Graeme Spencer: Have You Checked Your Council's Employment Policies Recently?

Timaru District Council scores 10/10 for wokeness, this comes hard on the heels of possibly the worst community survey results ever.

While reviewing Timaru District Council’s job description for the position of Dog Control Officer an extraordinary requirement stands out.

Timaru District Council now embeds cultural emphasis into job descriptions.

Along with dealing with wandering dogs, barking complaints, animal welfare and enforcement, the successful applicant must demonstrate:

“Commitment to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.”

I have a few questions for the Chief Executive.

• What exactly does that mean for a Dog Control Officer?

• Which principles?

• Where are they defined?

• Are they contained in the Treaty itself?

• Is this a statutory requirement applying to an Animal Control Officer?

Or is it simply a policy requirement that Timaru District Council has chosen to insert into its employment criteria?

What is the Council hoping to achieve by this?

If commitment to Treaty principles is genuinely necessary to perform this particular job, Council should be able to explain what practical difference that commitment makes when the officer is called out to deal with a barking dog at 2am.

Presumably the dog won't know the difference.

There was once a refreshingly simple approach to recruitment: employ the person with the competence, integrity, temperament and experience necessary to do the job, and require that person to serve every member of the public fairly and without prejudice.

Surely that remains a pretty good principle in itself.

Increasingly, however, Council position descriptions contain cultural and ideological commitments that appear to have little obvious connection with the actual work being performed.

Many perfectly capable people who spent their working lives in local government might reasonably wonder whether they would satisfy today's employment criteria.

Perhaps Council could start by answering the simplest question:

What, in practical terms, does “commitment to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” require an Animal Control Officer to do differently?

I look forward to the reply.

Graeme Spencer is a staunch New Zealander who believes in racial equality and one law for all.