Dissenting Views

Stuff has an NZPA story on the abolition of the SFO. Not surprisingly the former Director is very criticial of the move, and disagrees with it.

The worrying aspect for me isn’t that the Government took a different view to officials, but that they went out of their way to shut down dissenting views internally. The part that concerns me most is:

Ministers would not see him and a final Cabinet paper on this issue did not mention any of the SFO’s concerns, despite his requests for them to be included.

It is normal for dissenting opinions to be included in Cabinet papers.

Again I stress there is nothing wrong with Ministers not following the advice of officials. That is why we have Ministers – to decide.

But when Ministers will refuse to meet an agency CEO to discuss something as fundamental as the future of that agency? That is pigheadedness and arrogance.

And when the Cabinet paper doesn’t canvass all the pros and cons of an issues, but pretends there no no dissenting opinions – that is a very bad thing. When the agency being abolished specifically requests its views to be included – and this is denied – that is even worse.

Ministers can and should disagree with officials. But when Ministers tell officials to only include views they want to hear – then you have a significant politicisation of the public service.