Quotation for Today, Thursday 12 March

She asked Rennie to find out who was accountable for those lapses. If she made a mistake, it was to expect that the commissioner would single out someone. Instead – and no doubt to her horror – the report is almost glowing in terms of Matthews’ performance in the face of staff shortages, lack of experienced staff and the added workload imposed by the last Government’s move to more community-based sentencing.

Reading Rennie’s report, you have to remind yourself that Brady found that in most of the 100 parole case files his staff examined – and that included 52 high-risk offenders – the department had not followed its own self-imposed requirements which had been tightened following parolee Graeme Burton’s killing of Karl Kuchenbecker. In other words, there were plenty more accidents like that waiting to happen.

Collins’ error was to underestimate the State Services Commissioner’s traditional capacity for bending over backwards to avoid confrontation. Indeed, the commissioner sees himself as some kind of marriage-guidance counsellor when it comes to dealing with fractional relations between ministers and their chief executives.

John Armstrong – NZ Herald 10 March writing about the Rennie report on accountability at Corrections and what Judith Collins might have been expecting as opposed to what was delivered. Inevitably sooner ot later Rennie will be in the firing line, if he keeps this up.

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