THE PUBLIC SERVICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 July 1940, Page 5

THE PUBLIC SERVICE

APPOINTMENT OF OUTSIDERS QUESTIONED. PREMIER "DEFENDS PRACTICE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The emphatic opinion that a govern ment must be free at any time to select the best person for any particular job was expressed by the Prime Minister. Mr Fraser, when replying during consideration of estimates in the House ot Representatives last night, to a ques lion by Mr Polson (Opposition, Stratford) about the appointment of liaison officers in Government departments. Appointments in his own depar l men. were defended by the Minis 4 ''". - of Labour, Mr Webb. “Many experienced officers in the Public Service feel perturbed when they see the Government appointing outsiders ahead of them,” Mr Polson said. “I want to know whether these appointments have been made with the approval of the Public Service Commissioner. and, if so, under what principle this is done. I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with th' actual appointments, but I am trying tc preserve the promotion rights of officers who have been many years in the service.” The Government must retain the right to make appointments from outside the public service if it knew of anyone who could do the work better, said the Prime Minister, when replying. That was the only consideration worthwhile. In the Labour Department where liaison officers had been appointed, it was because they were qualified for certain duties that did not come within the general run of a departmental officer’s work, and he understood that the results had veen valuable in preventing and shortening industrial disputes. They had saved their salaries many times over. Mr Webb denied knowledge of any feeling of alarm in the Public Service, but said that even if that were so it W’ould not alter his determination to appoint the man he considered most suitable for a job. In the case of the liaison officers of the Labour Department. they nad special qualifications in dealing with men that departmental officers did not have, and for that reason they had been appointed to do that particular work.