12.30 pm
The Crown has spent nearly half-a-million dollars defending legal action taken by former Work and Income New Zealand boss Christine Rankin against the State Services Commission.
Acting State Services Minister Margaret Wilson today released figures that showed the Crown had spent $445,647 (excluding GST) on the case up until July
9 - two days before the Employment Court hearing ended.
Mrs Rankin is suing the State Services Commission for refusing to recommend her for second term as the chief executive of Winz.
The judge has reserved his decision on Mrs Rankin's bid for reinstatement and $1.2 million in damages and lost wages.
Ms Wilson said today that most of the costs for defending the case were internal and the costs from outside the Government were a relatively small proportion of the total bill.
She said both the State Services Commission (SSC) and the Crown Law Office (CLO) had calculated the in-house costs, for legal expertise, within the two departments.
"The sums for the SCC and CLO are notional. They are the costs of staff time, calculated at a notional charge-out rate, for counsel and legal support staff who would be working for the Government anyway. So they are not an extra charge to the taxpayer."
The in-house costs to the Crown Law Office totalled $226,742 and the State Services Commission spent $84,055.
Total external costs were $134,850, including $107,026 for the Crown's senior counsel and $6,200 for the expert witness, Sir Geoffrey Palmer.
However, ACT MP Muriel Newman disputed Ms Wilson's statement that two-thirds of the expenses were in-house.
Ms Newman said the costs were not "notional" or "in-house" and that once GST was calculated the Government had spent half-a-million dollars in time and money protecting their own poltical interests.
She said the total cost to the taxpayer, if Mrs Rankin won the case, "could be well over a million dollars".
But if Mrs Rankin loses the case she may end up footing the bill, as the court can order the losing party to pay costs.
Mrs Rankin's fixed-term contract with Winz ended on July 5, and Margaret Bazley has taken over as temporary head of the department.
Feature: the Rankin file
