The State of the Public Service

Lindsay Mitchell has been researching and commenting on welfare since 2001. Many of her articles have been published in mainstream media and she has appeared on radio,tv and before select committees discussing issues relating to welfare. Lindsay is also an artist who works under commission and exhibits at Wellington, New Zealand, galleries.

The Commissioner for Children’s term must be up.

Invitations for applications have appeared.

The requirements are indicative of how the public service now operates:

We are looking for someone who is an expert in child-related matters. The Children’s Commissioner is a champion for all tamariki and rangatahi in New Zealand.

There will be a specific focus on knowledge of te ao Maori, and Maori thought leadership and strategy.

The second sentence contradicts the first. But it’d be too much to expect logic from a Ministry these days.

Maori ‘thought’ – or Maori worldview – is paramount across the public sector. The Reserve Bank is now imbued with Maori spirituality; the Police are preoccuppied with ridding themselves of ‘unconscious bias’ and the Ministry of Education aims to indoctrinate guilt and expunge white privilege from students.

The role of the Children’s Commissioner is supposed to be independent – the department is an independent crown entity – but that appears to be changing:

The Government is currently strengthening oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system. As part of this, a decision has been made to transfer the functions associated with the independent monitoring of the Oranga Tamariki system to a departmental agency hosted by the Education Review Office.

It is also proposed that the Children’s Commissioner will cease to be a corporation sole and that governance responsibilities will rest with Commissioner and a board of three to six members.

Read what you will into that.

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