Why don’t we hear more from those eloquent Wellington mandarins? “Focus on Politics”, Radio NZ National, Friday 5 April 2013
I used to think that the people working in the highest echelons of the Wellington civil service were, apart from one or two obvious duds like Christine (Spankin’) Rankin, possessed of superior intellect, impeccable manners and of course an effortlessly superior dress sense. They were seen only occasionally in public, attending symphonic concerts, spectating languidly at cricket tests or race meetings, dining at the most exclusive eateries, and gracing the best and toniest private functions. To this outsider’s untutored eye, these men and their elegant women moved in a rarefied, privileged world, somehow finding the time to read the classics to such a level that they could wittily allude to something from Homer as easily as they could discern whether the wine they had been proffered was worth quaffing. And they could probably speak several languages to boot. In other words they moved on a higher plane than the rest of us mere mortals.
I’ve just heard State Services Commissioner Ian Rennie speaking at length on National Radio’s superb “Focus on Politics” programme. It is now painfully apparent just why there is a long-established tradition of keeping these mandarins away from the public gaze.
Here’s an excerpt, taken at random, but entirely representative of everything else he said….
“We certainly did not have, ahhh um prescience… it was becoming ahhh clear…. there was a need aahhh to change ahhhh, ummmmm, internal structures…. ahhh, ummmm, not just the ahmmmm traditional ahhh ahhh military community ahh, ummmm…”
Really, if we actually introduced a free-market profits would disappear over night. Same way that wages are dropping in fact (labour doesn’t get the same protections as businesses).
“Focus on Politics”, Radio NZ National, Friday 5 April 2013