The New Zealand Maori Council has called for an overhaul of the Public Services executive ranks as the Corrections
debacle shows mis-management and incompetence at the highest level. Matthew Tukaki, Executive Director of the New
Zealand Maori Council has said there have been a multitude of failures in recent years and the case of Corrections is
not an isolated incident:
“One of the most notorious prisoners in the world and a billion-dollar Government agency cant even get the opening of an
envelope right. It looks like New Zealand is running a tin pot public service and that cannot be the case. And its not
just this case its also the case of another well known white supremist and it begs the question about just how far down
the bunny hole are we with convicted criminals being allowed to communicate with the outside world and push their
agendas – and quite frankly Maori are sick of apologies from this Department – I draw your attention to the apology they
were forced to make about the statements contained in a 2017 report about Maori Nationalist organisations operating
behind bars – what the Maori Women’s Welfare League?” Tukaki said
“Then we have the Ministry of Education – they couldn’t even ensure that we had enough school teachers to begin the
school year. Being 800 school teachers short doesn’t happen overnight – that’s a slow moving train wreck – and so know
we have foreign teachers with little or no cultural and historical understanding of New Zealand now teaching our kids.”
Tukaki said
“We have had the former Treasury Secretary pretty much being allowed to get away telling lies about someone hacking the
budget papers. We have had MBIE hiring private investigators to spy on Iwi leaders and Maori organisations and then of
course Statistics New Zealand who could not handle a CENSUS if their statsitics depended on it. Of course lets not
forget about the District Health Boards, of whom many are broke and floundering.” Tukaki said
“Right across the Government Public Service we have a leadership, management and governance problem and it has to start
with stopping the merry go round of promotions and always turning up with the same old usual suspects. What we need is a
complete review of the executive level of the public service and if that means retiring out some of those people lets
open that door and show them the way. Tukaki said
“I’ll be writing to the State Services Commissioner next week outlining all of our concerns – chief among them the fact
that Maori are tired of trying to push forward only to be pushed back and not always by the Politicians but by the
stupidity and incompetence of the public service.” Tukaki said
“My message to Ministers is stop defending them and start sacking them” Tukaki said