Cam Slater: Swing That Axe, Hard

Stuff had an article yesterday asking how much fat can be trimmed off public sector jobs. I would suggest that the answer is plenty, plus some more. Stuff, however, thinks such thoughts are too simplistic.

It is too simplistic to assume that recent large increases in public sector staff numbers mean cuts won’t hurt, economists say, but there is likely some fat that can be cut.

A number of ministries have outlined plans to reduce their staff numbers in the face of a Government directive to cut spending.

The Ministry of Primary Industries plans to cut 384 roles, or 9% of its workforce.

The Ministry of Health is lining up 188 roles. The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is looking to reduce its workforce by 40%, or 63 people, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), is working through a round of redundancies, too.

Stuff

Media and simpering leftists all use the Ministry for Pacific Peoples as an example of drastic and appalling cuts, without actually saying that even if you cut 40% of their jobs they’d still have more staff than in 2017 when Labour won the Treasury benches.



And Ben Thomas helpfully provided a nice chart to show the extent of the growth in that particular ministry.


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Eric Crampton goes further and tells journalists how they can find this information out for themselves but, strangely, they never do.


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What did Stuff do? They compared staff numbers this year with last year’s. It portrays a much smaller example of the expansion of the public sector, leaving readers to conclude what Stuff wanted them to conclude, that the Government’s cuts are extreme, when they aren’t.

Economist Cameron Bagrie said the key question when it came to job cuts and staff numbers was what those people had been producing in their roles.

“This is where the great question marks start to get laid bare. Despite a big increase – it doesn’t matter whether you look at government spending or the number of people on the ground – there doesn’t seem to have been a material increase in the delivery of core government services. The implication is that a whole lot of monitoring and paper shuffling action has taken place.”

He said an 80% increase in government spending over the past five years meant there would be some fat to cut. But he warned against slashing back office roles.

Stuff

That’s the real problem: an 80% increase in government spending over the past five years.

This chart from The Facts shows that the increase in expenditure for Covid-19 was meant to be temporary but since then it has gone up another $44 billion!


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The New Zealand economy is in the toilet and the public sector is incredibly bloated. The Government has no choice but to cut huge amounts of fat from the public sector. It is unsustainable to continue as if there are no problems.

Staff cuts are just the start. There really needs to be a solid re-think about the role of the state pervading and insinuating itself into far too many aspects of our lives.

Start with the staff cuts, then look at the plethora of idiotic ministries that add no value to anyone except those staffing them.

Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the BFD - where this article was sourced.