P&WS: Who is in charge?

I don't usually post on the goings-on in the bureaucracy, but in the case of the recent appointment of Scott Gadd to the role of Executive Director, Parks and Strategic Projects I make an exception for three reasons: first, Mr Gadd has been political news lately and this is a blog about politics; second, I used to work for the minister responsible for the P&WS so have maintained an interest and know a little about it (enough to be wrong, no doubt); and third, it's my blog so I can.

You can read the news commentary about Mr Gadd losing his department, the government renewing his contract and being criticised for it, and form your own views about that. I'm interested in just one question here: who is in charge of the Parks and Wildlife Service?

I ask this not rhetorically, but because an anomaly has occurred in maintaining Mr Gadd in his statutory role as Director of National Parks and Wildlife, which premier Bartlett specifically states will be the case.

The National Parks and Reserves Management Act (2002) [and its predecessor The National Parks and Wildlife Act (1970)] creates the position of Director of National Parks and Wildlife, a statutory officer appointed by the Governor (from advice from the government of the day, of course). That means the Cabinet makes the decision and the responsible minister takes the appointment to the Governor for official ratification.

The intent of the NPRMA, I am absolutely sure, is that the Director it creates would actually be the person to run the Parks Service, or at least to oversee the person who runs the Parks Service. It wouldn't make sense otherwise and could lead to problems over authority (see below). So, during my service in the old Department of Environment and Land Management during the late 1990s, John Ramsay was Secretary of the department in which the P&WS sat, and Max Kitchell was the Director of Parks and ran the show.

Later, when DELM and Primary Industry amalgamated (the first time around) to form DPIWE, I believe the statutory appointment of Director went to the Secretary, Kim Evans, while someone else ran the P&WS. Then, when DPIWE was carved up and Parks was hived off to the Department of Tourism, Arts, etc, Scott Gadd, as Secretary of that department took the Parks directorship from Evans. (Just as a comment, it is probably better if the CEO/GM of the Parks Service is also the statutory Director, but I can see that it would also work with the position residing in the Secretary. The Director can, in any event, delegate most of his/her functions under Act, so the Secretary could retain statutory authority while delegating the task of running the show down to the Parks' senior managers.)

The problem we have now is that Scott Gadd is not the departmental Secretary (Kim Evans, again - poor bugger must be getting dizzy) or the general manager (Peter Mooney) of the Parks and Wildlife Service; but nonetheless he still is the statutory Director.

How is that going to work? How can the person who has power under an act of parliament to administer said act not actually be the person in charge? Mr Gadd's signature is required on a whole load of documents, delegated to officers in many cases no-doubt, but what if he refused to sign or withdrew some delegations? He can if he wants. Or how is the The National Parks and Wildlife Advisory Council going to perform its tasks properly if the person responsible for servicing and advising it, the Director, either decides not to play ball, or even if he does, has no authority to actually implement anything?

I understand that the likelihood is that Mr Gadd will form a working relationship with the Minister, Mr Evans and Mr Mooney and they will all get along fine. But that's not my point. The point is that, if I'm correct, we have separated the functions of a statutory officer from the intentions of the legislation. If I was a member of parliament that approved the Act back in 2002, I would not be a happy person.