew Little is Labour's fourth Leader in just six years. His ascent to the top job this week was by the narrowest of margins, thanks largely to Union support for the former EPMU boss. Former Labour Party President he now has the job of rebuilding the part from its historic election night know. Andrew Little is with Heather.

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HEATHER Andrew, congratulations on the job. I'd like to carry on now talking about the Roger Sutton issue. You would have heard Russel Norman Co-Leader of the Greens say the government should get in there and clean it up. What's your take on that?

ANDREW Look I think it's more serious than just getting there and cleaning it up. I think what we saw last week was holding a press conference for a senior public servant about whom serious allegations had been made and against whom a finding of serious misconduct had been made. The idea of calling a press conference so he can give his version of events, that sounds to me more like a State Services Commissioner in the form of Iain Rennie taking leave of his senses and being unfit for the job. I think we're at the point now with all the information that’s now coming out, particularly that he had advice that he shouldn’t have done that, he's got to now be stood down, whether it's Paula Bennett or John Key, and there's got to be an inquiry or an investigation into how it is he came to that sort of judgement, because that is such a huge departure from the sort of standards that he's meant to be upholding as State Services Commissioner.

HEATHER That is a big call to make. Why are you making that call?

ANDREW Because actually for the reasons that Russel talked about. Public Servants who make complaints or have allegations against their bosses, Senior Public Servants, have got to know that there's going to be integrity in the process, that there will be an investigation, and if there is a conclusion that says that yes there's serious misconduct, that it's going to be managed in a professional way and a proper way, not in a way that it in fact ends up alienating the people who have complained, and whose complaints clearly have been upheld. What Iain Rennie did in allowing the press conference to go ahead, and you know cheered on by the Head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, John Key's Senior Public Servant who looks after him, that was just such a departure from the standards that we ought to expect of those whose job it is to maintain standards in the Public Service. I think now we're entitled to conclude that Iain Rennie is unfit for the job, and there's got to be now an investigation into his fitness to hold that job.

HEATHER If Iain Rennie was to agree that he'd made the wrong call here and was to implement changes would that change your mind?

ANDREW Well you know this is such a serious lapse in my view, you know holding a press conference. Everything about this case, the nature of the allegations, I don’t know what the precise detail are, but the fact that a finding of serious misconduct was made, to then think that it's a good idea to hold a press conference with other Senior Public Servants and officials around? That is completely the opposite of what should have happened. You’ve got to deal with the people who've made a complaint, got their issues to deal with and their positions. Listen it was so wrong in every respect, that I think there is something wrong with the guy's decision making capacity, and I think that needs to be examined.

HEATHER I mean you're obviously drawing on your experience as an employment lawyer and a union organiser. Have you ever seen anything like this before?

ANDREW I cannot think of any situation where – and you know senior managers there can be complaints against them, and what typically happens is, if there's a finding about them then you know there's a bit of a process. It might be hushed up a bit and the person is kind of managed out quietly and dignity is preserved on all sides. I don’t have a problem with that. You know I've always said good people can do bad things. When you're dealing with the bad thing you’ve got to do it properly, and people can still be good people after that when they’ve been called to account and made amends and all the rest of it. So no I cannot think of any situation I've ever been involved in where a senior manager involved in a serious allegation finding against them then goes public and is allowed to effectively try to exonerate himself.

HEATHER There's been a lot this week for you to get your teeth stuck into. Have you had a chance to celebrate?

ANDREW No I haven't yet actually, no.

HEATHER Nothing at all?

ANDREW I managed a glass of wine last night with some friends. It has been pretty full on. So ever since I got the job I've been in the office pretty much 10 o'clock each night. There's a lot to do in these early stages, and you know sorting out the allocation of portfolio responsibilities with colleagues. A lot of conversations that we've now all had, and now in the process of putting all that together, that’s today's job. And all the rest of the start-up stuff that you do when you're setting up a new office and new people and getting used to a new team. So listen, it's been pretty intensive. I've got a day booked off next weekend. I think there’ll be a chance to celebrate then.

HEATHER I want to talk about the allocations that you have planned for. First and most importantly tell us about this glass of wine. Where did you have it, at home, out, how many friends?

ANDREW Just with half a dozen friends in Auckland here managed to get some time out, have a nice dinner and had a good chat and a catch-up. But knowing also I had work to do, coming to you this morning I just stuck to one glass of wine, but maybe one or two more next weekend.

HEATHER Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, what makes you laugh?

ANDREW I like jokes that kind of take ..people taking the mickey out of themselves and laughing at life and the absurdity of life. I guess you know I grew up under the influences of Monty Python and Not the Nine O'clock News, and all that sort of stuff. So the really absurd sort of laughing at life sort of stuff, that’s what I like.

HEATHER Are you a religious man?

ANDREW Not particularly. I mean I go to church occasionally, my wife and my son are baptised Catholics, so you know we observe the faith every now and again. I quite like the ritualism of church sometimes, but I'm not deeply religious no.

HEATHER Now you have your own church, it's called the Labour Party. How many houses do you own?

ANDREW One.

HEATHER Oh yeah, that’s alright then. Who are your mates in caucus?

ANDREW Well, I've got mates in caucus, I don’t think they would want me to list their names.

HEATHER Well it's good to know you’ve got some.

ANDREW Yes I have, and probably more than the other four who were prepared to vote for me. I mean there's two things. I spent my first term in parliament just building relationships with everybody in caucus because that’s my nature, and I don’t get into personality politics and who I like and dislike and all the rest of it. When you're in a team like that you’ve got to work with everybody. So I think I've built a pretty good rapport with everybody. And the other thing is before I put my name forward for this role I rang around everybody in caucus, and the person I asked was whether or not I'd be your first choice. If I were to get up would you support me as leader and they all said yes. So I go into this with some confidence that I do have the support of caucus, and indeed the discussions I've had in the last few days about portfolio allocations have been very good, a lot of good will. Of course I haven't made decisions yet. So let's see what happens in the next few days. But I'm very pleased, I'm very confident about the level of good will.

HEATHER So you're making your mind up today about those portfolio allocations, how certain are you? 90%?

ANDREW Substantially the way there, you know there will be some changes at the margins, but a clear picture is now forming.

HEATHER Can you rule out David Parker as Finance?

ANDREW David's made it pretty clear that he doesn’t want to do that.

HEATHER He hasn’t changed his mind?

ANDREW I've had a couple of good conversations with David, he hasn’t changed his mind. David wants to be a solid contributor to the caucus and he will have some responsibilities that will help that, and I know that he wants to assist me to make this work, so we'll have a good role for him to play.

HEATHER What about Deputy, can you rule out Annette King?

ANDREW I'm not ruling out anybody. What I'm saying is – listen what I think people will see when they see the front bench line-up is there is a good new intake of fresh talent of the more recent arrivals. There's a bit of old hand experience because I need that, I've only had one term under my belt. I think people will see a good balance. I've indicated too that I think what will happen is I will guarantee these appointments for one year. I'll do a full formal review at the end of next year. In that way I think people can be tested in roles, I can see how they go for a year or so, and then I will put together my team that will take us into 2017 and beyond.

HEATHER Just drawing on your experience as an employment lawyer do you think that the right call has been made in the Roast Busters case?

ANDREW No, I don’t actually. I'm very concerned actually about this growing tendency for the way prosecutorial discretion is exercised by the Police, it seems to be much more conservative. Once upon a time the Police had a view, particularly with serious offending that is wasn’t their job to be sort of judge, jury and executioner. If there was enough to take a case, enough evidence, give it to the courts and let them decide. Even if there is a not guilty verdict at the end of it. Now it seems to me, and I suspect it's because of the financial pressures that the Police are under, that they are sort of making an almost judicial decision, are we going to win this or not – we don’t want to look like we're losing – or put money into something we might lose, so we won’t prosecute. And I think that’s the wrong thing. I think the more serious the offence they should err on the side of prosecution and let a judge and/or jury decide.

HEATHER You will probably have to work quite closely with the Greens I would imagine. What do you think of them?

ANDREW Listen, I've got good contacts, good relationships with a lot of Green Party members and I look forward to meeting Russel very soon. We've exchanged some communication in the last week or so. I think we all accept that the reality is when we go into government next we are going to have to have coalition partners.

HEATHER Do you have any concerns about them then?

ANDREW They’ve got policies that we don’t agree with, and no doubt we've got policies they don’t agree with, and I think part of the mature relationship we have to have is that we can accept that, and that we can work together.

HEATHER Would you campaign with them? Would you work that closely?

ANDREW I'm not sure we'd campaign with them, but I think the New Zealand electorate now under MMP, is mature enough to want to know who before an election, who our likely coalition partners are, and I think that’s perhaps a mistake we made this time. And I think next time you know we will be much clearer. And obviously we will continue to build our relationship with the Greens over the next three years. But I think people can expect that before 2017 we will indicate to the public who our coalition partners will be, and either whether it's the Greens or New Zealand First or both, what of their policies we don’t accept and we won’t accept, and perhaps some that we do. But we will give a pretty fair signal about how we see a future Labour led government looking.

HEATHER Russel Norman has been listening to this. Let's bring Russel in. Russel are you happy with that answer?

RUSSEL Yeah I mean I think it's just the reality of it. There are areas where we agree and there's plenty of them, but there's some areas where we don’t share common policy, and that’s because we're different political parties. But you know our job is to find a way to work together.

HEATHER Do you think you need to campaign together?

RUSSEL I don’t think we necessarily need to campaign together. I do think what was probably missing this time was you know people needed to have a good sense of what an alternative government would look like. I mean for various reasons, and it wasn't just the Labour Green relationship, but for various reasons I don’t think we were able to do that properly.

HEATHER Andrew when you divvy out your portfolios are you going to take into account that the Greens might want some of them?

ANDREW Well my focus is on the Labour Party my colleagues and the Labour Party caucus, that’s what the priority will be. I should add just in light of what Russel has said. Our moral obligation as a party is to maximise our party vote. We will continue to do that. But we accept the political reality that we're going to have to have coalition partners, so we will look to the Greens, we'll look to New Zealand First. We've got three years to build those relationships and come up with something that looks credible and viable for 2017.

HEATHER Great, thank you both very much, Greens Co-Leader Russel Norman, and brand new Labour Party Leader Andrew Little.


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