$40,000 party splurge at the Ministry for Pacific Peoples is well publicised – but what do we pay to support pidgin?
Ele Ludemann rises a good question on her blog today in an article headed No respect for other people’s money.
She has been riled by Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes’s criticism of extravagant spending on a farewell and welcome at a government agency.
A Public Service Commission review considered whether expenditure of almost $40,000 associated with a farewell and welcome function aligned with the Ministry of Pacific Peoples’ (MPP) policies and guidelines, and with relevant Public Service guidance.
The review found the expenditure for the farewell did not meet the requirement of being moderate and conservative. There was inadequate oversight of expenditure and there was no agreed budget for the event. Expenditure decisions were not consistent with MPP’s Hospitality, Gifts and Entertainment Policy or its Business Expenditure Policy, and did not align with the Public Service Commission’s model standards on Chief Executive Gifts, Benefits and Expenses.
MPP spent $39,262.22 on a farewell for its former chief executive, Secretary for Pacific Peoples, Leauanae Laulu Mac Leauanae, on 13 October 2022. This included $7,500 spent on gifts for Mr Leauanae.
Mr Leauanae was not involved in planning or decision-making concerning the farewell. However, as chief executive at the time he was responsible, overall, for agency expenditure. On being made aware of the money spent on gifts he immediately repaid the $7,500 and returned all the gifts.
The review also found MPP spent $4,919.47 on travel for one staff member, formal guests and family members of Mr Leauanae to attend his welcome at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage (MCH). This included travel costs of $2,977.91 for six members of Mr Leauanae’s family to attend the welcome, which the review found was not appropriate because MPP did not follow internal policies which would have identified the spending as sensitive, with a real or perceived benefit to Mr Leauanae. He has since reimbursed MPP $4,115.38 for travel costs associated with all family members and guests. . .
Ludemann notes that the money for the gifts was repaid but this leaves more than $30,000 spent on the farewell.
She asks:
What planet are these people on that they think that is an acceptable amount to spend? Do they have no understanding that this isn’t their money nor any respect for other people’s?
And a bigger question: what has this Ministry achieved and is it needed?
An answer to the question about the ministry’s achievements can be found on the government’s official website.
At the same time as taxpayers were being alerted to the palpable squandering of their money, Pacific Peoples Minister Barbara Edmonds was proudly announcing Two more languages join the Pacific Language Week series in 2024.
The booze-up has been more widely publicised and discussed than the language week announcement.
The review found the expenditure for the farewell did not meet the requirement of being moderate and conservative. There was inadequate oversight of expenditure and there was no agreed budget for the event. Expenditure decisions were not consistent with MPP’s Hospitality, Gifts and Entertainment Policy or its Business Expenditure Policy, and did not align with the Public Service Commission’s model standards on Chief Executive Gifts, Benefits and Expenses.
MPP spent $39,262.22 on a farewell for its former chief executive, Secretary for Pacific Peoples, Leauanae Laulu Mac Leauanae, on 13 October 2022. This included $7,500 spent on gifts for Mr Leauanae.
Mr Leauanae was not involved in planning or decision-making concerning the farewell. However, as chief executive at the time he was responsible, overall, for agency expenditure. On being made aware of the money spent on gifts he immediately repaid the $7,500 and returned all the gifts.
The review also found MPP spent $4,919.47 on travel for one staff member, formal guests and family members of Mr Leauanae to attend his welcome at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage (MCH). This included travel costs of $2,977.91 for six members of Mr Leauanae’s family to attend the welcome, which the review found was not appropriate because MPP did not follow internal policies which would have identified the spending as sensitive, with a real or perceived benefit to Mr Leauanae. He has since reimbursed MPP $4,115.38 for travel costs associated with all family members and guests. . .
Ludemann notes that the money for the gifts was repaid but this leaves more than $30,000 spent on the farewell.
She asks:
What planet are these people on that they think that is an acceptable amount to spend? Do they have no understanding that this isn’t their money nor any respect for other people’s?
And a bigger question: what has this Ministry achieved and is it needed?
An answer to the question about the ministry’s achievements can be found on the government’s official website.
At the same time as taxpayers were being alerted to the palpable squandering of their money, Pacific Peoples Minister Barbara Edmonds was proudly announcing Two more languages join the Pacific Language Week series in 2024.
The booze-up has been more widely publicised and discussed than the language week announcement.
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The Pacific Language Weeks series will have a new look in 2024 with the introduction of Solomon Islands Pidgin and Papua New Guinea Tok Pisin.
Barbara Edmonds’ announcement addresses one of Point of Order’s burning questions, when we monitor what ministers are up to – how are they spending or misspending our money today?
She isn’t helpful on the matter of cost, when it comes to her language initiative, because she has not bothered to mention it.
But she did say Solomon Islands Pidgin and Papua New Guinea Tok Pisin will be introduced to the Pacific Language Weeks series next year.
The annual Language Weeks series is aimed at revitalising and supporting Pacific languages, cultures and identities.
The 2024 Pacific Language Weeks series will celebrate 11 Pacific languages and cultures throughout the year, including Rotuman, Samoan, Kiribati, Solomon Islands Pidgin, Cook Islands Māori, Tongan, Papua New Guinea Tok Pisin, Tuvaluan, Fijian, Niuean, and Tokelauan.
The minister obviously has put revitalising and supporting the Solomon Islands Pidgin and Papua New Guinea Tok Pisin languages in this country on her “critical” list, because she insists:
More than 800 Solomon Islanders and 1,200 Papua New Guinean people call our shores home, with both groups fast growing and increasingly born in New Zealand. That’s why it’s a critical time for their inclusion in the Pacific Language Weeks.
And:
Experiences of other Pacific and migrant nations illustrate the risks of languages and cultural identities being lost among our young people if we don’t act now. We know that it only takes one generation to lose a language and three generations to gain it back.
There are 52 weeks in the year, so there is the potential for revitalising many more languages.
Our citizens of Asian ethnicity could make a strong case for having their languages preserved at public expense.
Point of Order imagines ACT has released a press statement about the ministry’s worthiness in just one language, English, because more than 95% of people in New Zealand speak English.
The statement from party leader David Seymour says the Ministry for Pacific Peoples seems to have no outputs except gross expenditure, and under ACT it would be gone.
Seymour was responding to the news that the Public Service Commissioner had condemned the ministry’s spending of $39,262 on a farewell bash for its former Chief Executive,.
But (the statement says)
… the real scandal is that the Ministry is woefully ineffective. In its annual report, it boasts nothing more as its achievements than a few strategies and action plans, as well as “supporting the Government in delivering the official apology for the Dawn Raids,” which turned out to be nothing more than a self-indulgent farce – the practice continues to this day.
Seymour notes that the ministry’s staffing has ballooned from 34 FTEs in 2016/17 to 128 in 2021/22. The Ministry spent the second most per FTE on catering of any Ministry in 2020/21, spending over $1400 per staff member.
He goes on to point out that Pacific communities in New Zealand have thriving cultures, and are more than capable of sustaining their cultures and languages without a dedicated Government Ministry.
The Ministry is unable to point to any achievements other than successfully spending its $30.6 million budget. Under ACT, the Ministry for Pacific Peoples would be gone.
Martyn Bradbury, on The Daily Blog, has condemned the ministry’s extravagance precisely because it has given Seymour “the bullets he will use to put them down!”
He says he believes in the Ministry for Pacific Peoples, just as he believes in the Ministry for Youth Affairs, Ministry for Ethnic Communities, Ministry for Women’s Affairs and Ministry for Māori affairs. He describes them as important Ministries that ensure Democracy isn’t just majoritarian thuggery and that those without power in society have a voice.
But it is hard to defend them when they blunder like this.
He asks: why is “the Wellington Bureaucrat” paid $320 000 a year, why did the ministry approve the $40,000 farewell function, why are they pulling stunts like this when food inflation is 12.5%, how come no internal check or balance was alerted, and why was there no investigation until a complaint was made?
Bradbury is dismayed by the “bewildering incompetence from the Wellington Public Service elite gravy train” and this “insight into how the Professional Managerial Class hold the rest of us in contempt while they throw $40 000 parties”.
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
2 comments:
why do we need money to celebrate a language? all you need to do is speak it! are we saying that lips are sealed unless the purse is opened? sounds like a police informer to me...
As David Seymour has essentially indicated - $40K is peanuts to the $30M this outfit costs the taxpayer annually, and for what precisely?
Is this part of the dawn-raid apology for them breaking the laws or our land? It seems just like the $millions that get spent on cultural impact reports for criminals - another gravy train to be exploited at you know whose expense.
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