Adrian Webster’s last political stand?
By Alan Tristram
Paekākāriki’s Adrian Webster, who died with his wife Marei last week, worked diligently to the end – and one of his last letters has a key message for Kāpiti people.
Adrian, who was Community Board chair, looks at the row over the huge salary increases for CEO’s like Pat Dougherty of the KCDC and explains why these are being paid by public bodies.
In a letter to the Listener published the same week he died, Mr Webster explains how 30 years ago public sector wages were regulated. At that time, he says, a department head was paid only three or four times as much as a basic grader.
Thatcher’s monetarism takes over
Then, under Lange’s first Labour Government in the 1980’s, ‘Thatcher monetarism’ took over.
He asks: “How did this happen?
“ In 1986, most of David Lange’s Cabinet were captured by the Thatcherite monetarism promoted by Treasury and the Business Roundtable.
“The State-Owned Enterprises Act was passed that year and shattered the regulation of state salaries by empowering each SOE Chief Executives to set employees pay and conditions.”
Chief Executives’ salaries were fixed by each SOE board of governors which, predominantly drawn from the private sector, gave CEO’s higher pay levels in line with the market.”
Mr Webster also explains how the 1988 State Sector Act deregulated departmental salaries — and departments began competing for skilled staff by bidding up pay levels. Then, he says, this spread to local government.
Adrian’s answer to the problem
Then Adrian Webster comes up in characteristic style with a solution:
“The remedy for this,” he says, “is to fix the pay system.”
And in what is clearly a reference to the Kāpiti Council’s problem*, he concludes: “If an individual council stopped awarding pay increases, it would see its best and brightest poached by others.”
*The KCDC sparked a huge public row recently when it awarded CEO Pat Dougherty a $44,000 pay rise, against a background of a Council budget over-spend in Otaki — and big cost increases for other projects in the pipeline.
Hmm, not sure if our KCDC has our best and brightest to lose ?!, I think if the pay rates were dropped we might see some honest, down to earth, logical, local people in positions at KCDC, who have enough common sense to make decisions about things in our community without having to run off at every decision and pay hundreds of thousands to consultants !
Just my opinion, but in a true democracy, and a government for the people, by the people really should be made up of “The People” and not academics, richlisters and others out of touch with REAL community issues.
Apart from that Adrian and Marei definately knew what was going on, and have left a huge hole in the Paekakariki and the wider community.
How right Adrian was! The high pay rates came in to Local Government after the 1989 Central Government Reorganisation of Local Government, and the change of management style…the CEO became the only staff member employed by a Counci, and the CEO employed all other staff.
Salaries became based on the HR recommendations which were lined up with the private sector.
This cut out all the Staff Committees that previously worked out the salaries of Officers based on the PSA salary scales and performance.
Being a previous staff committee Chairperson gave me the experience
of being part of Union negotiations on the Employer side of the table in the 1980s.
I agree with the solution Adrian suggested-‘pay fixing’, my own addition ‘with fair regulations’.
Adrian’s strong advocacy for Paekakariki and other issues will be missed at the KCDC table.