Those who I mix with in the academic world know much about the biased appointments that have been made to civil service positions related to the execution of economic policy in NZ. Those appointments have been biased in terms of choosing a particular type of person who has a strong political leaning that favors the ideology of Labour. These last five years have seen an overt filling-of-positions-based-on-ideology, not competency, on a scale not witnessed before in the history of this country.
Folks like me and several of my colleagues have given up applying for any prominent public service position, since we've been rejected out-of-hand in the past and know we wouldn't ever get one in a billion years, regardless of qualifications and experience.
Funnily enough, I was just speaking to a Kiwi who is a former Governor of a Central Bank, with vast experience at the IMF and globally - he was rejected when enquiring about being a member of the Reserve Bank of NZ's Monetary Policy Committee, even though he's in a different league from the existing members of the MPC. The views he expressed on Central Banking made the reason obvious to me - he's not an ideological fit for Labour.
We all know the game. It's an open secret. The more politically loyal you are to Labour's partisan cause the better - that will help you pull off a top civil service job. Once you get it, lie low, shut up with public commentary & start pretending you're politically neutral and unbiased in the execution of your duties, even though you're not.
For State Services & the PM to pretend top civil servants have been selected in a non-partisan way as part of a genuine search to find the best person for the job, regardless of other considerations, and have been faithfully executing that job without fear nor favor to any political party, beggars belief to me in terms of appointments related to economics.
The government's position that has emerged these past days has become ludicrous. What is it? It doesn't matter how much you were chosen based on past political affiliation and how much you've been bending things Labour's way these past five years, just don't tweet it, put it on Linked In, Facebook, Blog it, or write about it in the news. Hide it.