Kerre Woodham: There must be a way to keep public servants accountable

I talked about accountability this time last month, specifically about MBIE boss Nick Blakely. You'll remember that the Privileges Committee found Blakely and former Immigration New Zealand head Alison McDonald deliberately misled —what you and I know as lying— Parliament. The Privileges Committee said their conduct was an insult to the public service, and yet who's the current head of MBIE? Nick Blakely. Doesn't seem to have bothered him. Sure Alison McDonald's gone on to a nice board somewhere. She won't be locked up at home, covered in sackcloth and ashes, rueing and repenting.

Kerre Woodham: What will it take for public servants to be held accountable?

What will it take for public servants to be held accountable for their most egregious mistakes? Not even talking the little faffy silly ones. We're talking really, really big mistakes. Never was a group of people more misnamed than public servants. The current generation are not servants of the public, for the most part – many of them appear to have absolute contempt for the public they are supposed to serve.

David 'Farrar: Will MBIE be held on contempt?

The Herald reports:

Ministry officials are denying they deliberately misled a Parliament select committee by not revealing an immigration IT project had been terminated while being questioned about its progress.

Appearing before Parliament’s Privileges Committee today, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) chief executive Nic Blakeley and former Immigration New Zealand (INZ) head Alison McDonald insisted they hadn’t intended to hide the project’s cancellation from MPs and instead had believed the matter was commercially sensitive and couldn’t be discussed as negotiations were ongoing.