State servants behaving with more integrity than their masters
The State Services Commission's new report on the integrity of our state services reflects the yawning gap between the behaviour of public servants and that of
their political masters, Labour's State Services spokesperson Maryan Street says.
“This report, which surveyed over 13,000 public servants from a variety of state sector entities, showed that our public
servants understand what integrity means. That stands in stark contrast to some of the behaviour we have seen from
Ministers in the past few years.
“The fact that public servants feel their colleagues and managers demonstrate integrity in their work and are proud to
be part of their department or agency is to be applauded.
“A need for more education around ethics was highlighted to provide a robust process around whistleblowing. I hope
government agencies don't look to current Ministers for that.
“If your example of ethics is a Minister who passes on private contact details of a public servant to a destructive
blogger, then they will have to look elsewhere for guidance.
“Judith Collins is now on her ‘last, last’ warning from the Prime Minister. We can't even rely on ethics in practice
from the growing list of John Key, Judith Collins, Nick Smith, Maurice Williamson, Murray McCully, Gerry Brownlee and
Jonathan Coleman. And some of them, like Judith Collins and Nick Smith, are serial offenders.
“I thank public servants for behaving with integrity even when their masters don't,” Maryan Street says.
ends