thegoodoil.org/?p=8677 As regular GO readers would know, the Fox often uses his insomnia to read Hansard – the transcripts of Parliament. Most of the time, that cures my awakeness pretty quickly but occasionally I come across some really interesting things. Take for instance the contributions the Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich made to the WA Upper House last week. In particular, this little segment about Minister Peter Collier piqued my interest: "Another serious matter that I want to raise is the allegations of bullying in the minister’s office. I understand there were claims of bullying… I understand there was to have been an independent Public Sector Commission investigation. I also understand that the so-called independent Public Sector Commissioner wanted to undertake that inquiry, but the minister did not want that to proceed; the minister wanted to be able to send a letter that basically said [name not relevant] was incompetent. That is how the minister wanted to deal with the allegations made against him. The minister insisted there be no investigation and, from what I understand, the Public Sector Commissioner complied. Rather than there be some investigation of the events that were occurring in the minister’s office at the time, I understand the Public Sector Commissioner made a determination that he would not investigate the minister’s office but instead would examine the Department of Training and Workforce Development. That was the solution to the reporting of bullying by a range of people to the Public Sector Commissioner, Mal Wauchope." Interestingly, there were some other allegations that the Fox genuinely hasn’t heard before and therefore won’t raise here but in regard to this one, the Hon Ms Ravlich has obviously been listening and hit the nail dead on! The Minister feigned outrage in his response and had the gall to utter this inaccurate pearler to the House: "There has never—I repeat: never—been an accusation of bullying levelled against me from either my office or any department under my jurisdiction" The facts of the matter are as follows: * Within days of starting as the Minister’s Chief of Staff, I had been told by the Premier’s 2IC that the relationship between the Ministerial Office and the Department of Training and Workforce Development had completely broken down and I was to “fix it”. * Within the first two weeks, a junior staff member who had been on bereavement leave since before I started and had never met, telephoned me to introduce herself and through tears told me that she did not want to return to our office because of the intimidating culture. She returned to work that week but had already negotiated to take up a position in a different Ministerial Office – and never came back. * At around the same time, I met for the first time the most senior officer at the Office of Energy who was also in tears as she announced her departure. * Staff from the Department of Premier and Cabinet “Ministerial Support” section told me that if the drain on their resources as a result of the internal culture of Minister Collier’s office didn’t change, they would be “forced to stop providing a service”. * I became aware that the West Australian newspaper had a letter from someone claiming to be a staff member of the Department of Training and Workforce Development (DTWD) alleging bullying from the Minister’s Office to the point that some in the Department were self-harming. * Within the first month Mal Wauchope, the Public Sector Commissioner called me to a meeting at which he told me of his intent to instigate an “Investigation into the culture and processes of the Ministerial Office that had led to the breakdown of the relationship with the Department of Training and Workforce Development (DTWD)”. * After learning of Mr Wauchope’s intent, the Minister insisted that I inform the Public Sector Commissioner that if that “investigation” proceeded, he would put on the record a letter outlining what he considered to be every failure of his new Department in order to rebut the inference that he and his Office were to blame for the relationship breakdown. Needless to say, that was a fair bit to manage within a month of starting a job that also required me to get on top of the numerous complex issues facing the Energy, Training and Workforce Development and Indigenous Affairs portfolios. Nevertheless, with the support of some great people both within my new office and our Departments, I set about trying to rebuild the broken relationships by throwing myself in the middle and mediating whenever I saw a misunderstanding coming. And here’s a direct example – the first is a SMS (that’s how Ministerial Offices do things “off the record”) from me to the Public Sector Commissioner in response to his first draft of the Terms of Reference for the “Investigation into the culture and processes of the Ministerial Office that had led to the breakdown of the relationship with the Department of Training and Workforce Development (DTWD)”: Fri Feb 11 13:45:28 WST 2011 Hi Mal, a bit difficult to talk but Minister will be delighted if you send something saying you will examine the structure and procedures of dtwd seeking his input” He wanted something specific to [INITIALS OF OFFICER REMOVED] but will be happy to mention that when giving his feedback. Is that doable? DB” And Mr Wauchope’s response: Yes re your bit in quotes. Mal Then me to him 6 minutes later: Fri Feb 11 13:51:50 WST 2011 Great! Thank you Mal and sorry it is so difficult. DB Then 12 days later when the Public Sector Commissioner had drafted and couriered (so as to not have an email appear in any future Freedom of Information request) a letter to announce that he would be “Examining” the Department rather than “Investigating” the Minister’s office, I ran it past the pedantic Minister and sent this SMS back: Wed Feb 23 12:20:11 WST Mal, that letter is great and I have shredded the other thought bubble. Min wants you to know he will respond to your formal letter in writing – and I’ll do my best to make that response non-inflamatory. Thank you db Given this testimony, two serious questions arise from Parliament last week:- 1. Is it appropriate for the Public Sector Commissioner to negotiate the terms of reference of his “Investigations” or “Examinations” with the subject of such, and 2. Did Minister Collier, the Leader of the House, mislead Parliament when he said: "There has never—I repeat: never—been an accusation of bullying levelled against me from either my office or any department under my jurisdiction." I reckon I might leave that for our very intelligent readers to decide! PS. I don’t have any unauthorised documents – these SMS messages came from a backup the IT guys told me to do on my home computer after my phone malfunctioned one weekend.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 19:57:48 +0000
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