Mike's Minute: The public service - A gargantuan ship of hopelessness

You have to read it to believe it and even in reading it, it might well be you still can't believe it. 

A report, one of a number of investigations now underway, has reported back on whether personal Census and Covid intel collected at Manurewa Marae was misused for electoral purposes. 

It's important to point out that this particular report didn’t have it within its scope to find out whether the marae did anything shonky. That's still to come. 

The marae, if you recall, was managed by Takutai Tarsh Kemp, who was also a Māori Party candidate, and she went on to win the electorate by a handful of votes. 

What this report does find is proof, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that even when you stack the public service full of people the way the Labour Government did, they are still incompetent. 

The head of Stats NZ is going. He won't be reappointed. Each of the departments looked into —Stats NZ, Health New Zealand, and the Ministry of Health— have all been found hopelessly wanting. 

It was a combination of not really having any oversight on information that may, or may not, be protected and that may, or may not, be inappropriately used, plus when concerns were raised still doing nothing about it. 

"High trust models" were in place. Remember the golden Ardern and Hipkins days of high trust models? 

It basically confirms the Public Service Commissioner's findings last week that the public service isn't fit for purpose. It has too many meetings, there are too many departments, we need a few gotten rid of, and if you designed it today it wouldn’t be like it is. 

There are no safeguards, no regard for privacy, and the issues around privacy in the report shows it's just a litany of uselessness. 

Remember the alleged skullduggerous part of whether the Māori Party used some of this intel to help their election campaign? That outcome is still to surface. 

It's bad enough as it is. If they get pinged, it’s a full-blown scandal. 

At least one head has rolled, but you can't make this stuff up. It's gliding on, it's worse than most would have thought and it's not even over. 

The worst may well still be to come. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.