Before we decide that Kiri Allan is a bully, maybe there is another explanation. Her real crime might be that she does not blindly accept departmental advice.
Civil servants have been known to bury bad news inside unreadable briefs, leak against ministers and complain that hard-working ministers are bullies.
The public thinks Yes, Minister was a comedy. It was a documentary. The civil service has its own agenda. After all, no minister decided to dumb down the school science curriculum.
What is happening in Britain should be a warning to New Zealand MPs. The once-great Conservative Party is being destroyed. Admittedly, this is mainly through its own actions, but the civil service that never wanted Brexit is making sure it fails.
Amber Rudd, the Conservative Home Secretary, resigned after she admitted “inadvertently misleading” Parliament over targets for removing illegal immigrants. In a six-page brief to her office, which she never read, the department wrote that it had targets. A civil servant leaked the memo to the media and Rudd felt she had to resign.
No civil servant resigned or was disciplined for failing to ensure the minister was aware of the department’s targets.
Dominic Raab, the Conservative Deputy Prime Minister, had several civil servants, some of whom had never worked with him, sign a letter saying he was a bully. There was an independent inquiry by a lawyer, and the KC found that on occasion during meetings with policy officials, Raab’s behaviour had been intimidating and insulting.
In his resignation letter, Raab said the threshold for bullying had been set too low. No action was taken against the civil servants who had never been bullied, but who signed the letter of complaint.
Ministers can be demanding. A former private secretary of Walter Nash recalled that he received a phone call at home one Sunday requesting him to come into the office. “I have a heavy cold,” he said. “Don’t worry,” said Nash. “I never catch colds.”
Nash worked seven days a week and expected his private secretaries to do the same.
Norman Kirk would ring at any hour.
If it was an issue for which I needed to know the answer before going on Morning Report, I too would ring regardless of the hour.
To a nine-to-five civil servant who is probably working from home, a ministerial office would come as a great shock.
Civil servants have been known to complain that hard-working ministers are bullies, writes Richard Prebble. Photo / Mark Mitchell
There is another possible explanation. Unlike many of the MPs who claim to be lawyers, Kiri Allan has practised law in a leading law firm. Timelines in law firms can be brutal, and advice must be accurate. Maybe Allan has brought to the Beehive the standards she expected as a lawyer.
MPs who have been court lawyers are notorious for being intolerant of sub-standard work. I was extremely frustrated by the quality of much of the legal advice I received. It is often given by in-house departmental lawyers who would never get a job in a downtown Auckland law firm.
The legal advice from Crown Law is top-quality, but ministers can only get access to it through the Attorney-General.
I complained so strongly about the quality of departmental legal advice that the Attorney-General gave me permission to go straight to Crown Law.
If I were to criticise departmental lawyers today for the standard of their advice, l would be accused of being intimidating and insulting.
The Opposition needs to remember that the quality of the advice they will receive after they become Government will be no better than the advice Allan is getting.
There could be another reason for a complaint about the minister. Former ministers agree it takes about three years to master a portfolio. The civil service prefers working for a novice minister who is totally dependent on their advice.
In Britain, they reshuffle ministers’ portfolios so often that the average length of service as a minister in a portfolio is just 1.3 years.
Allan’s roles have been changed so often that her average time in a portfolio is no longer. She has been a Cabinet Minister for less than three years. She was made Minister of Conservation, Emergency Management and associate for Arts and Environment. Last year she lost Conservation and Emergency Management and was made Minister of Justice. In February she lost Arts and Environment and picked up Regional Development and Associate Transport.
If that is not enough to make her snap, she has been in and out, and now in again as Associate Finance Minister.
Then again, we must not dismiss the possibility that Kiri Allan is a bully.
- Richard Prebble is a former leader of the Act Party and a former member of the Labour Party.
