This farewell must have been a pretty lavish do, having cost the taxpayer around $40,000!
Included in that $40k was $7500 on gifts for Leauanae and $3000 on photography, flowers and ceremonial drummers.
But the largess didn’t stop there! These civil servants then decided Leauanae needed an appropriate welcome to his new sinecure, the MCH! They shelled out a further $5000, including $3000 in travel costs for six members of his family!
Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes said even though Leauanae was not involved in the decision-making for the farewell, he held overall responsibility for spending at the ministry as the chief executive.
Easy to imagine Leauanae’s memo to staff – “I don’t want a big farewell guys, don’t spend too much, keep it simple.” Yeah right!!!
That squandering of public money provoked David Seymour, in 2023, to take aim at the MPP, wanting the Ministry disestablished.
He told parliament – “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples also ballooned its staffing from 34 FTEs in 2016/17 to 128 in 2021/22,” Adding – “The ministry spent the second most per FTE on catering of any ministry in 2020/21, spending over $1400 per staff member.”
The point I am making with that old item is that, these days, there are numerous examples indicating senior civil servants feel they are a law unto themselves, they are more important than the ministers they report to and they either do not understand or do not care that the money they are supposed to take the utmost care of when spending, has actually been provided to the by us, the taxpayers!
Having said that, could their attitudes and actions simply be a case of “monkey see, monkey do”?
You do not have to look very far to witness daily exhibitions of poor behaviour, flouting of rules, aggressive and intimidating behaviour. Just look at parliaments debating chamber!
The exhibiting of sub optimal behaviour is not limited to the debating chamber.
In 2007 Labour MP Trevor Mallard threw a punch at National’s Tau Henare in the Parliamentary lobby. Winston Peters and John Banks engaged in a bit of physical argy bargy, again in the Parliamentary lobby.
In 2020 National MP Andrew Falloon resigned after allegedly playing fast and loose with dodgy images. Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway was stripped of his ministerial portfolios for an inappropriate relationship with a former staffer.
Since 2020 we have all witnessed an escalating level of ridiculousness, histrionics and dramas from the Maori Party. Say no more!
But we, rightly, expect to see exemplary standards from senior civil servants.
Did you know the public sector represents a whopping 1/3 of our economy!
Unsurprisingly, many people still don’t know generally what civil servants or the public sector actually does. Mainly because there’s very often no visible output from most of them. Of course, we know firefighters fight fires, teachers educate but civil servants are in many ways, the least public of the public sector.
If we want to be a dynamic and successful country, then we must have an effective and efficient civil service. That sector must be able to be recognised by the populace that it delivers value for our tax dollars and, most importantly, it is trusted by the populace!
Trust is the backbone of a well-functioning democracy but it is evident over recent years that trust has become a vulnerable characteristic in government.
Think back to the mid and latter stages of the Covid-19 pandemic and how misinformation, disinformation and even bare faced lies, often delivered by a civil servant, created a massive breakdown in trust in politicians and some civil servants.
Parliament represents us, the people. We expect Parliament to exercise effective examination of the government of the day. We also expect Parliament to closely monitor the considerable influence and power the public service has over our lives and first and foremost, hold the public sector to account for the way it spends our tax dollars!
Well, the civil servants running ACC seem to have conflicting view!
Now this is where the opening lines of this article become relevant.
In August 2023 and that Ministry of Pacific Peoples lavish $40,000 farewell for its former chief executive was made public, journalists, using the Official Information Act, wanted to know what other government agencies, including ACC, had recorded expenditure on events costing over $10,000.
After an ACC whistleblower complaint the ombudsman get involved and what he discovered is what I say is a perfect example of, as earlier stated, how our senior civil servants feel they are a law unto themselves, they are more important than the ministers they report to and they either do not understand or do not care that the money they are supposed to take the utmost care of when spending!
The whistleblower alleged that senior ACC management had manipulated data to disclose a farewell event for outgoing deputy chief executive, chief Māori and equity officer Michelle Murray, cost less than the $10,000 threshold of the Official Information request!
The Ombudsman’s investigation and subsequent report found ACC management had actually “discovered” the true cost of the farewell event was “in the region of $18,000” and therefore was within the scope of the OIA requests and should have been disclosed!
So those civil servants, obviously civil servants with something to hide, covered up $8000 of expenses.
This farewell for Michelle Murray was attended by a number of ACC staff, 18 who needed to travel to Wellington. According to ACC “…some of these staff also participated in strategic planning meetings, their presence at the farewell was considered culturally appropriate and encouraged.”
Creative accounting had been employed because ACC considered “some of the costs associated should be excluded as staff members had other work reasons to be in Wellington.” Therefore, did not need to be included in the OIA response!
The Ombudsman found ACC “has acted unreasonably in its management of its response to the OIA requests”
To evidence the “other work”, ACC provided the Ombudsman with meeting invitations showing some, but not all, of the 11 travelling staff members’ names.
“ACC provided high-level descriptions on the purpose of the gathering and the meetings but confirmed that no formal documentation such as minutes, was available,” the report said.
Now this is where this story starts to get even dodgier!
The Ombudsman’s report states “some ACC colleagues appear to express concerns”, with one employee commenting in the work online chat, “…‘other work’. This is wrong. Fundamentally wrong.”
The head of government engagement is reported as acknowledging the comment and saying: “Everybody knows that … Including [chief executive].”
“[Name of Staff 1], can you please change the sign-out on the letter to my name and title. I’ll send you my signature. I’m not going to ask [colleague] to sign this one out and will do it instead. I am sorry both. “I worked as hard as I can to get this to land somewhere that I was comfortable with.”
That meant the OIA response was then sent, advising the requestors that no events had been identified within scope, meaning above the $10,000 threshold.
Can you believe it; Deliberate falsification of OIA report!
Of course, these government ministry “misdemeanours” occurred during the last few months of what was the train wreck that was the 6th Labour government headed by Ardern and later Hipkins.
And we all know the proliferigate nature of those years!
Government ministries knew no restraint on travel, staff numbers multiplied, seemingly overnight, consultants experienced their “golden years” and ministerial spending knew no bounds!
Minimal or zero oversight of their ministries was only ever executed by ministers!
But that cannot excuse blatant falsification of an Official Information Act response!
A request under the Official Information Act should or must be supplied with a full and truthful response, shouldn’t it?
If it isn’t a full and truthful response, is it not a LIE? A lie by omission is still a lie!
Do you think the “less than” civil servant who signed off said fabricated response is still employed?
“Public organisations evidence their competency, reliability, and honesty at least in part through public reporting on their performance.” John Ryan
Controller and Auditor-General, 30 June 2025
Pee Kay writes he is from a generation where common sense, standards, integrity and honesty are fundamental attributes. This article was first published HERE
But the largess didn’t stop there! These civil servants then decided Leauanae needed an appropriate welcome to his new sinecure, the MCH! They shelled out a further $5000, including $3000 in travel costs for six members of his family!
Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes said even though Leauanae was not involved in the decision-making for the farewell, he held overall responsibility for spending at the ministry as the chief executive.
Easy to imagine Leauanae’s memo to staff – “I don’t want a big farewell guys, don’t spend too much, keep it simple.” Yeah right!!!
That squandering of public money provoked David Seymour, in 2023, to take aim at the MPP, wanting the Ministry disestablished.
He told parliament – “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples also ballooned its staffing from 34 FTEs in 2016/17 to 128 in 2021/22,” Adding – “The ministry spent the second most per FTE on catering of any ministry in 2020/21, spending over $1400 per staff member.”
The point I am making with that old item is that, these days, there are numerous examples indicating senior civil servants feel they are a law unto themselves, they are more important than the ministers they report to and they either do not understand or do not care that the money they are supposed to take the utmost care of when spending, has actually been provided to the by us, the taxpayers!
Having said that, could their attitudes and actions simply be a case of “monkey see, monkey do”?
You do not have to look very far to witness daily exhibitions of poor behaviour, flouting of rules, aggressive and intimidating behaviour. Just look at parliaments debating chamber!
The exhibiting of sub optimal behaviour is not limited to the debating chamber.
In 2007 Labour MP Trevor Mallard threw a punch at National’s Tau Henare in the Parliamentary lobby. Winston Peters and John Banks engaged in a bit of physical argy bargy, again in the Parliamentary lobby.
In 2020 National MP Andrew Falloon resigned after allegedly playing fast and loose with dodgy images. Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway was stripped of his ministerial portfolios for an inappropriate relationship with a former staffer.
Since 2020 we have all witnessed an escalating level of ridiculousness, histrionics and dramas from the Maori Party. Say no more!
But we, rightly, expect to see exemplary standards from senior civil servants.
Did you know the public sector represents a whopping 1/3 of our economy!
Unsurprisingly, many people still don’t know generally what civil servants or the public sector actually does. Mainly because there’s very often no visible output from most of them. Of course, we know firefighters fight fires, teachers educate but civil servants are in many ways, the least public of the public sector.
If we want to be a dynamic and successful country, then we must have an effective and efficient civil service. That sector must be able to be recognised by the populace that it delivers value for our tax dollars and, most importantly, it is trusted by the populace!
Trust is the backbone of a well-functioning democracy but it is evident over recent years that trust has become a vulnerable characteristic in government.
Think back to the mid and latter stages of the Covid-19 pandemic and how misinformation, disinformation and even bare faced lies, often delivered by a civil servant, created a massive breakdown in trust in politicians and some civil servants.
Parliament represents us, the people. We expect Parliament to exercise effective examination of the government of the day. We also expect Parliament to closely monitor the considerable influence and power the public service has over our lives and first and foremost, hold the public sector to account for the way it spends our tax dollars!
Well, the civil servants running ACC seem to have conflicting view!
Now this is where the opening lines of this article become relevant.
In August 2023 and that Ministry of Pacific Peoples lavish $40,000 farewell for its former chief executive was made public, journalists, using the Official Information Act, wanted to know what other government agencies, including ACC, had recorded expenditure on events costing over $10,000.
After an ACC whistleblower complaint the ombudsman get involved and what he discovered is what I say is a perfect example of, as earlier stated, how our senior civil servants feel they are a law unto themselves, they are more important than the ministers they report to and they either do not understand or do not care that the money they are supposed to take the utmost care of when spending!
The whistleblower alleged that senior ACC management had manipulated data to disclose a farewell event for outgoing deputy chief executive, chief Māori and equity officer Michelle Murray, cost less than the $10,000 threshold of the Official Information request!
The Ombudsman’s investigation and subsequent report found ACC management had actually “discovered” the true cost of the farewell event was “in the region of $18,000” and therefore was within the scope of the OIA requests and should have been disclosed!
So those civil servants, obviously civil servants with something to hide, covered up $8000 of expenses.
This farewell for Michelle Murray was attended by a number of ACC staff, 18 who needed to travel to Wellington. According to ACC “…some of these staff also participated in strategic planning meetings, their presence at the farewell was considered culturally appropriate and encouraged.”
Creative accounting had been employed because ACC considered “some of the costs associated should be excluded as staff members had other work reasons to be in Wellington.” Therefore, did not need to be included in the OIA response!
The Ombudsman found ACC “has acted unreasonably in its management of its response to the OIA requests”
To evidence the “other work”, ACC provided the Ombudsman with meeting invitations showing some, but not all, of the 11 travelling staff members’ names.
“ACC provided high-level descriptions on the purpose of the gathering and the meetings but confirmed that no formal documentation such as minutes, was available,” the report said.
Now this is where this story starts to get even dodgier!
The Ombudsman’s report states “some ACC colleagues appear to express concerns”, with one employee commenting in the work online chat, “…‘other work’. This is wrong. Fundamentally wrong.”
The head of government engagement is reported as acknowledging the comment and saying: “Everybody knows that … Including [chief executive].”
“[Name of Staff 1], can you please change the sign-out on the letter to my name and title. I’ll send you my signature. I’m not going to ask [colleague] to sign this one out and will do it instead. I am sorry both. “I worked as hard as I can to get this to land somewhere that I was comfortable with.”
That meant the OIA response was then sent, advising the requestors that no events had been identified within scope, meaning above the $10,000 threshold.
Can you believe it; Deliberate falsification of OIA report!
Of course, these government ministry “misdemeanours” occurred during the last few months of what was the train wreck that was the 6th Labour government headed by Ardern and later Hipkins.
And we all know the proliferigate nature of those years!
Government ministries knew no restraint on travel, staff numbers multiplied, seemingly overnight, consultants experienced their “golden years” and ministerial spending knew no bounds!
Minimal or zero oversight of their ministries was only ever executed by ministers!
But that cannot excuse blatant falsification of an Official Information Act response!
A request under the Official Information Act should or must be supplied with a full and truthful response, shouldn’t it?
If it isn’t a full and truthful response, is it not a LIE? A lie by omission is still a lie!
Do you think the “less than” civil servant who signed off said fabricated response is still employed?
“Public organisations evidence their competency, reliability, and honesty at least in part through public reporting on their performance.” John Ryan
Controller and Auditor-General, 30 June 2025
Pee Kay writes he is from a generation where common sense, standards, integrity and honesty are fundamental attributes. This article was first published HERE
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