"The focus all the way through is superficial rather than substance. They've got the colour schemes right but the computers don't work. They run the television advertisements, but the phone lines are clogged.

"When you run through the list of spending it all points to appalling practice that the two Winz Ministers should have stopped very quickly. It's not good enough to say they don't have responsibility for operational matters..."
- Rod Donald, Green Party co-Leader

"Ms Rankin runs a corporation. Such terminology was once confined to a private enterprise. She evidently runs it with charisma. That was once confined to preachers in born-again religions. Faced with the current storm of criticism she's sticking to her guns. "I lead this place with a passion, " she said, adding, "I intend to continue leading it with a vengeance." Vengeance against whom was not explained..."
- Rosemary McLeod, Broadside columnist, The Dominion

"Corporate profile? The public does not care about corporate profiles. It cares about the organisation fulfiling its purpose: bringing together jobs and those who need them, or, if that is not possible, ensuring that those entitled to benefits receive them in efficient fashion [...]

"This branding is nonsense, and all the energy and money expended on it, has to stop. The public service once had a reputation for taking advantage of the taxpayer at the bottom end of the pay scale. Now it seems it is those at the top end of the pay scale who have forgotten who they work for..."
- editorial in New Zealand Herald 22 July 1999

"Let's not disparage Winz too much. There's a refreshing zaniness about the logic that it creates jobs by producing a television commercial showing how it creates jobs. Even better is the method of creating jobs by producing a commercial showing how it will create jobs by producing a commercial that will show it how it creates jobs. Is this the start of an infinite regress?"
- Peter Durney, Cambridge (Letter to the Editor, New Zealand Herald)

"To facilitate the commercialisation of this organisation, the old culture of public service must be destroyed and the dangerous concept of citizen entitlement rooted out forever. In the department's world, the unfortunate citizen stands before the nattily dressed employee of the business as neither a customer or a client, but as a "case" to be managed..."
- Chris Trotter, From the Left columnist, The Dominion

"Something has gone seriously awry at Winz. The department which is supposed to cater for the poorest New Zealanders is lost in a managerial fantasyland of insane opulence and corporate hokum. All of this nonsense is only a symptom of a wider sickness. A couple of other public agencies have reportedly cancelled their Wairakei conferences as a result of the uproar over Rankin's department. Our taxpayer-funded entrepreneurs have lived high on the hog for much too long, and now they must stop. Sacking Rankin is a good place to start. It would also serve as a warning to the others..."
- editorial in Sunday Star-Times 25 July 1999

"Ministers now have little say in the hiring of departmental heads and minimal control over departmental spending. It is up to chief executives to determine how they use their budgets to deliver the outcomes sought by the ministers.

"Mr Sowry and Peter McCardle have asked State Services Commissioner Michael Wintringham to investigate Christine Rankin's role in the hiring of the planes. But they may have to do more to convince the public that the government has not lost control of public-sector spending..."
- Nick Venter, Political Week columnist, The Dominion

"Mrs Shipley blames Labour for introducing the system that puts chief executives at arms length from ministers, while acknowledging there has been much productive change. Though she now appears to be irked that ministers cannot apply direct political leverage, she does not intend to restore their prerogative to hire and fire.

"In the meantime, a rather flaccid State Services Commission deservedly stands in the gun. Successive commissioners have ratcheted up chief executives' salaries, and failed to rein in a public sector culture of extravagance expressed in consultancies running to seed, golden handshakes, and a fascination with public relations razzmatazz over matters of substance ..."
- editorial in The Dominion 27 July 1999

"The problem with Work and Income NZ can be identified with its chief executive's use of the word "customers". She imagines she is managing a corporation and is trying to apply the same simple set of ideas which govern the corporate world within a quite inappropriate environment ..."
- Bernard Gadd, Papatoetoe, (Letter to the Editor, New Zealand Herald)

" The rationale behind Winz's creation - that providing unemployment benefits and advertising job vacancies fit naturally together - has been lost in a welter of waste. Any efficiencies of the new arrangement were soon overshadowed by the controversy of the Winz $1.5 million campaign against benefit crime. The organisation became best known not for the quality of its help but for encouraging people to dob in beneficiaries thought to be rorting the system.

" It is therefore ironic that the people in charge of Winz are facing scrutiny over their calls on taxpayer funds. Rather than concentrate on competent delivery of its primary services, Winz has embarked on a corporate spending spree. It has dissipated $250,000 in trying to counteract criticism. That has been totally counterproductive. Indeed, it has guaranteed more flak for the ailing organisation..."
- editorial in The Christchurch Press 21 July 1999

" The `dob-in-a-beneficiary' campaign cost Winz $1.5 million to track down bludgers. In damage control to cover this, and other departmental gaffes, whinging Winz spent a quarter million dollars to justify/explain/and excuse their blunder. Perhaps Winz `think big' directors, in wasting huge sums of money, are more guilty of defrauding taxpayers than the lowly paid and unemployed `bludgers'..."
- Rosemary Francis, Christian Heritage Party

"The "branding manager", as Winz confirmed the job title, exposed how far the civil service has travelled in a short time, and how quickly the route has become dangerously downhill. At a stroke, the pot-plant manager has undone, in the all-important public's eyes, whatever good and inspiration may have come from Christine Rankin's delusional videos ...

"Whoever dreamed up this caper is richly splattered with egg, and the fact that they can easily afford the hairdressing and dry cleaning bill won't make the mess disappear any faster. Instead of being inspired by the message from their $250,000-a-year chief, Winz staff are humiliated and angry. They are reeling from the public hostility as beneficiaries and taxpayers alike react to the litany of extravagance..."
- editorial in The Daily News 31 July 1999

"You are always in the shit in this industry. Only the depth of it changes..."
- former Income Support Service boss, and Rankin's mentor, George Hickton