Mac Attack, 1941
August 22, 2018
By Anarchist History of New Zealand
The inaugural Public Servant Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence; Who should be the first recipient? Labour 6.0 Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has just invented this new opportunity for herself to call meetings and hand out prizes*. Nobody yet knows who, later this year, will be the lucky Bureaucrat. I suggest Thomas Mark who died in the line of duty during Labour 1.0….
9 June, 1941, Mack, the Public Service Commissioner was the bug on the windshield of Rex Mason. Because Labour 1.0 was composed of low-skilled and minimally-educated union officials a man like Mason had to cover a lot of bases. He was one of the few who had completed a primary school education; He had a law degree! This distinction made Mason the go-to guy to be : Attorney-General, Minister of Education, Minister of Justice, and Minister of Native Affairs.
All of these offices rolled into one office, and into that office stepped Mr Mark, public servant, but he never got out of there alive. Superminister Mason demanded an inspection of one of the department heads, and that man’s head on a plate; Mark courageously refused.
Tall and skinny Mason spoke pedantically in a dry-as-dust, high-pitched voice (probably sounded like Michael Jackson crossed with Ferris Bueller’s economics teacher.) The Superminister Commanded! Mason defied…and dropped dead right there at Mason’s feet of a heart attack.
Others (those papers under direct control of Labour 1.0) say the Mack Attack happened outside the office on the way to the meeting. However, the State Services Commission insist to this day that events transpired as described above.
Either way, let Labour 6.0’s first Bureaucrat medal go to Labour 1.0’s first Bureaucrat fatality, I say.
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* Previous post: AHNZ on Facebook
Image ‘Squeeky’ Mason; ref. teara.govt.nz
