Mark Prebble - A Nasty person
The public response to State Service Commissioner Mark Prebble's decision to step down was fascinating.
Richard Prebble (as in the former ACT leader and Labour cabinet minister) reckons his brother won't be taking the blindest bit of notice. And he thinks it's probably a fair indication that his brother was the ultimate civil servant.
Prebble (Mark) was of course the man that Labour loved to hate when he was in the employ of the former National government. Helen Clark labelled him a "high priest of Rogernomics"; Labour's other description of Prebble was "apostle" of the far Right.
But Clark went on to keep him as the head of her Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet after the 1999 election and he became a loyal lieutenant who she later praised for his so-called analytical brain.
Prebble might have built a career around being the ultimate grey man - he told an interviewer once he didn't do personal - but he has spent a what some may call a remarkable amount of time in the public eye for all that.
And while it has been an, cough, illustrious career, his lasting legacy is likely to be his testimony to the Christine Rankin employment hearing.
"Every time she moved, I found I was having to see an embarrassingly large amount of breast exposed," he told the court.
That's hard to top.
Original Source; Tracy Watkins.
Posts
31 January 2008 at 11:46 pm One certainly couldn't say that Mark Prebble is leaving the State Services Commission in better condition than when he was ushered in. He has done nothing to curb the nauseating rise in the number and power of 'political advisors' tagged to each Ministerial portfolio since the advent of MMP. If you think that the public service is still able to fulfil its role as the provider of free and frank advice to the govt of the day, you are sadly mistaken. These advisors are mostly made up of people who, having been passed over for promotions and meaningful positions in previous employment lives, have a lecherous god complex to which they expect all public servants to bow. There is no longer an honest, free flow of advice between officials and their Ministers. Political advisors have stepped into the 'breach', unwanted and I would say un-constitutional conventionally, and now actively hamper, tamper or block advice that has been carefully crafted by officials. There are many cases where, should an official choose to ignore their interference and attempt to push the advice through to their Minister (as is the correct practice), officious political advisors contact the relevant Chief Executive direct ( at times known to be via emails shot off after a few Friday night drinks), identifying the 'erring' official by name and demanding said official's apology and concurrence. Not a few CE's are lacking the balls these days to tell these not always young individuals to sod off. Happy tales are all Ministers like to hear, many CEs scold their officials nowadays. That's if Ministers even choose to bend an ear to advice from their public servants at all these days. So, Mark Prebble, in addition to conning the PM to screw over NZers' entitlements in Australia behind everybody's back, because you feel for the typical Australian pre-game heckle, you leave New Zealand's future in the hands of a few party hacks who were never good enough to make it in the real world in the first place. Cheers!
1 February 2008 at 4:12 pm Thanks for your comments Feuervogel.