Inability To 'Regurgitate' Setchell Convo Defended

Monday, 6 August 2007, 6:22 pm
Article: Kevin List

PM's Post Cab: Prebble's Inability To Regurgitate Setchell Conversation Defended

Last week the State Services Commission (SSC) initiated an inquiry into the public service recruitment and employment of Madeleine Setchell – a recruitment process that eventually led to the resignation of Minister for the Environment David Benson-Pope.

Today at her regular post cabinet press conference the Prime Minister announced that she still had confidence in the State Services Commissioner Mark Prebble who had since last week decided that his office needed the assistance of a former State Services Commissioner Don Hunn to handle parts of the inquiry

During the post cabinet press conference it was discovered that both the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the State Services Minister Annette King had been in touch with Mr Prebble regarding bringing in outside assistance for the inquiry.

"The suggestion was made by the Minister in several phone calls and also by the DPMC that someone independent should be brought in to assist the inquiry," explained the Prime Minister

The Prime Minister considered that placing the inquiry in Mr Hunn's hands was "the right decision."

During the furore over the sacking of Ms Setchell from her position at the Ministry for the Environment as a communications manager Dr Prebble had put pen to paper for an article in the Dominion-Post.

Dr Prebble's article effectively cleared the way the Madeline Setchell employment case had been handled.

Missing from Dr Prebble's article however was the fact that the former Minister for the Environment David Benson-Pope had informed Dr Logan that he [Mr Benson-Pope] would not feel able to discuss certain things with Ms Setchell in 'a free and frank way'. This conversation which eventually would lead to Mr Benson-Pope's downfall was noticable by its glaring absence in Dr Prebble's Dominion opinion piece.

The Prime Minister explained to the media that Dr Prebble's inability to recall this vital conversation may have been because "[Dr Prebble] had lodged it away in some deep recess of his memory."

"It wasn't regurgitated [from Dr Prebble's memory] when Mr Rennie was compiling his report and that is unfortunate from my point of view because I did rely on that report," added the Prime Minister

"I believe Dr Prebble is an honest man and he will want the inquiry to be absolutely full and describe what happened and how state sector practice can be improved in the future," said the Prime Minister.

As well as the faulty memory of the State Services Commissioner the Prime Minister also devoted a good chunk of the conference to issues surrounding the potential sale of Auckland Airport

Listen to the Prime Minister's press conference

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