public services

Categories under public services

Standby for INCIS II… pfzzzt

Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, July 7th, 2010 - 20 comments

For some time now National has been quietly making plans to subsume Archives New Zealand and the National Library within the Department of Internal Affairs. That’s a dangerous plan for all sorts of constitutional and accountability reasons that can’t be justified by any imaginary, vague and as yet uncosted “synergies and efficiencies”. But let’s face it, […]

English’s faith-based economics

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, July 2nd, 2010 - 90 comments

Bill English claims that our low national savings rate is due to the ‘government paying for everything’. According to English, people don’t need to save because the government pays for early childhood education, superannuation, Working for Families, and interest-free student loans. Does he have any evidence that is the case? Of course not. The evidence points the other way.

The borrowed bunny

Written By: - Date published: 11:56 am, May 22nd, 2010 - 41 comments

It’s interesting to see how Irish’s ‘rabbit from a hat’ metaphor has taken off for describing this Budget. Some, like Tracey Watkins, are even using it positively. She needs to have a bit more of a think about what the rabbit from a hat is. The rabbit itself is nothing special. In fact, in this case it’s a borrowed bunny, despite the media’s tendency to portray tax cut as costless.

On priorities

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, May 21st, 2010 - 45 comments

I think the saddest part of this budget is that the government will spend $70 million building more prisons while cutting $120 million from early childhood education. It kind of sums up this Key Government’s priorities don’t you think? They’re cutting taxes for the rich while they cut health and education spending. It’s our future they are cutting, so the rich can be richer in the short-term.

What to watch for

Written By: - Date published: 2:44 pm, May 19th, 2010 - 4 comments

We already know that National’s big economic plan this budget is a tax swap from working Kiwis to the rich that will not affect growth but will increase inequality. There’s some money for science and Kiwirail, which is good but only partially reverses the cuts that National imposed last year. The two big items in the budget that the Nats have control over (assuming no cuts to benefits or super) are education and health. The increases in these two sectors are the things to watch.

The Supercity & neoliberalism

Written By: - Date published: 12:23 pm, May 17th, 2010 - 8 comments

A passage from Matt McCarten’s article in the Sunday Herald summed up for me not only the approach of Rodney Hide in setting up his Super City but also the neo-liberal project that has been in vogue for the past quarter century. Democracy under the neo-liberal model is, as far as possible, to be a financial transaction.

Shed some sunlight on a limp response

Written By: - Date published: 7:32 pm, May 15th, 2010 - 33 comments

David Farrar has finally made a comment on my “Hey Chubby…” post. It raises more questions than it answers. So I ask some of the obvious questions, and conclude that he has forsaken the principles of “free speech” that he so enthusiastically espoused only a few years ago.

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’.

Send a JAFA to Wellington….

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 pm, April 26th, 2010 - 12 comments

To paraphrase Muldoon – send a JAFA to Wellington, and we can only increase the average intelligence of both parts of the country. Needless to say, TV news chose to focus on a minor story in Goffs speech. If a future mayor of Auckland, Brown, can sit at the cabinet table on decisions related to […]

You know your policy sucks when…

Written By: - Date published: 12:42 pm, April 9th, 2010 - 21 comments

Even Guyon Espiner is concerned about the lack of quality analysis and policy design. If the government were serious about helping families in need it’s priority would be getting people back into work and better pay and conditions for low income workers. The fact that is has gone with this Whanau Ora nonsense shows it has no real intention of tackling the causes of this country’s social ills.

Whanau Ora minister, Foreshore sell-out

Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, April 9th, 2010 - 13 comments

Maori activists who want a better deal on the foreshore and seabed can rest assured that the Maori Party is about to sell them out. Tariana Turia just got herself a shiny new portfolio as Minister for Whanau Ora, whatever it is. Do you really think she’s going to give up a control over a policy that National has agreed to just for her? Do you really think she’ll stand strong on her principles over the foreshore and seabed if it means losing the Crown limo?

Whanau Ora report unacceptably poor

Written By: - Date published: 6:42 pm, April 8th, 2010 - 41 comments

The Whanau Ora Taskforce report is out and it fails to even attempt to answer simple questions like ‘why is Whanau Ora the best way to help families’. It provides no evidence it will work. Check out the graphic to the right – what does it even mean? All we do know is Whanau Ora will put public money in unaccountable private hands and be privatisation by stealth.

More to worry about

Written By: - Date published: 11:48 pm, April 7th, 2010 - 40 comments

Whanau Ora is, apparently, about giving a big pile of money to private groups under so-called ‘high trust’ contracts and expecting them to get on and deliver a whole range of public services that have previously been the responsibility of accountable government departments. What could go wrong? Quite a bit suggests this story

State enforced amnesia

Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, April 6th, 2010 - 7 comments

John Key’s National government has, in its infinite wisdom, decided to subsume Archives New Zealand and the National Library within the Department of Internal Affairs. With typical ideological one-eyedness that necessitates a blithe disregard for constitutional values, the merger is likely to have some fairly dire consequences for anyone who considers it important that a […]

Nats’ wage drop plan progressing well

Written By: - Date published: 2:16 pm, March 24th, 2010 - 11 comments

How’s that brighter future looking? A couple of years back, Steve wrote a piece on how National could reduce pay packs accordance with John Key’s statement that he “would love to see wages drop”. Now, wages are dropping thanks to a combination of government neglect on job creation and policies that are actively designed to suppress wage rises. Let’s see how the plan is playing out:

‘Front-line’ needs ‘back-office’

Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, March 19th, 2010 - 9 comments

The head of the nurses’ union, Geoff Annals, has given a vivid analogy for why his ‘front-line’ nurses oppose ‘back-office’ staff cuts: “I’ve flown very often but I’ve never seen many staff essential to the safety of my flights. I’ve never seen an air traffic controller for example. Does that mean that air traffic controllers should be dispensed with?”

High unemployment helps Nats keep wages down

Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, March 11th, 2010 - 21 comments

While other countries have used their strong public sectors to steady the private sector and keep unemployment down during the economic downturn, our government is compounding unemployment by cutting the public sector, throwing people out of jobs and feeding worker insecurity.

Recentralisation? A whole lotta nothing

Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, March 7th, 2010 - 5 comments

During the neoliberal revolution, the 4th Labour Government and the Nats decided to break up the big ministries into lots of little ministries and autonomous agencies. The idea was that the ministries were like big lumbering dinosaurs that suffered inefficiencies of scale. Smaller bodies would be more nimble, better able to adapt and change, and […]

Whanau Ora defined-ish

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, February 18th, 2010 - 18 comments

BLiP gives the best definition of the Key Government’s billion dollar Whanau Ora plan to date: “Whanau Ora = privatisation of social services.”

Yeah, it does. But I’m still struggling to understand what social services. Will Whanau Ora providers be running hospitals and clinics? Will they be running schools? Will they be making dole and super payments?

DPMC: The “Key” to increasing the PM’s power

Written By: - Date published: 9:28 am, February 3rd, 2010 - 14 comments

Last October I posted on National’s plan to fold the State Services Commission into the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Yesterday, Labour’s Grant Robertson revived the rumour. And since then Government pollster David Farrar has spent much of his energy reserves vigorously defending any transfer of power that may occur. But we should watch closely to […]

Outsourcing away

Written By: - Date published: 6:18 pm, January 27th, 2010 - 8 comments

We’ve had a few posts about the lack of action from the government – but over on Bernard Hickey’s blog he’s spotted progess being made on the topic of outsourcing: Treasury and the Ministry of Economic Development (MED) said they had asked outside companies to bid to run administrative services for the government, including information […]

Tax is the price the elite pay to maintain their privilege

Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, January 23rd, 2010 - 53 comments

John Roughan asks: “Nearly half of all personal tax revenue is contributed by just 10 per cent of us. Is this socially healthy?” To which I reply: “That 10% get 34% of the country’s income and own 52% of the country’s wealth, compared to the 50% who get 16% of the country’s income and own […]

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 […]

Whanau Ora: privatisation by stealth

Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, December 21st, 2009 - 23 comments

The government is beginning to explain more about its Whanau Ora plan, although it is still startlingly vague considering we’re talking a billion dollars of taxpayer dollars a year. The idea seems to be to get more money that is currently spent by social welfare departments passed on to private community groups, who will supposedly […]

Govt spending – the big lie

Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, December 10th, 2009 - 45 comments

I’m kind of embarrassed. I should know by now never to trust a word out of Bill English’s mouth. I should have checked his repeated claims that government spending rocketed under Labour. English likes to say that because of Labour government spending increased by 45% over the five years from 2004 to 2009. As David […]

What is Whanau Ora?

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, December 10th, 2009 - 16 comments

Family Commissioner Jan Pryor says she can’t give a definition of Whanau Ora, Tariana Turia’s pet programme that Pryor’s Commission will be helping to run. What a bunch of utter crap. Saying that she can’t give a definition because she is “a middle class white woman” is totally unacceptable. This isn’t some academic activity, we’re […]

Zero percent won’t pay the rent

Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, November 24th, 2009 - 2 comments

If you can, get along to support the hospital support staff, the school support staff, and all the other low-paid public sector workers this Friday. (full size image here)

Treasury provides cover for Nats’ rightwing agenda

Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, October 30th, 2009 - 19 comments

National’s favourite public servant (who got himself a nice pay rise), John Whitehead, has been offering dire warnings of the future. $2 trillion in debt by 2050! Something must be done! Naturally, the Treasury has an extreme right-wing solution – cut everything: cut health – yeah, a less healthy workforce that’ll be great for the […]

State Services to fold into DPMC?

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, October 27th, 2009 - 10 comments

I’ve heard the State Services Commission are investigating their own demise, by looking into whether its functions should fold into the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Has anyone heard anything similar? If true, it would be an incredible power shift in favour of the office of the Prime Minister. And you have to wonder, […]

Nats find no government waste

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 8 comments

I missed this one a few weeks ago but it’s worth pointing out. National spent $300,000 hiring half a dozen supposed business geniuses for $2,000 a day to find places to cut costs in the public sector. Called them ‘purchase advisers’. They ought to be able to find heaps to cut eh? I mean, National […]

Pay freeze would cause long-term damage

Written By: - Date published: 5:38 am, September 28th, 2009 - 27 comments

While filling his own pockets with our money, Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English is threatening public sevants with a five-year pay freeze – with inflation, that’s a 10% pay cut. The government can afford to give its workers small cost of living adjustments – the cost is relatively trivial. Parliament workers recently rejected an offer that […]