Sacked Te Whatu Ora chair Rob Campbell has stood by the political opinions that got him fired yesterday, saying he's been neutral in his role.
Health Minister Ayesha Verrall stripped Campbell of his role chairing Te Whatu Ora yesterday after he criticised National's Three Waters policy in a LinkedIn post.
In his post on Sunday, Campbell blasted National's Three Waters policy — referring to it as a "thin disguise for the dog whistle on co-governance.
"Christopher Luxon might be able to rescue his party from stupidity on climate change, but rescuing this from a well he has dug himself might be harder."
During the backlash for the post, Verrall said she had lost “confidence that Campbell is able to exercise the political neutrality necessary for his role at Te Whatu Ora” and sacked him.
This morning, Campbell told Breakfast his side of the story, doubling down on the comments that got him in trouble.
“I made some comments about National's Three Waters policy, which I considered to be wrong and misguided - the policy, not the comments - I stand by those,” he said.
Campbell said he often engages with political topics he’s interested in on social media, but that doesn’t mean he’s not impartial.
“I’ve always done that, and I’ll continue to do it; nothing changes for me.”
He said the code of conduct only relates to political comments that could damage his organisation, which “doesn’t mean that publicly, I’m muted.
“It doesn’t mean that I’m sitting there like a stuffed parrot, or a parrot that’s been trained just to say 'Polly wants a biscuit' whenever the minister wants; that’s not what I’m there for.”
He admitted to being biased in regards to Three Waters but said: “none of that bares to Te Whatu Ora.”
Following the post, National's public service spokesperson Simeon Brown said Campbell's conduct had been "appalling". The Act Party called for his sacking.
"What is at stake is the integrity of New Zealand's public service. If Campbell's behaviour goes unpunished, the rest of the public service is let down," leader David Seymour said.
National Party leader Christopher Luxon said he was more concerned about health outcomes.
"Our concern is more about health outcomes going backwards for Kiwis than his views on social media," Luxon told 1News.
This morning, Campbell fired off at both opposition parties, saying they overreacted.
He said they shouldn’t care about the comments because if they win the election, he’d be sacked anyway.
“I know Chris Luxon didn’t like it, I know David Seymour didn’t like it, but let's live in the real world for a moment; Christopher Luxon and the National Party and David Seymour and the Act Party have explicitly said they will take apart Te Whatu Ora when if they take the seats of Government.
“As chair of Te Whatu Ora, why am I worried about the sensitivities of those two people? They’d clearly sack me anyway when the election comes around.”
Campbell believes the strong reaction against him was because he supports co-governance and wants to make the health system equitable for Māori.
“I think there is a concern that we will see backsliding on the issues of being a Tiriti organisation and on driving for health equity for Māori and other disadvantaged groups; I think this is what this is largely about,” he said.
He told Breakfast the Public Service Commissioner should have taken his side and believes that ideology has caused bullying within public service.
“If this ideology pervades the public service, then people will get maltreated, people will get bullied.
“Muzzling people isn’t the answer to that,” he said.
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