1941: Defiant Bureaucrat Killed in Minister’s Office
August 17, 2019
By AHNZ
The Public Servant Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence has already been given to one dead parliamentary staffer so who should be the next one be?
Labour 6.0 Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern invented this new opportunity for herself to call meetings and hand out prizes in 2018. Who will be the next 5 lucky bureaucrats? I suggest Thomas Mark who died in the line of duty during Labour 1.0….
9 June, 1941, Mark, 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 Mark 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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Image ‘Squeeky’ Mason; ref. teara.govt.nz
Ref. 2019: Honouring Bureaucracy
Ref. also, Dr Martyn Finlay who was political staff to Mason c.this time; 1973: Labour 3.0 on Justice
Note 2021: In June 2021 it was found that long-standing MP Nicholas Rex Smith apparently had such a yelling match with a staffer that he had to resign from parliament. Today in history, 10 June, 1941, Minister Rex Mason had a similar episode with his staffer that killed the man stone dead by stopping his heart on the floor of the Minister’s office. We know less about 2021 than we do about 1941. We don’t even know what happened or who the staffer was but are required to believe the consequences so grave that it’s the end for Rex II. In 1941 Rex I had no problems and glided on. Ref. Mystery still surrounds Nick Smith resignation, RNZ (June 2021)
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