Posts Tagged ‘public service’

The Public Service pay freeze

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, May 8th, 2021 - 18 comments

Mindboggling.

Suck it up political sleazers.

Written By: - Date published: 8:22 am, November 8th, 2017 - 113 comments

Winston Peters has launched a legal fishing expedition to identify who exactly breached privacy on his superannuation over payments. A problem that he shares with about 50 thousand other pensioners. Unlike them, his problem wasn’t trying to find money to repay it. It was that the breach was deliberately timed to be a classic dirty politics ploy, almost certainly by National, in the leadup to the  recent election. I wish him good fishing.

 

Another term of Nats bad news for democracy

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, October 13th, 2017 - 64 comments

It’s starting to feel a lot like 1996 all over again. Another term of the Nats would be bad news for the institutions of democracy. We’ve had recent warnings on the state of the justice system, press freedom, and the public service.

There is no surplus

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, October 14th, 2016 - 125 comments

In Year Eight of this National government, the idea of a budget surplus is a joke. They’ve promised it for nearly a decade. They’ve fiddled the books. The truth is, there is no surplus.

Nats campaigning with public money

Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, November 26th, 2015 - 45 comments

Campaigning with public money. Politicising the public service. Cabinet club is cash for access. This is a corrupt government.

The future of the public service – public meeting in Ōhāriu

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, August 25th, 2014 - 12 comments

Something to go to in Wellington this Wednesday

Redundancies, consultants, professional development

Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, September 12th, 2012 - 12 comments

National would like us to believe that it is the party of sound business management. How sound is it to spend $114 million on redundancies, while simultaneously running up a $910 million bill on external consultants?

Grubby politics

Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, April 10th, 2012 - 8 comments

Cronyism. The politicisation of the public service. Internal power struggles. It’s all just grubby Nat politics as usual. Why do we put up with it?

IT isn’t free

Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, February 17th, 2012 - 172 comments

The Nats want to replace public service jobs with computerised systems. They claim that this will improve service and save money. Quite apart from the folly of destroying jobs in the current economy, they are likely wrong on both those claims.

Human face of public service cuts

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, August 30th, 2011 - 41 comments

Good human interest story in the DomPost today about the human costs of public service jobs cuts. A Wellington woman has written a letter to Prime Minister John after her 63-year-old mother learned last week that her position at the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry is to be axed. Staffing cuts after a merger with the Fisheries […]

Who will do the rebuilding?

Written By: - Date published: 8:26 am, March 19th, 2011 - 38 comments

Who will plan, oversee and administer the rebuilding of Christchurch?  Public servants.  The kind of “back room bureaucrats” that the Nats love to hate.  But governments can’t get anything done without them.

English lashes out

Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, February 10th, 2011 - 66 comments

By every significant measure our economy is a mess.  Bill English is finance minister for what is looking increasingly like the most useless do-nothing NZ government in living memory.  So is he working on a plan to put things right?  Is he rolling out the big ideas that will get New Zealand moving again?  No – he’s lashing out at public servants.  Pathetic.

Nats attack public service neutrality

Written By: - Date published: 12:55 am, May 13th, 2010 - 25 comments

I’ve been having a look at the new advice on the civil service code of conduct. It is a clear attempt by the Nats to make sure the civil service is ‘politically correct’ for their purposes. Perhaps they’re tired of getting official advice that says ‘don’t cut that, it’s good value for money’, ‘don’t fund that, it’s stupid’, and ‘don’t pass that law, it might cause more murders’.

Memo from a muppet

Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, December 24th, 2009 - 43 comments

So John Key thinks I’m a Muppet. “[when I’m in Hawaii on holiday] they’ll send me stuff … those Muppets in the background who send it all to me”* Well f#ck you, John. While you’re off in Hawaii with your DPS pouring you drinks, I’ll be working. The days I do get on ‘holiday’ I […]

Denigration of public service

Written By: - Date published: 5:41 pm, April 25th, 2009 - 42 comments

There was a great turnout at the Mount Albert War Memorial building this morning, both inside the hall and people outside waiting for the flag and the silence. What has been intriguing me over the years is the changing number and demographics of the people who are now turning up. When I first started attending […]

Media finally getting it?

Written By: - Date published: 12:18 pm, April 23rd, 2009 - 18 comments

On the impending job losses at the IRD, TVNZ reporter Catherine Loft ended her report with: “Anyone who once thought that they were safe working for our government really needs to think again”. I wonder how on earth they could have got that idea?

PSA broadens tax debate

Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, June 24th, 2008 - 21 comments

It’s good to see the PSA broadening the public debate on tax cuts with a UMR poll showing the majority of Kiwis don’t want bigger tax cuts if they come at the expense of public services. To summarise: 71% of New Zealanders would prefer to keep taxes at current levels than have higher user charges […]

National breaking promises already

Written By: - Date published: 10:07 am, June 23rd, 2008 - 24 comments

As you know, National promised to cap core public servant numbers at 36,000. That was going to deliver each of us a whopping 50 cents a week tax cut. Well, that one single solid policy promise from National is already in serious jeopardy. Corrections staff make up 6600 plus of the supposed ‘bureaucrats’ of the core […]

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