Five days in the world of Christine Rankin

By FRANCESCA MOLD

Welfare and employment boss Christine Rankin has given New Zealanders an intimate peek at the public service and Government this week.

In the Employment Court in Wellington, she alleged sexism, political interference and threats by state sector officials to deny conversations with her in court.

It took three days for Mrs Rankin to present her argument for reinstatement as chief executive and $818,000 in compensation and damages.

The Crown began its defence with a description by State Services Commissioner Michael Wintringham of a catalogue of errors in Winz under Mrs Rankin.

Next week, the court will hear from senior Government ministers, the head of the Prime Minister's Department, Dr Mark Prebble, former State Services Commissioner Don Hunn and constitutional lawyer Sir Geoffrey Palmer.

Highlights of the past week included:

Political fodder

Mrs Rankin said it was clear months before the election that the Labour Party intended to use her in its campaign and then sack her if it won office.

A sign of things to come

Just 90 minutes before Mrs Rankin and her officials left the Winz building to attend their first post-election meeting with new minister Steve Maharey on December 20, 1999, staff received a phone call from the minister's office to tell them the media knew about the meeting.

As soon as the group stepped out of the building to walk the couple of hundred metres to the Beehive, they were confronted by a "barrage" of journalists.

Emerging from the lift on the sixth floor of the Beehive, Mrs Rankin said, they saw what looked like a pool of blood on the floor and two waiting photographers. It turned out to be red wine. "We had to step over it. This, of course, was deliberately staged."

Mrs Rankin said Mr Maharey had suggested a need to change her appearance to tone down media focus on her.

In cross-examination, crown counsel Alan Galbraith, QC, said Mr Maharey had simply suggested that one way to help fix the department's image was by making changes to her personal style.

Those skirts and earrings

Mrs Rankin was called to the minister's office to explain a confidential payout to a former employee.

Both Mr Maharey and Associate Minister Ruth Dyson were angry about the difficult position the Government was in, because it had campaigned against public service payouts.

"They said I was at fault and I should be sacked," Mrs Rankin said.

"He told me I should go home and take a look in the mirror, change my earrings, skirts and glasses and maybe we could work together."

The naked ape

The meeting with the head of the Prime Minister's Department was set up as a frank discussion about Mrs Rankin's relationship with her ministers.

It began, according to Mrs Rankin, with a request from Dr Prebble that the discussion be "off the record" and a threat that he would deny it in court.

"He said there was a problem about the way I looked. I had become a sexual object or icon in the public service. I made a lot of men uncomfortable by the way I dressed.

"Mr Prebble said he personally felt uncomfortable the first time he met me, and that my earrings in terms of the Darwin theory and The Naked Ape were a sexual come on ... He referred to a meeting where I was present - he said when I moved he could distinguish my breast and that had made him feel very uncomfortable."

Mr Galbraith questioned Mrs Rankin's memory.

"Mark Prebble was frank with you. What he was trying to do, whether you approved or didn't approve, was to give you advice about how best to cope with the change in Government?"

Mrs Rankin: "It didn't feel like that."

D-Day

May 24, 2000 - the day Christine Rankin found out she had lost her job.

She met Mr Wintringham in his office. She said he warned her that he would deny, in court or before a select committee, the conversation that was to come.

Mr Wintringham has denied saying that he would perjure himself.

Mrs Rankin said her boss told her he wanted to give her advance warning that she would not be reappointed.

"He was anxious. He said I had been treated appallingly by the Government, but he had no choice."

Mr Wintringham's version is that Mrs Rankin asked him about the likelihood of her staying in the job, and he advised her to be open to a "managed career transition."

Mrs Rankin told Mr Wintringham that her relationship with her husband was in trouble, and it was likely that if she went to Australia, she would be going on her own.

But Mr Wintringham reassured her that he went to Australia twice a month. He could meet her for coffee or dinner so that she would not be alone.

It would be purely platonic, because Mr Wintringham told her he was celibate, Mrs Rankin said.

The supportive husband

Insurance manager Allan Hogg gave an emotional account of his wife's fear and desperation after she learned her job was over.

He described how the community's vitriolic attacks on Mrs Rankin had forced the couple to live a life in hiding.

A litany of failures

Michael Wintringham took six hours to read his version of the events leading to his decision not to reappoint Mrs Rankin.

He said she failed to win the confidence of the Government and did not have the skills or intellectual rigour for the job.

Mr Wintringham said he spent more time with Mrs Rankin than any of the other 30-odd public service chief executives.

He supported her to the hilt, including through the department's most turbulent times after revelations that it had spent more than $200,000 on a staff training conference at Wairakei resort.