Blogwhistle

• all_your_base
• 16 years ago
• Categories: dpf
• Tags: dpf

Never one to let the facts get in the way of a little party propaganda Farrar really has become the partyline-parrot.

It’s a shame he just couldn’t resist the opportunity to dogwhistle his party’s line on public servants with his meaningless and distortive post on relative growth between (in his words) “teachers and nurses” versus “bureaucrats”.

The core public service has expanded recently, and for good reason:

• The biggest rise in core public service numbers was in the Corrections Department which hired 732 more staff, taking their total tally to 6332 – the department commissioned three new prisons in the year.
• Inland Revenue added 371 staff taking its headcount to 5595. Dr Prebble said administering KiwiSaver was partly responsible for the 8 per cent rise.

So Farrar’s “bureaucrats” are prison officers, probation officers, and the admin staff essential for the operation of NZ’s popular Kiwisaver scheme.

Are these the jobs we’d lose under National’s slash and burn approach to the public service?