I think the former, on balance.
They should have done it properly two years ago and they didn’t, hence they probably should not be back here now, unless this was their Machiavellian plan all along.
Two public service haircuts a term. But assuming that wasn’t it, we go back to a lost opportunity that could be in the rear vision mirror by now.
What they talked was a big game. What they delivered was a surgical whimper.
Yes, it is always sad to lose jobs and restructure and cut. But few outside the Wellington bubble would argue with the fact that the growth engine of public service work was absurd and 65,000 is a city, not a workforce.
To make it worse, they got the same headlines and noise and pushback over a couple of thousand cuts as they would have ten times that.
So we are back for another crack, driven by necessity.
That’s the bit to be admired.
Laying lots of people off in election year is not really a vote-getter
Mind you it's safe, I think, to say most of the public service aren't conservatives so the vote loss, you'd guess, will be minimal.
It’s a horrible thing working in an environment where your future is part of the political wind. I faced it at TVNZ and Radio NZ. Whoever woke up on what side of the bed had some effect on what you were paid and whether you were hanging around for a while.
It's no way to have a job.
And in that sense, you can blame the Labour Government for stacking the place with well-paid work. And yet as you applied, if you thought about it, surely it couldn’t last, and it hasn’t.
As the unions bleat, this is not about the public service and its value. They do a lot of good things and a lot of vital things.
There are a lot of very capable, if not talented, people in the mix. But it’s the extra, the excess and the fat that needs the trimming.
This is fiscally desperate to a degree – an operating allowance of $2.1 billion and savings from anywhere and everywhere.
You can't accuse the Government of priming the pumps. The pumps don’t work because "the vandals took the handles", if you know your Bob Dylan.
The point is slashing spending and killing jobs is not your traditional electioneering. That's to be admired.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
What they talked was a big game. What they delivered was a surgical whimper.
Yes, it is always sad to lose jobs and restructure and cut. But few outside the Wellington bubble would argue with the fact that the growth engine of public service work was absurd and 65,000 is a city, not a workforce.
To make it worse, they got the same headlines and noise and pushback over a couple of thousand cuts as they would have ten times that.
So we are back for another crack, driven by necessity.
That’s the bit to be admired.
Laying lots of people off in election year is not really a vote-getter
Mind you it's safe, I think, to say most of the public service aren't conservatives so the vote loss, you'd guess, will be minimal.
It’s a horrible thing working in an environment where your future is part of the political wind. I faced it at TVNZ and Radio NZ. Whoever woke up on what side of the bed had some effect on what you were paid and whether you were hanging around for a while.
It's no way to have a job.
And in that sense, you can blame the Labour Government for stacking the place with well-paid work. And yet as you applied, if you thought about it, surely it couldn’t last, and it hasn’t.
As the unions bleat, this is not about the public service and its value. They do a lot of good things and a lot of vital things.
There are a lot of very capable, if not talented, people in the mix. But it’s the extra, the excess and the fat that needs the trimming.
This is fiscally desperate to a degree – an operating allowance of $2.1 billion and savings from anywhere and everywhere.
You can't accuse the Government of priming the pumps. The pumps don’t work because "the vandals took the handles", if you know your Bob Dylan.
The point is slashing spending and killing jobs is not your traditional electioneering. That's to be admired.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
10 comments:
You are out of touch, Mike. These so called cuts will never happen. Willis ordered Treasury to put them in forecasts because none of her budget targets are being met. There is no promised "return to surplus". So she invented the cuts & Beehive sources tell me chose the number of civil servants at a level to squeak in a surplus one year around 2030. Its a bogus con job. Her AI reference was made up. It has no backing from those in the tech and econ professions I know. It was laughed at. The kind of tech the government needs will put up public sector costs, not reduce them.
The budget is blowing out due to ageing population pressures on healthcare and pensions. These mythical Willis job cuts comprise little over 5% of that increase which will still drive public debt to 100 percent of GDP in just over a decade. When you don't know what's happening Mike, maybe its better not writing economic claptrap that misleads readers on important matters. Neither you nor Willis have ever studied economics so stop making it up.
In reply to the above comment.
Firstly, I am certainly not a supporter of National - they lost my vote some time ago, because of their/Luxons dogmatic stance on important issues, such as the climate scam, that need serious debate.
However, to cut (not selectively) a few lines from Ani O'Briens article on the same subject, 'public sector overhaul aimed at reducing the number of public servants. There were about 47,250 full-time equivalents in 2017 when Labour took office and that had shot up to 65,700 by 2023 when they left. It is now at 63,657 and the plan is to get it down to 55,000 by 2029. The Government says the reforms will save approximately $2.4 billion over four years..'
Pray tell, what do 'economists' actually know and do (and I studied the subject at uni, many years ago, admittedly).
I reckon, in general, academics should only be consulted AFTER a decision is made, not before.
What a bloody mess we've got into by ignoring this.
For example, 'Who is a Maori' as defined by an academic ex pm, enshrined in law, has set this country back by many decades imho.
Ameni.
I agree wholeheartedly with your above comments on public sector size. But National has had three years with ACT to do these cuts and not done so. It has had three years to address Treaty concerns that have turned NZ into a non-meritocracy and not done so. It has had three years to reduce cost of living by making banking, food, power industry, and construction more competitive and not done so. The main point of my comment is its all talk. Never before in this country's history have politicians talked so much talk about plans they know will never happen. We all know politicians lie, but the deceit of our current political class, left and right, knows no bounds. They know their career prospects are zero should they leave parliament since most private jobs aren't interested in the skill of talking bull (aside from PR, comms, marketing). They think that by making fake promises it will keep them in power.
I asked AI, AI told me that AI will reduce the number of ‘Office jobs’ by 20% in the next 10 years. 20% of 63000 is 12,600, Willis’ plan to cut 8700 is ambitious and unambitious at the same time.
Does Mike mean MFAT? Or the laughable Ministry of Regulation? If so then he is confused, neither of those ministries are subject to cuts.
Not sure anon 3.55. But the minister for steak and kidney pies is quite upset with all the cuts and believes its gone too far also.
But Singapore has loads of really well paid public servants. Don’t we want to be efficient and good like them? That’s what Luxon told the media.
Anon 1255, Singaporeans take their public service seriously and appoint quality people to those positions. Here in NZ the average efficiency of the PS is lowered by the presence of many DEI political appointees who don't know their arse from their elbow.
Agree with other commentators that it hard to believe that these PS cuts will ever happen, and also to understand the 'why now' aspect other than to better balance the books for this election year budget. GPT response to the question:
"What could be the cost to the NZ taxpayer of 15,000 excess public servants, the loss of their productivity from the private sector, the make-work they dream up for the rest of us, the active resistance to progress, and on and on, for the past 2 1/2 years, adding interest until NZ debt is paid off?"
is:
"Low case: $5b direct fiscal cost.
Middle case: $10–15b including private-sector opportunity cost and some friction.
High case: $20b+ if the spending is debt-funded for decades and the bureaucratic drag is material.
The hard part is not the salaries; it is quantifying the negative-productivity effect of unnecessary compliance, delays, reports, approvals, and resistance to reform. That number is real in principle, but very hard to prove cleanly."
It's purely a media driven political stunt -
Performed by a govt that has sat on its arse for three years that has suddenly realized the people who voted them in are pissed off at all the inactivity and ineptitude.
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