public services

Categories under public services

To my friend

Written By: - Date published: 4:34 pm, August 29th, 2009 - 17 comments

We haven’t talked lately and that has partly been my fault. Just doesn’t seem that we share as much in common now that you have moved away to a more succesful life in your new job. What happened to the carefree person I used to know for whom money was never a problem and just […]

Wee gripes: private=efficient

Written By: - Date published: 10:01 am, July 21st, 2009 - 54 comments

Can Treasury Secretary John Whitehead explain how paying profit-making companies to do what is already being done by non-profit-making departments will save money? Of course not. If there are efficiencies to be made by all means make them. Doesn’t need some company sucking off profit to do that. We know what happens when you get […]

Good jab, now land some punches

Written By: - Date published: 5:04 am, July 21st, 2009 - 88 comments

It was excellent to see Phil Goff laying down the gauntlet to Key yesterday. He announced Labour’s policy to temporarily relax partner means testing for the dole and promised a recession response package. On the same day, Key’s big achievement was noting the Hillary family had settled their dispute with Auckland museum. Goff is saying […]

The productivity shell-game

Written By: - Date published: 10:57 am, July 7th, 2009 - 24 comments

Is he named for the great economist John Maynard Keynes or Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan? Either way, he speaks a lot of sense: There was an attack on the ‘bureaucracy’ during the 2008 election, and the front line was held to be sacrosanct. The rest were bonfire candidates. Now we get an attack on the […]

Bill sez: ‘pay cuts for youse’

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, July 3rd, 2009 - 91 comments

Yesterday in Question Time, Bill English sent a message loud and clear to teachers, police, doctors, nurses, and all other public servants (‘frontline’ or not): under National, you’ll be getting pay-cuts, don’t expect cost of living adjustments, watch as your pay-packet buys less and less. Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Government has stated a number of […]

Nats attack workers’ right to protest

Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, July 1st, 2009 - 55 comments

I am outraged to learn that the Department of Labour told its employees they were not allowed attend the pay equity rally at Parliament yesterday. A leaked email from the department to its staff said: “Attendance at such a demonstration may well be perceived as crossing the line by criticising a decision of the Government. […]

One hand giveth, the other taketh away

Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, June 20th, 2009 - 1 comment

Last night at the Gen-i Public Sector Excellence Awards the New Zealand Police and Porirua City Council won the Prime Ministers Award for Public Service Excellence for their collaborative ‘Safer Porirua’ project. John Key himself announced the winners at the awards dinner, and congratulated the Police and Porirua City for the success of the project. However, […]

National still hate women

Written By: - Date published: 7:34 pm, June 17th, 2009 - 65 comments

Despite women being 51% of the population, and it being women who won National the last election, they are still showing their contempt for us. State Services Minister Tony Ryall decided that pay equity isn’t important, dropping a study into why female public servants are still paid less than their male counterparts in the same […]

Nats slash education

Written By: - Date published: 6:37 am, June 11th, 2009 - 21 comments

Did anyone else notice that for all this supposed government waste that National was going to get rid of it made only $500 million (less than 0.7% government spending) of ‘savings’ per year in the Budget. To get these ‘savings’ that it had to cut education spending savagely: Cut Early Childhood Education Professional Development – $9.8m Rescinding […]

Future shock

Written By: - Date published: 2:19 pm, May 30th, 2009 - 18 comments

Yesterday, my comrade Zetetic wrote that despite all the bad stuff in the Budget there was still a “meta-victory” for the Left because the ‘social wage’ hadn’t been attacked. That is, health, education, and social welfare aren’t cut in this year’s Budget. Well, I’ve been doing something Zetetic has probably been wise enough to avoid. […]

School support staff fighting for a fair deal

Written By: - Date published: 8:35 am, May 7th, 2009 - 13 comments

Cut public spending then we can have tax cuts! It’s such a nice, appealing slogan when you say it fast without engaging the brain. The reality though is real people who spend their lives working for the greater good are losing their jobs and seeing their incomes fall, and the services they produce will suffer […]

Politicising the public service

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, May 1st, 2009 - 48 comments

During the last Labour government the Kiwiblog Right used to call Wellington ‘Helengrad’, a play on Leningrad. Ironic then that, after the election of National, David Farrar humorously changed the name to ‘St Johnnysburg’, based on the Russian city’s czarist name. Because the Nats are making Labour look like amateurs when it comes to authoritarianism. […]

Oh no, not Sweden!

Written By: - Date published: 8:44 am, April 24th, 2009 - 12 comments

If you’ve been watching your Fox News, you know that the US is turning socialist. It’s going to be Sweden any day apparently. The Daily Show went to Sweden to get a taste of the fate that awaits Americans.    The tunes they play while visiting Robyn’s apartment… They’re great songs but do they suddenly […]

Public service numbers

Written By: - Date published: 5:17 pm, April 14th, 2009 - 44 comments

I’ve just stumbled across this killer graph from the PSA on public service numbers under Labour and National. It helpfully puts in graphical form what we’ve known all along – that for all the bleating we’ve heard from National and its sycophants about how Labour’s bloated public service was sucking the nation dry, the reality […]

Starving the beast

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, March 17th, 2009 - 60 comments

Before the election National promised that the public service would be capped, not cut. That promise was betrayed a long time ago, but what hasn’t been known up til now is the extent to which they are cutting it. You’ll recall a month back Consumer Affairs Minister Heather Roy let slip that across-the-board cuts of […]

Friday quiz

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, March 13th, 2009 - 5 comments

Question 1. Which of these are ‘front-line’ staff and which are ‘back office’? a) the extra staff members for National and Maori Party MPs that the government has just found money for? b) the fines collections officers the Ministry of Justice is firing because the government can’t find the money to keep them? c) the […]

Environment Ministry cut

Written By: - Date published: 3:17 pm, March 10th, 2009 - 21 comments

The National/ACT Government’s axe has fallen on the Environment Ministry today, with staff being flown to Wellington to discover a raft of environmental programmes introduced by the last government will be scrapped. With them will go at least 18 jobs, making a mockery of the Government’s election pledge to merely “cap” rather than cut the […]

Bureaucracy cutters call for more bureaucrats

Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, January 28th, 2009 - 33 comments

Today on Radio NZ, Health Minister Tony Ryall’s razor gang for the health sector was discussed. One of its proponents argued there was bound to be bureaucrats to cut, problem is there is insufficient measurement of productivity. He said Stats NZ should invest in measuring health sector productivity better… Hmm, seems to me he is […]

Penny wise?

Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, January 21st, 2009 - 53 comments

Health Minister Tony Ryall has followed Paula Bennett’s* lead by cancelling a conference for PR purposes**. In terms of symbolism it’s great. Even though the per-person cost of the conference was low, and it’s not like doctors would want to spend their precious time at a conference were it pointless, and the cost was only […]

What to do with Treasury

Written By: - Date published: 2:28 pm, December 5th, 2008 - 38 comments

It’s good to see Treasury’s extreme right-wing prescription for New Zealand has not been wholly embraced by the National Party – and it’s easy to see why. While Bill English (a former Treasury wonk himself) no doubt agrees with the policy ideas and direction outlined by Treasury, he has the disadvantage of being accountable to […]

Key reneges on PSA promise

Written By: - Date published: 2:13 pm, November 17th, 2008 - 24 comments

Well, just days after a high profile meeting with PSA head Brenda Pilott and a promise to engage with unions John Key has decided to exclude the PSA from his Task Force on the future of the public sector. The National/ACT government will instead appoint private sector consultants and private sector chairs to review government […]

Local Govt minister wants to privatise water

Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, November 17th, 2008 - 91 comments

As you’ll have read, John Key has made ACT leader Rodney Hide his Minister of Local Government. So, what’s ACT’s local government policy? Commercial activities are best performed by the private sector because they have more incentive to innovate and deliver better services. Local government should progressively shed ownership of its commercial activities. Local government […]

PSA tackles the stats

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, November 3rd, 2008 - 38 comments

The PSA have put together some interesting numbers on the size of the public service. They appear to tell a different story to the one we’ve been hearing about from Mr Key who wants a” razor gang of cabinet ministers to trim state sector fat”. For example: We’re on par with Australia: Australian public service […]

Trickle-down

Written By: - Date published: 11:22 am, October 12th, 2008 - 11 comments

A few thoughts from today’s Agenda: Questioned about why National would introduce another tax rebate, having endlessly criticised Working for Families because of its complexity, English says ‘we do, in the long term, want a simpler tax system’. So, be on notice, Working for Families is under threat from National – they would ‘eventualy, but […]

Previewing the Prefu

Written By: - Date published: 12:49 pm, October 5th, 2008 - 9 comments

Tomorrow the government’s books will be opened up. It is not expected to be a pretty picture. Oil prices and the credit crunch have forced the economy into recession. The debt to GDP ratio will be higher than was modelled in the Budget for three reasons (at this point, I just want to remind our excitable righties that […]

Academic, youse are paid too much

Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, August 7th, 2008 - 42 comments

Professor John Gibson from Waikato University says public servants should be paid less because they get paid more than their private sector equivalents and they enjoy their work. First, I would be highly suspicious the methodology of any study that claims to compare like with like between the public and private sector. How many police […]

PSA rips Bagrie report

Written By: - Date published: 11:24 am, July 18th, 2008 - 7 comments

Good piece in the Herald yesterday (and the Dom Post the day before) from PSA national sec Richard Wagstaff critiquing ANZ National chief economist Cameron Bagrie’s woeful report on public sector ‘waste’. Wagstaff takes aim at the underlying assumptions of the report about ‘productive’ versus ‘non-productive’ public sector spending, then proceeds to rip through some […]

tis the season

Written By: - Date published: 5:47 pm, July 10th, 2008 - 14 comments

I am beginning to think John Key’s attempt to turn statements that involve him into ‘personal attacks’ might be catching on. Check out this story, on the TVNZ website, but sourced to Newstalk ZB, that accuses Trevor Mallard of ‘lashing out’ at Cameron Bagrie over his loose with the truth report on public services. Now […]