Political neutrality in the day job
OPINION: Many of the voters going to the polls on Saturday will be employees for central or local government or other public bodies.
The recent case of Jenny Porter highlights the issues of political neutrality in employment.
Porter is a social worker employed by the MidCentral District Health Board which runs the Palmerston North Hospital.
She was invited to take part in a panel at a church-run social justice forum this month, where election candidates were challenged to explain what they would do about the real circumstances people talk about, rather than discussing policies.
Porter was to discuss addiction, social isolation, and the role of others in supporting recovery.
However, as a DHB employee she was discussing matters relating to the DHB in the context of a political debate.
In New Zealand, the public service must maintain political neutrality. The State Services Commissioner has recently issued guidelines for state servants around the 2017 general election.
It applies to all state services, from public service departments, the Defence Force, and police, to Crown entities (including DHBs) and school boards.
State servants are not prevented from taking a personal interest in politics, but they must keep their jobs out of politics and politics out of their jobs.
Political neutrality allows state service employees to work effectively with current and future governments because the personal views of individuals are kept separate from their jobs.
The government of the day must be able to trust state servants to provide ministers with reliable and apolitical advice and carry out their instructions. The golden rule is to leave your politics at the door when you come to work
The DHB prevented Porter from taking part in the debate because, we are told, DHBs and their employees are required to be politically neutral.
The DHB’s representative said that ‘‘given the political attendance and the potential for political debate, it was suggested that the employee attend at a time after the election to ensure that she and the DHB were not compromised in any way’’.
Was the balance between freedom of expression and the public interest in having politically neutral state services correctly decided by the DHB?
One organiser of the event claimed Porter had been ‘‘gagged’’. He claimed social workers have a responsibility to speak up on social justice issues, and the DHB’s actions prevented her from doing that.
It is hard to see the forum Porter was to speak at as other than political and it’s easy to see why the DHB took the stand it did – particularly two weeks before the election.
The DHB’s indication that Porter is welcome to speak on these issues, after the general election, is a way of enabling freedom of expression without being drawn into party politics. The DHB’s decision also prevents the taxpayer-funded organisation from losing its appearance of independence.
This issue is important as it involves key democratic principles that come head to head in stories like Porter’s.
The well-known case of Lowe and the Tararua District Council did not occur close to a general election, but it is the high-water mark for the Employment Court’s support of freedom of political expression.
The district council, which employed Lowe as a community development adviser, planned to restructure the delivery of community development assistance and reduce funding.
The plan involved setting up a trust and reducing the council’s contribution to the work in question by $20,000. Lowe was given notice that these planned changes meant her employment would terminate about a year before the fixed term was due to expire.
Lowe was instructed in writing to keep the plans confidential until the council presented the proposal at a public meeting.
She ignored this directive and discussed it with council members and people in the community. At the public meeting, Lowe was asked to give her view and read a prepared statement saying the trust had no credibility.
As a result of her address to the meeting, Lowe was dismissed.
The Employment Court held that in the circumstances it was not reasonable for the council to require Lowe to take a neutral stance on the proposal as her role was directly affected by it. The court found that Lowe’s object was to express her opinion rather than frustrate council policy.
This case goes back to 1994 but Lowe was awarded $46,000 in lost wages and $23,000 for humiliation and distress.
Lowe’s case sits at the top of the spectrum for freedom of expression so state services shouldn’t rely on this case to justify publicly debating policies in the lead-up to the election – particularly if you are commenting on the sector of government where you work. The State Services Commissioner’s guidelines emphasise that the more senior you are in the public service, the more important neutrality is.
Political neutrality is deeply embedded in New Zealand’s state sector and most people manage political and professional conflicts well; although at least one group in Palmerston North is still crying foul.
The golden rule is to leave your politics at the door when you come to work.
❚ Peter Cullen is a partner at Cullen – the Employment Law Firm. He can be contacted at peter@cullenlaw.co.nz.