As the anti-mandate occupation becomes more like a Western Front stalemate, our Director-General of Health and Police Commissioner look too politicised to survive a change of government, writes Peter Dunne.
Opinion: A constant feature since the establishment of Parliamentary government in New Zealand 170 years ago has been the impartial and professional public service. While governments have come and gone with reasonable frequency in that time, the public service has remained, providing continuity and experience to governments, and contributing to overall political stability.
It is no coincidence that the existence of a strong, professional, and reliable public service has been a major reason why New Zealand has become one of the oldest continuous Parliamentary democracies in the world.
Over the years there have been many reviews of the way the public service operates, and many changes to its core practices and procedures. But one feature has remained a key tenet of the system. Senior appointments have always been kept free of direct political influence so that senior officials have been able to offer advice to Ministers that is free, independent, and frank, regardless of the political complexion of the government of the day.
Similarly, and unlike some countries, the independence of the public service means that when governments change, the public servants do not, and carry on providing the same level of independent advice to the new government as they did to its predecessor.
While the chief executives of government departments are formally appointed by the Cabinet, in doing so Ministers are acting on the advice of the Public Service Commission which has carried out the recruitment and selection process. The Commission then oversees the performance of the chief executive once in office, providing guidance and support where necessary, and advising the relevant Minister as appropriate of any issues that arise. Occasionally, if a chief executive has not lived up to expectations, the Commission will recommend against reappointment once the initial term has expired.
The Commission’s role is very much one of the intermediary – making sure the relationship between a Minister and a chief executive is functional, and that the chief executive can deliver the Minister’s (and the government’s) policy expectations in the area they are working. This role helps preserve the autonomy and professionalism of the public service and keep at arm’s length potential direct political interference.
The public profile of the Director-General, and his almost cult-status in some quarters, is the antithesis of good public service practice
However, that is not to say there are not instances where an incoming Minister’s disdain, for whatever reason, for their chief executive leads to the chief executive being quickly moved on. The usual circumstance is where a chief executive has been perceived as too close to the previous government to be able to work effectively with a new government.
When the National Party came to power in 2008, the new Minister of Health, Tony Ryall, reportedly had a difficult relationship with Stephen McKernan, the Director-General of Health since 2006. McKernan had been regarded as an innovative health leader, but National considered him to be too close to the Clark Labour-led government to adapt to its wants. Eventually, McKernan stood aside in 2010, saying he had chosen not to renew his contract, but the strong impression at the time from others in the health sector was that he had been effectively pushed out.
Shortly after the change of government in 2017, a subsequent Director-General of Health, Chai Chuah, resigned after about four years in the role. During that time, he had been frequently criticised by the Labour Opposition and there was much media speculation when he stood aside that he had little alternative because he did not have the new government’s confidence. The point was somewhat confirmed by the then Health Minister’s brief media statement, simply noting Chuah’s resignation and thanking him for his service.
Interestingly, McKernan returned briefly to the Director-General’s role following Chuah’s departure, prior to becoming head of the transition unit now overseeing the move to Health NZ and the abolition of the 20 district health boards.
While in both the McKernan and Chuah instances the formal decision to stand down was the individual’s, with both noting that they felt the time was right for them to move on, there is little doubt they were heavily influenced by the changed political environment around them, and that Ministers were not unhappy to see them go.
A similar situation seems likely to await the current Director-General of Health, should he still be in his current position if the National Party returns to office. The circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic have made him New Zealand’s most powerful public servant ever, frequently attending and taking part in Cabinet meetings, something no public servant before him has ever done. This alone will make it very difficult for him to return to the less prominent role of a normal departmental chief executive once the pandemic emergency has passed.
Moreover, Dr Bloomfield’s public profile in support of the government’s Covid-19 policies over the last two years has meant that it has often been difficult to see him as anything but a Labour Party apparatchik, the de facto Minister of Health, rather than the impartial public servant providing considered advice to the government, as might normally be expected of his role.
That has inevitably brought him into much more direct conflict with the Opposition than would normally be the case, meaning it would be hard to imagine how he could work alongside a National Minister, should the National Party come to office.
What is puzzling here is that, publicly at least, the Public Service Commission seems to have done very little to deal with this emerging situation. The public profile of the Director-General, and his almost cult-status in some quarters, is the antithesis of good public service practice, which is about providing advice and support to the government but doing so largely in the background. This way leaves responsibility clearly and demonstrably with the elected government, not unelected officials.
Normally, the Public Service Commission would be expected to be working with its chief executives to ensure this balance is maintained, to prevent the situation that has now developed with the present Director-General of Health.
Although the mechanism for the appointment of the Commissioner of Police is different, as the Police are not part of the core public service, the current Commissioner of Police is likely to end up in a similar situation to the Director-General of Health, albeit for different reasons. The Commissioner of Police is appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Executive Council, which effectively means the Prime Minister.
The current Commissioner – appointed in 2020 – was widely seen as a surprise appointment at the time, apparently leap-frogging other more seasoned and favoured traditional candidates for the role. His perceived kinder, gentler approach to “policing by consent” was seen to be very much in line with the style and tone the Prime Minister wanted to give her government, hence his appointment.
However, no matter its acceptability to the Government, the Commissioner’s style has not found support from the Opposition. While Opposition criticism of Police performance in various areas is not new, the tenor of the current Opposition’s criticisms of the Police has been more focused on the Commissioner than is the norm.
Simon Bridges has sharply attacked the Commissioner at a select committee for his “woke” approach to policing, and other National MPs have frequently implied that the Police have become soft on crime under the Commissioner’s leadership.
Although Ministers say they retain confidence in the Commissioner, there is a conditional 'for now' air about those assurances, leaving the government some wriggle-room in the event things turn sour in Wellington, or that the occupation becomes more like a Western Front stalemate.
All this was before the current Parliamentary occupation stand-off. The cautious Police response and the Commissioner’s acknowledgement on weekend television that he did not know how the occupation will end will have fuelled the criticism of him.
At the same time, the Commissioner has created a problem for the Prime Minister and the Minister of Police. Because he was their appointment and his style was so clearly in tune with the government’s thinking, Ministers currently have little choice but to stand behind him, even as public frustration mounts at the way the occupation is being handled.
Although Ministers say they retain confidence in the Commissioner, there is a conditional “for now” air about those assurances, leaving the government some wriggle-room in the event things turn sour in Wellington, or that the occupation becomes more like a Western Front stalemate.
However, an abrupt abandoning of the Commissioner at this point would be an acknowledgement that the government got it wrong with his appointment in 2020, something that is not going to happen.
For National, no such constraints apply. It will continue to personalise the lack of a bold response to the occupation as due to the Commissioner’s style. When the current debacle is added to its previous criticisms, the Commissioner’s position looks untenable in the event of a change of government during his term.
Our system of Cabinet-led government has been based on an equilibrium where the permanence and expertise of the public service is balanced by the political leadership of the government, and where both are kept in their place. Problems arise when that equilibrium is seen to be upset and the political boat is rocked unduly. Both the Director-General of Health and the Commissioner of Police have for quite separate reasons strayed into that territory, making it difficult to see how they could work with a different government
Neither is likely to survive a change of government.
