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Andrew Coster pockets $15,000 while Public
Service Commissioner slow walks inevitable sacking...
🤑
Last week,
we shared the then-breaking news that New Zealand’s former top cop
Andrew Coster tried to bury allegations relating to his former Deputy,
and sex offender, Jevon McSkimming.
My initial
response was to say: As an organisation whose primary purpose is
accountability of government, I can't think of a report in the last
decade more damning of such a senior public official.
 We immediately went
public and called on the Public Service Commissioner, Sir Brian Roche,
to rule out a golden handshake for Coster who is now CEO of the
Government's flagship 'Social Investment Agency' (instead of
sacking him last year, the Government did the usual Wellington-style
musical chairs to shift Coster out of the Police sideways into a cushy
agency/CEO role).
We
can now reveal, that despite all the huffing and puffing last week
from the Government about Coster's disgraceful conduct, Coster's boss,
Sir Brian, had received the IPCA report some 10 days earlier and did
not suspend Coster until the day the damning report became public!
🤨
So how
long does it take one bureaucrat to sack another bureaucrat?
🤔
I don't
know about you , but when you have a senior leader in the public
service who is at the centre of the
biggest New Zealand corruption scandal in living memory, you'd
think it wouldn't take too long to write and deliver the letter of
dismissal, right?
Wrong.
Today,
Andrew Coster remains on garden leave. And as of this morning, he's
racked up more than $15,000 in the nine days since he was marched out the door
suspended.
 Unfortunately, this is how it
happens in the public service. While the media move on from a scandal,
those responsible are rewarded with months (sometimes years!) of
fully paid leave, and (more often than not) six
figure payouts for 'standing down', 'quitting', or (in the Reserve
Bank's case) the
$416,120 paid to Adrian Orr to 'keep his mouth shut'.
To avoid
this outcome, and ensure taxpayers have transparency, one of
our smart young interns created a real time "Coster
cost-calculator" to track Andrew Coster's golden
garden leave.
As Sir
Brian Roche slow walks the actual sacking, Coster is cozy racking up
thousands.
As I said
to the media earlier today:
"We all know the public service takes its time,
but given the context, Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche
should not be waiting around. There can be no golden handshake - nor a
slow walked process that sees Andrew Coster get paid out while on
garden leave."
"The disgraced former Police Commissioner is
taking home $1,500 a day as he sits waiting for the inevitable sacking
as head of the Social Investment Agency. Most taxpayers would consider
that a disgrace."
"Sir Brian Roche should have cut off Coster
within hours of receiving the IPCA report. Instead, Sir Brian waited
10 days - until the report became public - to suspend Coster. Now
Coster is on the pig's back as the process is slow walked. It brings
the whole public service into disrepute."
"This case demonstrates everything wrong in the
public sector – where CEOs are paid the big bucks - including as they
exit."
"Sir Brian's job is to uphold standards across
the public service – he needs to hurry up and do it!”
"While taxpayers count the days, Coster counts the
cash."
ENDS
Track how
long it takes (and it's costing you) for so-called "public sector
accountability" at CostlyCoster.nz.
We say that
if accountability is to mean anything in Wellington, Coster needs to
be shown the door, without further dally and delay.
You can also use our
email tool on the website to send a personal note to the Public
Service Commissioner demanding that Coster be sacked *without* the
customary golden handshake. After all, Sir Brian works for you - and
all taxpayers - and he too needs to be held accountable for his
handling of the matter.
Now onto more positive news this
week...
Ratepayer Victory: Palmerston North's Ratepayer
Protection Pledge signers vote for democratic accountability: defeat
unelected committee members! 🎉
Last week,
Palmerston North City Councillors voted on yet another proposal put up
by the usual local government insiders, to invite
unelected/unaccountable hand-picked appointments onto a new arts,
culture and heritage council committee.
Thanks to
those recently elected councillors who had signed the Taxpayers'
Union's Ratepayer Protection Pledge, the vote split 8-8 vote
meaning the motion could not go ahead. The move overruled both
Mayor Grant Smith and Deputy Mayor Debi Marshall-Lobb in their plans
to appoint unelected Rangitāne onto the new
committee.
Among those who opposed the proposal were several
councillors who had signed the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, including
first-timer Hayden Fitzgerald.
Not
only did he sign the pledge, Cr Fitzgerald was true to his word,
telling Stuff's The Post:
This vote is a clear win for democracy in Palmerston
North, and they are the ratepayer heroes of the week.
🦸
EXPOSED: $38 Million on business start up grants
✅ Accountability? ❌
Our
investigations team has exposed that millions of dollars of "business
start-up grants" have been handed out by the Ministry of Social
Development (MSD), but have lacked oversight to track the status of
the grant money or 'start-ups'.
MSD
spent $38,512,555.69 on Flexi-Wage Self-Employment support and
Business Training and Advice Grants, yet hundreds of recipients
returned to a benefit with no tracking of how many businesses actually
survived.
The idea –
implemented under the last Government – was probably well intentioned,
where beneficiaries were supported financially to start a business
with the goal of making their own income and therefore no longer being
reliant on benefits.
MSD's monitoring of the project was so poor that they
couldn't tell us if it was providing value for money for taxpayers.
Their report, published last year on this programme, found that
"many participants struggled to establish a viable business"
and "only a minority of participants earned any
income".
After
releasing this story, Mike Hosking dug into it on Newstalk ZB,
with former Business NZ head and Welfare Advisory Group member Phil
O'Riley.
Phil is bang-on to ask what MSD is learning from the
experience to measure results and ensure the money spent is
worthwhile. If a private business ran the same way, it would be broke
within a week.
Does the public have the right to know whether
MPs are turning up for work? 🤨
Last
month, Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee floated the idea of
publishing MPs' attendance records. We reckon he's onto something.
Parliament already publishes quarterly reports on MPs' overall
spending. Why not MPs' attendance too?
Even Parliament's most hopeless party appointed
list MP backbenchers are paid $173,400, plus the generous perks
(including travel, clothing allowances, accommodation grants, generous
superannuation, and more). We say showing up shouldn’t be optional.
For
electorate MPs, if we can't see or hear them in the House, how can we
have any confidence they're fighting for local issues?
Of course,
there are legitimate reasons for absences (select committee work,
electorate duties, urgent matters), but without the data, we can't
tell who's doing the work and who's wagging. Transparency is
key.
We are reliably informed that Mr Speaker is a
regular reader of Taxpayer Update. Come on Mr Brownlee, let's turn
words into action... 😘
Adrian's
tomb: $56m for a half-empty Reserve Bank office
🏦
We try to
be a glass half-full type of organisation, but the Reserve Bank’s new
offices will be on the half-empty side.
Last week,
the
Reserve Bank was made to disclose its $56 million office costs
(for 10 years), and due to their recent redundancies, the staff will
only use half of the space available.
Under ex-Governor Adrian Orr, the Reserve Bank
signed a 10-year lease for fancy waterfront Britomart offices, which
will cost taxpayers over four times more than their Queen Street
offices.
The
new offices will cost $3.1 million per year, with a further $1.1
million operating cost and even an $14.5 million fit-out
budget.
Finance
Minister Nicola Willis has stepped in to ask the acting chair to
sublease redundant space so the Reserve Bank can reduce their
costs.
If you,
or someone you know, is looking for fancy office space in Auckland -
drop me a line and we'll put you in touch with Nicola Willis. You'll
be a taxpayer hero!
Half the public sector is “winging it” on
billions in assets 📉🤦
Last
week,
the Prime Minister made the extraordinary admission on Newstalk ZB
that 50 percent of government agencies do not have asset management
plans. Treasury
has raised the alarm, warning that half the public sector is
essentially flying blind when it comes to the billions of dollars’
worth of buildings, vehicles, IT systems and infrastructure they’re
meant to be looking after.
This is not
a niche paperwork issue. When agencies don’t track what they
own or the condition it’s in, the result is predictable: waste, decay,
emergency repairs, and massive cost blowouts that land squarely on the
taxpayer. Treasury is clearly worried – and the Government
needs to listen.
After the
Prime Minister admitted this shocking figure on Newstalk ZB, we
immediately wrote to him asking for the underlying information and
specific advice from the officials he was referring to. You
can read our letter to the Prime Minister here.
If fifty
percent of government agencies have no asset management plans, we want
to know which ones, and what their Ministers intend to do about it.
This is basic
governance.
No private
business or Board of Directors would survive if half its departments
had no idea what assets they held or what state they were in. Right
now, the public sector is being trusted with billions in
taxpayer-funded infrastructure without the systems to manage it. That
isn’t just inefficient. It is negligent.
Until
Ministers demand proper plans and start holding chief executives to
account, taxpayers will keep paying the price. We'll keep you updated
on the response.
One more
thing... ✊
The work of
the Taxpayers' Union is 100% dependent on the continued support of
thousands of people like you who chip in and make the work possible.
With
our AGM approaching, now is the time to join the Taxpayers' Union if
you've not already, or make
a secure donation via our website.
Thank you
for your support,
 |
Jordan
Williams
Executive Director
New Zealand
Taxpayers’ Union.
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