Two days ago Stuff carried a story about Labour Minister Kiritapu Allan's staff quitting rather than put up with her bullying. And it appears to have opened the floodgates:
A senior public servant, with decades of experience, says Cabinet Minister Kiritapu Allan “yelled and screamed” so loudly, staff in the office heard the telephone call.Labour are as usual circling the wagons around their bully, calling the reports "dirty politics" and saying that there have been no "formal complaints" (while refusing to release evidence of informal ones). But senior public servants don't put their careers and reputations on the line like this for no reason. And those careers and reputations are on the line, because while Stuff has withheld names, unless Allan is a total sociopath who does this to everyone, she will know exactly who her victims are.The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they witnessed Allan’s interactions with younger staff members both from government agencies and her Beehive office in a meeting, as well as seeing her “absolutely berate” another official for 20 mins on another occasion.
Allan “strongly refutes” the allegations.
Another former senior official with a long history of public service, has also spoken to Stuff to confirm they had concerns about Allan’s dealing with staff. “Basically low trust and respect of public servants was [the] issue,” they said.
And NEMA’s chief executive Dave Gawn, in a statement, said he “was aware of concerns regarding relationships in the minister's office, and that he understood action was taken to address these concerns.”
I've said this before when it's come up, over Sam Uffindell, and Judith Collins, and Nick Smith, and Meka Whaitiri, and Maggie Barry, and all the rest: we should not tolerate bullies in our Parliament. And if certain political parties do, we should not tolerate them either. Labour needs to either sack and de-select Allan, or show that she has recognised that she has a problem and has taken effective steps to remedy it. Otherwise, we should regard them as a party of bullies and bully-apologists, and shank them for it at the ballot box.
Meanwhile, its been three years since the Francis report made it clear that Parliament was a toxic sewer of a workplace. And this shit is still going on. Parliament only got round to establishing a Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards last year, after three years of foot-dragging. The obvious question is whether they will be investigating Allan. And if not, what the fuck are they for?
