It is chipped away until one day, when it is too late, we realise it is gone.
A politically neutral public service that we can trust is one such principle.
On 9 September almost 10,000 public servants went on strike.
A coordinated public-service strike 47 days before voting begins is unprecedented.
The PSA has always been a political union. It says it campaigned against the National Government in 1999.
But this year it has gone much further.
It has registered as a third-party election promoter. Its campaign is called “Change the Government”. It has distributed election material in government workplaces.
Sir Brian Roche, the Public Service Commissioner, has said that its postcards are election advertising and that displaying them in public-service workplaces is inconsistent with political neutrality.
Where are our political leaders?
A neutral public service depends not only on the mandarins. It also depends on politicians defending the principle.
The government has condemned the strike as political.
Why has the Opposition not upheld the principle of a neutral public service and called on the PSA to abandon its political campaign?
And what about the strike?
Did the 10,000 strikers lose pay for the hours they were not working?
Or did we pay for the walkout?
Once I would have dismissed as paranoia the idea that the public service might deliberately sabotage a government’s re-election.
The Honourable Richard Prebble CBE is a former member of the New Zealand Parliament. Initially a member of the Labour Party, he joined the newly formed ACT New Zealand party under Roger Douglas in 1996, becoming its leader from 1996 to 2004. This article was sourced HERE
The PSA has always been a political union. It says it campaigned against the National Government in 1999.
But this year it has gone much further.
It has registered as a third-party election promoter. Its campaign is called “Change the Government”. It has distributed election material in government workplaces.
Sir Brian Roche, the Public Service Commissioner, has said that its postcards are election advertising and that displaying them in public-service workplaces is inconsistent with political neutrality.
Where are our political leaders?
A neutral public service depends not only on the mandarins. It also depends on politicians defending the principle.
The government has condemned the strike as political.
Why has the Opposition not upheld the principle of a neutral public service and called on the PSA to abandon its political campaign?
And what about the strike?
Did the 10,000 strikers lose pay for the hours they were not working?
Or did we pay for the walkout?
Once I would have dismissed as paranoia the idea that the public service might deliberately sabotage a government’s re-election.
The Honourable Richard Prebble CBE is a former member of the New Zealand Parliament. Initially a member of the Labour Party, he joined the newly formed ACT New Zealand party under Roger Douglas in 1996, becoming its leader from 1996 to 2004. This article was sourced HERE
6 comments:
The Coalition government missed an opportunity to acknowledge the strike , commit to bargaining sometime next parliamentary term and in the meantime the strikers employment positions will be left vacant. Numbers reduced - Job Done .
The PSA and its views and policies is NOT representative of those working in the Public Service.
As you say The PSA has "always been a political union".
But it should not be used to represent the views of those who work in the public sector.
In fact, many public servants resent being associated with that political union, their narrative, policies and ideologies.
There is no denying the PSA is biased, full of woke nonsense and toxic ideologies.
But there is no truly representative body for public servants perhaps because by the very nature of their remit they are to always act neutral.
The main problem is the public sector is the politically charged and ideological policies which CEOS and senior management endorse and implement.
There was an election 3 years ago and many public servants are still waiting for those toxic policies to be scrapped.
Perhaps if the politicians and ministers had some guts, got off their collective arses and refused to endorse some of those policies often cynically woven into the thread of HR and recruitment the public service would indeed be neutral.
The Public Service Neutral?
What a stupid question?
Always been there left, and the sort of people that rely on State funding always will be.
If my job is funded by tax, who can blame me for advocating for more tax? Politics 1.01.
If the present government had not wasted 3 bloody years and instead purged the government department and ministries of HR and recruitment policies based on toxic political ideologies, we might have avoided most of this rhetoric and vitriol.
Bitching and moaning about public servants is misdirected and futile.
It starts with leadership from the top but there's been NONE.
All that has come out of the beehive is some incoherent diatribe about government workers need to support Wellington CBD business and buy more pies. AND that AI will solve the problem.
Both idiotic.
Now - "I Have Been Thinking" - just how much would anyone (in Govt) trust Brian Roache?
A gent with longevity in NZ Civil Service.
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