John Tamihere brings the government to the court about the lost contract of Whānau ora

The lawyers who work by the executive -chief of the Whānau Commissioning Agency, sometimes attended the Superior Court of Wellington to defend a judicial review of the decision to grant the contract from the North Island to another provider. Lyric Waiwiri-Smith reports.

JOHN TAMIHERE’S Challenge for the acquisition process that saw your commission agency lose in a long time WHICANAU AGREEMENT ORA This is a case of concern for the “major interruptions in services”, not the complaints of a “disappointed commercial partner,” his lawyer told the Wellington Superior Court on Tuesday morning.

Less than a month after Tamihere’s Whānau Ora (Woca) commissioning agency, he was informed that he had lost a part of the commissioning contract of $ 155 million Whmen Ora, that the agency’s lawyers (previously known as Pou Matakana) presented urgent documents in court last Friday, requesting a court revision. Development Secretary Maori Dave Samuels and his Ministry Te Puni Kōkiri, the agency responsible for The contracts of Whānau were now appointed as the first and second defendants, alongside the new hired ngāti toa as the third.

Woca was one of three suppliers, alongside Te pūtahitanga o waipounamu and pasifika futures, who had maintained a Whmen contract since 2014. All three have lost their contracts after changes in the purchasing process saw the number of commissioned agencies increase from three to four, with services on the North Island to be divided into two and focused locally, although Woca lawyers claimed the “vast change” of the system to ensure that they were not eligible to next.

Wendy Aldred KC, representing the Woca, asked the court to consider the contextual issues of the case, arguing that his client was not simply a scontwork despised, but a service whose evidence of reach and success was neglected. Woca was “not just a financing vehicle,” said Aldred, but a “network of 113 service providers, providing crucial services to some of Aotearoa and most vulnerable areas.”

“This is a contextual call for the court to do,” said Aldred, although Judge Mcherron requested further clarification on what this context could be. “If this were a company like Spark seeking to publicize a purchasing process, you wouldn’t think the result would be judicially revisable,” said Judge Mcherron.

Aldred was based on a 1,601 pages statement presented by Maria Halligan, director of financing and hiring in Te Whānau O Waipareira, a subsidiary of the Woca, which included a story of the contracts of Whmen Ora. Halligan included a report from the Whiquing Task Force Ora 2010, which recommended that the whIONAU now be the maori-lid, to recognize Maori’s position in Aotearoa and Te Tiriti Waitangi.

A separate statement filed by Tamihere also covered a work history with Whānau Ora and evidence of Woca’s success in reaching and supporting needy communities. Tamihere had highlighted the vulnerability of those whom his service supported, which he wrote that he wrote “to a very long winter because of the immediacy of this interruption.”

“So the plaintiff argues that this is a classic exhibition of the first defendant who responds or fulfilled an obligation under the terms of article 2 of the treaty,” said Aldred. But Judge Mcherron pointed out, the contractors who replaced the Woca are also Maori.

“You would have an affair if the government said, ‘Based on the success of our school lunch programs, we are hiring it to Serco … We don’t have to be culturally relevant,” said Judge Mcherron. “What we have here are competing providers, all of them – as far as I can see – plunged into te to maori, and a ministry decision simply prefer different.”

Aldred said the plaintiff “there was no allegation of bad faith at this stage” and preferred to see a provisional relief progressed to stop Te Puni Kōkiri’s new contracts, which should come into force on June 3. She offered that the plaintiff would be willing to pay the financial damage lost as a result, an offer described by the defendant’s lawyer, Tim Smith, as “spectacularly naive.”

“What we are talking about here is a competitive process and you are not happy with the result,” Smith told the author. He offered Judge Mcherron that Aldred’s position in expanding the case’s commercial contexts obscured the central subject, which is that you said, all interviewees in this context, maori providers with excellent credentials. “

Smith told court that if the orders were granted in this context, it would only be “to stop the horse that has already started running.” Woca’s case depends on the idea that a status quo was not kept, said Smith, but the status quo was now the fact that the Woca is no longer the holder.

“Let’s be honest about what is happening: the main beneficiary of this is the candidate … It can’t be for the benefit of those downstream,” said Smith.

Judge Mcherron said that the weakest part of the plaintiff’s case, even if he accepted the broadest context presented by Aldred, was that the challenge “simply reverses to ‘we are the best provider for these services and why could anyone have chosen not to continue with us?’

“All the arguments made by my instructed friend are fundamentally flawed,” said Smith.

“You would be playing an English key in the works of a great policy implementation for the benefit of some of the most vulnerable people in New Zealand.”

The case will return to the Superior Court of Wellington on Thursday.