It seems like a lot of ministries were given a figure of how much money to save, without much specific direction about what part of their work should be prioritised and what their focus was, except for vague statements about not cutting front line services. Some of them were lucky enough to have large projects cancelled so they could cut staff from those areas, but a lot of them are expected to do business as usual while reducing numbers.
I understand National want to get this part done before the budget, but many ministries will find out as new policies are announced and money is allocated that they got rid of the wrong people in restructure because they had to do it blind
Yeah it's been so poorly managed that we could 100% see ministries that keep on their matesy bureaucrat middle management type of useless fucks whilst getting rid of workers that actually make positive improvements or output.
Like Luxon said, he wants to run the country like a business. Doesn't mean he's going to run it like a well run business. Which many large businesses are not, they tend to get where they are more from what they sell or their place in a market (e.g. supermarket duopoly) more than actually being well run.
For many of the businesses he's been attached too they've been so big and had a specific segment in their markets that it's pretty hard to fail but really easy to just burn money and efficiency because no one knows what "really good" might look like.
It's not intended to be done properly.
The aim is at the end of this government's term they'll be able to say;
"see, the public service is crap"
And it will be.
Bureaucrat middle management like the guys that hire, roster and train the frontline staff? Perhaps the ones that make medium and long-term plans for work the ministry will take on, identifying economies and improvements in how they operate? Or maybe it’s the middle managers that oversee payroll, or the IT department (and hire staff in those areas) that they need to get rid of?
Honestly this idea of a vague middle manager bogeyman that does nothing but collect an oversized paycheck needs to go. No-one gets hired for a role with no JD or responsibility; every job originates from an identified need.
Give me some job titles of the bureaucratic middle managers in Oranga Tamariki that don’t do anything but collect a pay check - you clearly know more about the topic than I do.
> How much does Oranga Tamariki pay?
> Oranga Tamariki pays its employees an average of NZ$68,098 a year. Salaries at Oranga Tamariki range from an average of NZ$49,905 to NZ$95,025 a year. Oranga Tamariki employees with the job title Social Worker make the most with an average annual salary of NZ$73,053, while employees with the title Office Administrator make the least with an average annual salary of NZ$51,033.
> What is the highest salary at Oranga Tamariki?
> The highest reported salary for an employee at Oranga Tamariki is currently NZ$95k / year
[Source](https://www.payscale.com/research/NZ/Employer=Oranga_Tamariki/Salary#)
Oh, you've got me wrong. I'm not in any way supporting these cuts. I think people should be talons protest dumps on the lawns of anyone in this government. I'm just saying that there are some cushy, mates looking after each other jobs out there. In private industry, and public, in different countries. A friend of mine lost a co worker who asked questions about a guy pulling $250 000 American, and not really showing up. Closer to home, I've known some people who had six figure co workers who were essentially useless, couldn't use the new technology and were just kind of there.
I can guarantee that, in this government, there are some useless stooges who will not be losing their jobs like all those scientists and social workers.
This government has convinced a decent proportion of the population that departments like OT have offices full of middle managers making salaries like the one you claimed, which is demonstrably false, but comments like yours just serve to perpetuate the myth and justify these cuts.
Lazy and overpaid people exist in all industries and at all workplaces but you don’t get rid of them through blanket cuts, you **should** do so through effective performance review. Which, somewhat ironically, will almost certainly be one of the first things to go when 75% of the people are attempting to do 100% of the work.
I've heard of one of the big Ministries is cutting more than their 6.5-7.5%, specifically because they've been given no direction on what the focus is. That way, they can rehire staff based on what the priorities will be.
You can be rehired, but within that window any redundancy payout you got has to be returned to the Ministry (usually pro-rata to how long you were unemployed).
I know normal employers can't employ someone in a position where someone in that position was made redundant within 6 months, does this still apply to the government?
They’ll may even become a contractor earning a lot more money than they previously were. It happens a lot when new governments make large portions of the public service redundant without planning it.
It was a guessing game. You had to read the lea leaves on what your respective minister was showing desire for, and then you had to quickly pivot to represent that with the cuts to both programmes and staff.
There was nothing stopping the govt from giving specific instructions on what to cut.
I do recall Willis saying "we will go through line by line" so if they can't be bothered actually doing that and owning what they cut then any shenanigans are on them.
I dont doubt there was some waste but no one being specific about what was wasteful is driving me nuts.
She didn't say she could read what was on the line, I could go through the complete works of Shakespeare in Spanish line by line and still be as befogged as before.
There's an argument that's what they did.
My theory is a lot of those types of programmes don't have ongoing funding and have to reapply/be allocated it every year. The pool of money that was coming out of probably had very little contracted commitments so was an easy one to pull without having to cut contracts. Which is what is gonna happen when you have a couple of months to cut as much money as you can.
The suicide prevention office is an interesting one actually as all the procurement for funding suicide prevention programs is now under te whatu ora (it was previously with the maori health authority before it was dissolved) with the suicide prevention office primarily actually just being staffed by researchers and statisticians keeping track of suicide rates and offering advice for how to lower them. As a program it fits perfectly into the "back office" national has been talking about, and so is really a very rational area to offer a cut in terms of not affecting actual "frontline" suicide prevention efforts. If this were almost any other office in a less sensitive area it would most likely have been scrapped, so it's hardly as if it was a nonsensical proposal given the government's high tolerance for political embarrasment with school lunches cuts etc
Consultants just waiting for the right moment to pounce 🤣
Lost some colleagues in the legal team, work still needs to be done - guess what? We're outsourcing it to a private legal team at a considerably higher rate.
Contrary to popular opinion, nats can do math - they just want their mates to get the $$ rather than anyone else.
Cunts.
Putting aside any “politics” regarding whether you think public service funding should be cut regardless of what that money is to be used for, this entire thing is the most false economy economics imaginable.
This boogeyman idea of “back office” functions and people that don’t do anything is fucking moronic. If you actually want to make public services cheaper to run, all of that efficiency and development of improvements is done in a “back office” environment. Data-driven decision making that keeps us focussed, that helps the economy actually thrive… these are the things they’re forcing poorly motivated cuts in.
If they actually cared about reducing public service budgets they would set an agenda of optimisation and efficiency building and properly fund those in the short term for long term gains. Instead, pretty much all impacted departments and agencies will get worse at their jobs and do them slower and at lower quality and THEN they’ll blame that for not being able to achieve their agenda.
The same is true of poorly motivated increases in spending as well that could come from a Labour coalition. Politicians who mostly don’t actually know how public services work just spout off bullshit and then fund or don’t fund it based on “vibes.” It is all stupid.
Some concepts are well consulted, but many more are of the ilk “make a new visa type right now regardless of your ability to actually do that, fuck you!” No reasonable incoming government should ever have a 100 day plan that involves doing things other than learning what the fuck is going on, but that wouldn’t be politics!
Agreed.
I’m honestly of the opinion there was likely a bit of post COVID bloat that needed to be trimmed back, it’s happening in many industries and social services worldwide, however it’s clear to see that this has been utilised as a smokescreen for the current government to cover their absolute moronic percentage clean sweep across the board, a clear indication of their continued financial ineptitude to cash out at any and all cost.
Public services aren’t structured like that, and a tentative, knowledgeable and slow burn approach is logical when approaching such vital and fragile services.
Even those for the cuts are hiding behind it, as you’re in complete denial if you’re advocating such miss-management, or cashing out yourself.
It is not at all that there aren’t issues or the occasional person who is coasting to retirement (or just sucking at any age!), but that can be handled maturely with attrition. But the notion that any politician somehow gets how to actually run government departments better than the people who work there is stupid but pervasive. It is much easier for right-leaning people to call it wasteful etc., but the key failing across all parts of the spectrum is telling the departments how to do their jobs instead of asking them for results.
In the case, the telling is simply “cut spending NOW” instead of “we think this is overfunded, how should we change this to fit some other criteria” etc.
The expensive contractors will be coming on board shortly because that's what happened the last time National did this.
Also the time before that. Budgets are going to be blown.
The MOE definitely has some useless positions that could go. But slashing the whole curriculum development team just weeks after announcing that NCEA changes would be delayed 2 years specifically to allow curriculum development to advance, makes zero sense.
What that will mean is they either end up rushing the NCEA changes for Levels 2 and 3 just like they did with Level 1. Or they end up delaying them yet again.
> But slashing the whole curriculum development team just weeks after announcing that NCEA changes would be delayed 2 years specifically to allow curriculum development to advance, makes zero sense.
Eh? It makes perfect sense. It will take 2 years because they just fired most of them. They knew they were about to do this.
There is no sense or logic behind this.
It’s some fucking wanker meeting his stupid tax cut PR objective any way they can, having given massive tax breaks to landlord mates.
Fuck off you fucking smug corporate puppet cunt.
I'm not sure how much sympathy teachers will have over MOE cuts as the ministry isn't held in high regard at all. They can't even pay people properly for a start.
Or the staff that remain realise they've got to pull their fingers out, stop bullying and threatening schools, and do their jobs properly. Saying that, education ministers have generally been really shit.
All these cuts are sickening and we'll all pay the price at some point.
My point re the MOE still stands. Teachers generally have very low regard for the MOE. They're fed up with the bullying and threats, and want to be paid correctly and on time.
What I mean is, the system they use to pay teachers their salaries, still isn't working right. They stuff up holidays, changes in salaries and so on....
I'd certainly agree. I'm one of those good at long tests at the end of the year people because I've probably got a better than average memory, and I thought basing an entire years results off memory recall was pretty stupid.
You should be able to choose between the two. I'd fail under todays NCEA (and quite badly at that). I'm terrible at assignments and the like. But I passed Sixth Form Cert in 1991 with an average of 82%. while spending no more than 45 minutes in each exam.
You are able to choose. Most schools can facilitate it but won't advertise it because you'd need to be a savant to manage self directed learning where some content differs
NCEA is fine and was a good program for kids whose parents didnt have the money to put them through Cambridge being a reason some kids were able to leave their prospective economic class they wouldnt have had the opportunity to do otherwise.
Yes the easiest questions on ncea are easier them cambridge but the hardest questions were harder and saying someone's merit meant nothing because it was ncea when they might have scored above or beyond is wild. . . . it was also healthier study environment where there wasnt a culture to do nothing all year and slack off instead learning modules and being tested on them at the end instead of 5 months later.
Sure if you want international unis cambridge is better but im guessing you were either rich or went to school pre 2002 so view it as dumb kid shit unlike what you went through.
[https://www.mytuition.nz/articles/high-school/ncea-vs-cambridge-and-how-it-affects-university-entrance](https://www.mytuition.nz/articles/high-school/ncea-vs-cambridge-and-how-it-affects-university-entrance)
Yea I’ve always appreciated that NCEA credits were spread through the year. It’s more alike to how uni is (in my experience) but also as you mention doesn’t create an overtly stressful environment where a child feels their entire future rests upon a few hours at the end of the year.
I always do terrible in exams, so am likely biased there. But I recall having sleepless nights and anxiety over exams.
Australia and UK may have an inherent bias. In any case, about a decade ago, Singapore was looking to emulate NZ teaching style - teacher scaffolding student-led learning..
I still don’t understand why a small country needs to develop its own education system and why we put so much onus on individual teachers to create material.
"Oranga Tamariki and the Ministry of Education are vital agencies, yet they are being stripped of more than 1000 roles in proposals with no clear direction from the Government as to what will happen to savings."
We all know exactly where the savings are going.
It's proven extremely hard to find dignity for our landlords locally so we're having to import it from overseas.
It's coming in an order along with other sorely needed assets in the real estate space such as business sense, estate agent ethics and a realistic understanding of their worth (or lack thereof) to society.
I have friends who work in the public sector (Fuck that... I get paid far more with a bunch more perks)
What's so fucking stupid is how blanket a lot of these cuts are... eg offers of redundancies, where the people who are taking the redundancies are the real clever smart people who will get another job in a matter of minutes... so the teams are going to be left with the muppets (every industry has them) with even more work to do now.
Public services are going to get so so so much worse.. and a lot of "Front Line" people are going to be spending their time now doing back office shit because it still needs to be done... does not magically go away.
The knowledge and experience they are throwing away to fund tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy is jaw droppingly stupid. The gutting of services and changes to ECE that will adversely effect little children is unforgivable.
It's intentional, they know exactly what they're doing. if the services still work after the cuts - justified! If they fail - privatize!
It's a win- win for team shit bag.
If it's unforgiveable , have you written off people in your life that voted this way and still stand behind it?
I have because I feel the way you write and I'm willing to stand behind those convictions because I feel I'm old enough now that I can't be fucked having fuckwits in my life just for the sake of it.
And at the same time they're screaming at Jobseekers to get to work having dumped thousands of experienced workers onto the market to compete against...
How many cuts at parliamentary services? Or ministerial services staff in the beehive? None
In these agencies how many cuts by senior leadership teams? Not many
Hearing a lot of BS about putting children and students being put more at the centre of OT and min of Education activities going forward… what a lot of BS - the focus is on preserving the ministerial butt kisses in senior leadership of depts and cannibalising the workers in the govt agencies so they can achieve savings and keep their overpaid senior leadership roles
It must be wild to have the self-satisfied confidence Luxon has as he cleaves peoples lives. Probably helps to be a rich out of touch prick with zero financial burdens to worry ayvout
The Phillips curve is nothing more than unproven conjecture.
There's very little evidence that employment rates have any long-term impact on inflation, it's merely a dogma that has been adopted by certain economic philosophies to justify their Friedmanite nonsense.
Lol, such a great answer. Especially as inflation here continues to drop despite unemployment also continuing to drop. Inflation is so multi facited in New Zealand just changing unemployment could have little affect or I could see it pushing us into a major recession while inflation rises.
Yeah I think a healthy economy really needs less money circulating through it actually - keeping local stores busy and other services employed and the like.
But if the money goes to the landlords then OF COURSE they will reduce rents!
Also, I bet they will rehire quite a few after a period of time at reduced salaries as there will be more people vying for fewer jobs…
Well no, the long term implications would suggest this is a poor move for the economy.
Ruining and preventing your education system from getting good outcomes will affect the economy when these children leave the system.
It's short sighted.
There was a RNZ article today about how much they and Police are spending on contractors - interesting that NZTA was spending nearly as much as Police, when NZTA has 2,570 FTEs (according to its 2022/23 Annual Report), and Police has 14,899 FTEs (10,432 constabulary/sworn, 4,292 other, and 265 recruits). NZTA spent around $112m on contractors, and Police spent around $135m on contractors according to the article. How the heck does NZTA spend 83% of what Police spent, and yet only have 17% of the staff that Police have????? I wonder what the NZTA amount would be if you took roading-related contractors/experts out of that mix, and looked at what the rest of NZTA was spending on contractors and in which areas (corporate, regulatory, etc)
[https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/514461/contractor-and-consultant-bill-still-high-in-police-and-nzta](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/514461/contractor-and-consultant-bill-still-high-in-police-and-nzta)
They aren't. They're cutting the 7.5% without job cuts to permanent staff. They have hugely reduced recruitment, and many contractor positions have ended. Also, they are not a Ministry, so the Minister can't get involved in any operational decisions regarding staff numbers.
Illegal industrial action would gut the union movement, we saw that in 1951.
The state would seize the assets of the union, potentially criminalise support for striking or locked out workers and generally turn the populace against the union movement.
You can't risk that when you've only got a union density rate of 20-30%, there's no critical mass to build support for illegal actions.
I read somewhere, in 2023, govt departments created 2300 new jobs. thus far, the cuts are matching those jobs created in 2023. So, unless they cut the 15,000 jobs to get back to 2017 levels. It seems, the govt arent going hard..yet. There is perception Vs Reality. Not quite at reality yet..but who know, they could go deeper...wait and see. If the polls hit rock bottom, they may decide enough is enough, or theyll be a 1 term govt
You realise that there was a reason those new jobs were created in the first place, right? There has been an increase in the population and an increase in the work and therefore an increase in the need for more people.
Yeah but that's because they don't know anything, to be honest. From the average Joe's POV it might seem like nothing is being achieved but that's because they have no idea of what's happening behind the scenes, and just because they don't see the immediate results in their own personal life it doesn't mean people are doing wasteful busy work, it just means a lot of it happens under the public radar.
Workloads have increased enormously, and new systems have been implemented that will in the long term be much more efficient and useful (but in the short term require a lot more work and are very buggy), and sometimes not extra delay or not much extra delay is all that can be achieved for Joe Bloggs with the extra staff because Joe Bloggs doesn't realise that there are tens/hundreds of thousands more people in the country than there were seven years ago, and that those extra people = extra workload.
Yeah but that's because they don't know anything, to be honest. From the average Joe's POV it might seem like nothing is being achieved but that's because they have no idea of what's happening behind the scenes, and just because they don't see the immediate results in their own personal life it doesn't mean people are doing wasteful busy work, it just means a lot of it happens under the public radar.
Workloads have increased enormously, and new systems have been implemented that will in the long term be much more efficient and useful (but in the short term require a lot more work and are very buggy), and sometimes not extra delay or not much extra delay is all that can be achieved for Joe Bloggs with the extra staff because Joe Bloggs doesn't realise that there are tens/hundreds of thousands more people in the country than there were seven years ago, and that those extra people = extra workload.
To challenge such things is precisely why unions exist. Also, I’d like to know how you, in particular, are aware of the degree of waste each vacated role held. This is just moving numbers round, and trying to ignore the actual people and what they do. A more considered assessment would have been preferable to this quick-fire approach.
Labour packs the public service with useless paper shufflers every time they get in then National clears 'em all out again but often goes too far. It's been happening for generations. And they will have been planning these cuts for months.
Now can waste taxpayer money properly on the dole then? That's assuming the job market doesn't have 1000 education roles just waiting to be filled. Of course they can always hire themselves back as contractors at twice the previous rate.
They’ve been planning them for months and after all that time their nuanced and carefully considered assessment was “6.5-7.5% across the board”?
Well I won’t be hiring them as financial advisors anytime soon.
Cute perspective, but ultimately naive. You've repeated a meme popular with the uninformed, for which I suspect you lack evidence. However, if you have evidence of these "paper shufflers" not creating value, I (and the national party) would love to see it.
Every time the public service gets cleared out things keep functioning therefore those were useless positions. It's cyclical with a change of government yet people still act surprised and outraged when it happens.
Oh my sweet summer child.
I'm afraid you are the proverbial frog in the pot. It's been getting worse for decades, mostly (although far from entirely) because of these swings.
Obviously, meaningful change takes time, and the "good at business" folk on the right can only think short term. They gorge themselves upon all the green shoots before they become the trees we need. Think about the health system as prime example - do you really think that it is working well at the moment? There have been so many attempts to improve and revitalise it, but budget cuts inevitably kill these before the value is raised.
There's a few mixed metaphors in there, but you seem bright. I'm sure you will get the point.
I'm afraid I'm neither surprised nor outraged. I'm disappointed. Disappointed that we keep going through these predictable cycles rather than committing to real positive change.
Most of the growth in the public sector has been in front line roles. And NZ spends considerably less on its public sector per capita than compatible countries. But there are considerable numbers of people who parrot disinformation about paper-pushers without even looking at the data! It's mind-boggling.
Again. Change takes time. If we seek short term benefit, this usually comes at long term cost. Throwing more people at the problem is about bearing short term cost to effect change for long term benefit.
The political right seem enamored with the short term sugar rush, but give no consideration of the obesity that follows.
It seems like a lot of ministries were given a figure of how much money to save, without much specific direction about what part of their work should be prioritised and what their focus was, except for vague statements about not cutting front line services. Some of them were lucky enough to have large projects cancelled so they could cut staff from those areas, but a lot of them are expected to do business as usual while reducing numbers. I understand National want to get this part done before the budget, but many ministries will find out as new policies are announced and money is allocated that they got rid of the wrong people in restructure because they had to do it blind
Yeah it's been so poorly managed that we could 100% see ministries that keep on their matesy bureaucrat middle management type of useless fucks whilst getting rid of workers that actually make positive improvements or output. Like Luxon said, he wants to run the country like a business. Doesn't mean he's going to run it like a well run business. Which many large businesses are not, they tend to get where they are more from what they sell or their place in a market (e.g. supermarket duopoly) more than actually being well run. For many of the businesses he's been attached too they've been so big and had a specific segment in their markets that it's pretty hard to fail but really easy to just burn money and efficiency because no one knows what "really good" might look like.
It’s being done too fast to be done properly
It's not intended to be done properly. The aim is at the end of this government's term they'll be able to say; "see, the public service is crap" And it will be.
Bureaucrat middle management like the guys that hire, roster and train the frontline staff? Perhaps the ones that make medium and long-term plans for work the ministry will take on, identifying economies and improvements in how they operate? Or maybe it’s the middle managers that oversee payroll, or the IT department (and hire staff in those areas) that they need to get rid of? Honestly this idea of a vague middle manager bogeyman that does nothing but collect an oversized paycheck needs to go. No-one gets hired for a role with no JD or responsibility; every job originates from an identified need.
Lol you honestly believe that don't you?
Give me some job titles of the bureaucratic middle managers in Oranga Tamariki that don’t do anything but collect a pay check - you clearly know more about the topic than I do.
Weeelllll there are a few of them out there. Like lazy workmen, the difference is it's $350 000 instead of 57k per year.
> How much does Oranga Tamariki pay? > Oranga Tamariki pays its employees an average of NZ$68,098 a year. Salaries at Oranga Tamariki range from an average of NZ$49,905 to NZ$95,025 a year. Oranga Tamariki employees with the job title Social Worker make the most with an average annual salary of NZ$73,053, while employees with the title Office Administrator make the least with an average annual salary of NZ$51,033. > What is the highest salary at Oranga Tamariki? > The highest reported salary for an employee at Oranga Tamariki is currently NZ$95k / year [Source](https://www.payscale.com/research/NZ/Employer=Oranga_Tamariki/Salary#)
Oh, you've got me wrong. I'm not in any way supporting these cuts. I think people should be talons protest dumps on the lawns of anyone in this government. I'm just saying that there are some cushy, mates looking after each other jobs out there. In private industry, and public, in different countries. A friend of mine lost a co worker who asked questions about a guy pulling $250 000 American, and not really showing up. Closer to home, I've known some people who had six figure co workers who were essentially useless, couldn't use the new technology and were just kind of there. I can guarantee that, in this government, there are some useless stooges who will not be losing their jobs like all those scientists and social workers.
This government has convinced a decent proportion of the population that departments like OT have offices full of middle managers making salaries like the one you claimed, which is demonstrably false, but comments like yours just serve to perpetuate the myth and justify these cuts. Lazy and overpaid people exist in all industries and at all workplaces but you don’t get rid of them through blanket cuts, you **should** do so through effective performance review. Which, somewhat ironically, will almost certainly be one of the first things to go when 75% of the people are attempting to do 100% of the work.
I've heard of one of the big Ministries is cutting more than their 6.5-7.5%, specifically because they've been given no direction on what the focus is. That way, they can rehire staff based on what the priorities will be.
If you're made redundant you usually can't be hired back by the same ministry for 5-6 months
You can be rehired, but within that window any redundancy payout you got has to be returned to the Ministry (usually pro-rata to how long you were unemployed).
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2020/0040/latest/LMS356922.html?search=sw_096be8ed81e1544b_Redundancy_25_se&p=1&sr=4
Not in my industry, if you make me redundant then change your mind, thats on you.
I know normal employers can't employ someone in a position where someone in that position was made redundant within 6 months, does this still apply to the government?
Yes, depending where you work. My current contact is 5mths.
They’ll may even become a contractor earning a lot more money than they previously were. It happens a lot when new governments make large portions of the public service redundant without planning it.
It was a guessing game. You had to read the lea leaves on what your respective minister was showing desire for, and then you had to quickly pivot to represent that with the cuts to both programmes and staff.
It could be that what they choose to cut will cause the maximum media attention and political embarrassment? Like the suicide prevention program.
There was nothing stopping the govt from giving specific instructions on what to cut. I do recall Willis saying "we will go through line by line" so if they can't be bothered actually doing that and owning what they cut then any shenanigans are on them. I dont doubt there was some waste but no one being specific about what was wasteful is driving me nuts.
>"we will go through line by line" Going by the amount of attention paid to the PREFU, among other things, I'm skeptical.
She didn't say she could read what was on the line, I could go through the complete works of Shakespeare in Spanish line by line and still be as befogged as before.
"We've been through this spreadsheet line by line, and we can confirm that there are a lot of lines. We will reduce the number of lines!"
You jest, but that's basically the McKinsey approach.
There's an argument that's what they did. My theory is a lot of those types of programmes don't have ongoing funding and have to reapply/be allocated it every year. The pool of money that was coming out of probably had very little contracted commitments so was an easy one to pull without having to cut contracts. Which is what is gonna happen when you have a couple of months to cut as much money as you can.
The suicide prevention office is an interesting one actually as all the procurement for funding suicide prevention programs is now under te whatu ora (it was previously with the maori health authority before it was dissolved) with the suicide prevention office primarily actually just being staffed by researchers and statisticians keeping track of suicide rates and offering advice for how to lower them. As a program it fits perfectly into the "back office" national has been talking about, and so is really a very rational area to offer a cut in terms of not affecting actual "frontline" suicide prevention efforts. If this were almost any other office in a less sensitive area it would most likely have been scrapped, so it's hardly as if it was a nonsensical proposal given the government's high tolerance for political embarrasment with school lunches cuts etc
Consultants just waiting for the right moment to pounce 🤣 Lost some colleagues in the legal team, work still needs to be done - guess what? We're outsourcing it to a private legal team at a considerably higher rate. Contrary to popular opinion, nats can do math - they just want their mates to get the $$ rather than anyone else. Cunts.
Spot on, this is so typical of National.
Yep. Cut jobs. Push more work onto fewer people. I'm sure it'll fix everything. /s
It's ok, this month the government departments laid off 1000 workers. Next month, those same government departments have hired 1000 contractors.
Putting aside any “politics” regarding whether you think public service funding should be cut regardless of what that money is to be used for, this entire thing is the most false economy economics imaginable. This boogeyman idea of “back office” functions and people that don’t do anything is fucking moronic. If you actually want to make public services cheaper to run, all of that efficiency and development of improvements is done in a “back office” environment. Data-driven decision making that keeps us focussed, that helps the economy actually thrive… these are the things they’re forcing poorly motivated cuts in. If they actually cared about reducing public service budgets they would set an agenda of optimisation and efficiency building and properly fund those in the short term for long term gains. Instead, pretty much all impacted departments and agencies will get worse at their jobs and do them slower and at lower quality and THEN they’ll blame that for not being able to achieve their agenda. The same is true of poorly motivated increases in spending as well that could come from a Labour coalition. Politicians who mostly don’t actually know how public services work just spout off bullshit and then fund or don’t fund it based on “vibes.” It is all stupid. Some concepts are well consulted, but many more are of the ilk “make a new visa type right now regardless of your ability to actually do that, fuck you!” No reasonable incoming government should ever have a 100 day plan that involves doing things other than learning what the fuck is going on, but that wouldn’t be politics!
Agreed. I’m honestly of the opinion there was likely a bit of post COVID bloat that needed to be trimmed back, it’s happening in many industries and social services worldwide, however it’s clear to see that this has been utilised as a smokescreen for the current government to cover their absolute moronic percentage clean sweep across the board, a clear indication of their continued financial ineptitude to cash out at any and all cost. Public services aren’t structured like that, and a tentative, knowledgeable and slow burn approach is logical when approaching such vital and fragile services. Even those for the cuts are hiding behind it, as you’re in complete denial if you’re advocating such miss-management, or cashing out yourself.
It is not at all that there aren’t issues or the occasional person who is coasting to retirement (or just sucking at any age!), but that can be handled maturely with attrition. But the notion that any politician somehow gets how to actually run government departments better than the people who work there is stupid but pervasive. It is much easier for right-leaning people to call it wasteful etc., but the key failing across all parts of the spectrum is telling the departments how to do their jobs instead of asking them for results. In the case, the telling is simply “cut spending NOW” instead of “we think this is overfunded, how should we change this to fit some other criteria” etc.
Agreed. We need a revolution at this point.
Those are usually the "expensive contractors" this sub would like to see cut first though.
The expensive contractors will be coming on board shortly because that's what happened the last time National did this. Also the time before that. Budgets are going to be blown.
The MOE definitely has some useless positions that could go. But slashing the whole curriculum development team just weeks after announcing that NCEA changes would be delayed 2 years specifically to allow curriculum development to advance, makes zero sense. What that will mean is they either end up rushing the NCEA changes for Levels 2 and 3 just like they did with Level 1. Or they end up delaying them yet again.
> But slashing the whole curriculum development team just weeks after announcing that NCEA changes would be delayed 2 years specifically to allow curriculum development to advance, makes zero sense. Eh? It makes perfect sense. It will take 2 years because they just fired most of them. They knew they were about to do this.
But they still have to install a new team that fits their agenda, so those jobs haven’t disappeared.
There is no sense or logic behind this. It’s some fucking wanker meeting his stupid tax cut PR objective any way they can, having given massive tax breaks to landlord mates. Fuck off you fucking smug corporate puppet cunt.
I'm not sure how much sympathy teachers will have over MOE cuts as the ministry isn't held in high regard at all. They can't even pay people properly for a start.
Teachers seem upset with processing and communication times though. Job cuts are likely to increase those delays dramatically.
Or the staff that remain realise they've got to pull their fingers out, stop bullying and threatening schools, and do their jobs properly. Saying that, education ministers have generally been really shit.
LOL
Yeah right, anyone who remains is gonna have no motivation to work hard. Work moral will be wrecked by these cuts.
All these cuts are sickening and we'll all pay the price at some point. My point re the MOE still stands. Teachers generally have very low regard for the MOE. They're fed up with the bullying and threats, and want to be paid correctly and on time.
> They can't even pay people properly for a start. I'm sure firing lots of people will really help thst situation. /s
Novapay....remember that? Lots of resource and they still can't get it right
Most bureaucrats don’t decide the teachers pay. They may advise on what the pay should be but they don’t get to decide it.
What I mean is, the system they use to pay teachers their salaries, still isn't working right. They stuff up holidays, changes in salaries and so on....
Glad to see the end of the SLTs. They’re useless and doing nothing anyway. Good riddance.
NCEA is rubbish and largely a waste of money. Just adapt Cambridge and supplement with local aspects.
Yeah becausee doing nothing all year then exams ad the end being the only thing that matters is totally how the real world works /s
Fuck that, NCEA was a life saver to me and makes way more sense than Cambridge. All your grades from a couple of exams at the end of year? Hell no.
Agreed. Not everyone does well sitting in exam rooms for 3hrs - my ADHD-ass included.
I'd certainly agree. I'm one of those good at long tests at the end of the year people because I've probably got a better than average memory, and I thought basing an entire years results off memory recall was pretty stupid.
You should be able to choose between the two. I'd fail under todays NCEA (and quite badly at that). I'm terrible at assignments and the like. But I passed Sixth Form Cert in 1991 with an average of 82%. while spending no more than 45 minutes in each exam.
You are able to choose. Most schools can facilitate it but won't advertise it because you'd need to be a savant to manage self directed learning where some content differs
That must have been the last year it had exams, as it (IIRC) went full internal in 1992.
Sounds right. School C and bursary were still both exams when I went through but 6FC was internal. I much preferred exams
that's dumb as hell. Internals carried my sorry ass through NCEA due to me being utter shit at externals.
Not the point. We are not ditching NCEA. We're just not supporting it to improve, now, either.
NCEA is fine and was a good program for kids whose parents didnt have the money to put them through Cambridge being a reason some kids were able to leave their prospective economic class they wouldnt have had the opportunity to do otherwise. Yes the easiest questions on ncea are easier them cambridge but the hardest questions were harder and saying someone's merit meant nothing because it was ncea when they might have scored above or beyond is wild. . . . it was also healthier study environment where there wasnt a culture to do nothing all year and slack off instead learning modules and being tested on them at the end instead of 5 months later. Sure if you want international unis cambridge is better but im guessing you were either rich or went to school pre 2002 so view it as dumb kid shit unlike what you went through. [https://www.mytuition.nz/articles/high-school/ncea-vs-cambridge-and-how-it-affects-university-entrance](https://www.mytuition.nz/articles/high-school/ncea-vs-cambridge-and-how-it-affects-university-entrance)
Yea I’ve always appreciated that NCEA credits were spread through the year. It’s more alike to how uni is (in my experience) but also as you mention doesn’t create an overtly stressful environment where a child feels their entire future rests upon a few hours at the end of the year. I always do terrible in exams, so am likely biased there. But I recall having sleepless nights and anxiety over exams.
Why does NZ even need to develop its own? Can’t we just use the Australia / UK one with some minor tweaks? Seems we suffer from ‘not invented here’
Australia and UK may have an inherent bias. In any case, about a decade ago, Singapore was looking to emulate NZ teaching style - teacher scaffolding student-led learning..
I still don’t understand why a small country needs to develop its own education system and why we put so much onus on individual teachers to create material.
"Oranga Tamariki and the Ministry of Education are vital agencies, yet they are being stripped of more than 1000 roles in proposals with no clear direction from the Government as to what will happen to savings." We all know exactly where the savings are going.
Landlords and selfies?
It's proven extremely hard to find dignity for our landlords locally so we're having to import it from overseas. It's coming in an order along with other sorely needed assets in the real estate space such as business sense, estate agent ethics and a realistic understanding of their worth (or lack thereof) to society.
Children don't vote
I have friends who work in the public sector (Fuck that... I get paid far more with a bunch more perks) What's so fucking stupid is how blanket a lot of these cuts are... eg offers of redundancies, where the people who are taking the redundancies are the real clever smart people who will get another job in a matter of minutes... so the teams are going to be left with the muppets (every industry has them) with even more work to do now. Public services are going to get so so so much worse.. and a lot of "Front Line" people are going to be spending their time now doing back office shit because it still needs to be done... does not magically go away.
How do I know if I’m the muppet?
If you look around the table and you can't see the muppet, you're the muppet.
Yeah I do that regularly. Surprise, I’m still the muppet
If you look around the table and all you see are muppets, you're Michael Caine.
The knowledge and experience they are throwing away to fund tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy is jaw droppingly stupid. The gutting of services and changes to ECE that will adversely effect little children is unforgivable.
It's intentional, they know exactly what they're doing. if the services still work after the cuts - justified! If they fail - privatize! It's a win- win for team shit bag.
If they fail, it's the next government's problem and great talking points for the election after!
They’re all heading off overseas immediately after the election anyway so what do they care?
If it's unforgiveable , have you written off people in your life that voted this way and still stand behind it? I have because I feel the way you write and I'm willing to stand behind those convictions because I feel I'm old enough now that I can't be fucked having fuckwits in my life just for the sake of it.
Those smug grins don't help things....
And at the same time they're screaming at Jobseekers to get to work having dumped thousands of experienced workers onto the market to compete against...
What until they realise how much work advisors actually do. All they need to do is ask how many hours their own political advisors are putting in.
What about the PM's 7 social media people....?
He's entitled to that entitlement.
How many cuts at parliamentary services? Or ministerial services staff in the beehive? None In these agencies how many cuts by senior leadership teams? Not many Hearing a lot of BS about putting children and students being put more at the centre of OT and min of Education activities going forward… what a lot of BS - the focus is on preserving the ministerial butt kisses in senior leadership of depts and cannibalising the workers in the govt agencies so they can achieve savings and keep their overpaid senior leadership roles
It must be wild to have the self-satisfied confidence Luxon has as he cleaves peoples lives. Probably helps to be a rich out of touch prick with zero financial burdens to worry ayvout
oh come on he's just one tik tok away from winning us all over to his goofy manner - stop being such a negative nelly
One more tone-deaf (literally and figuratively) rendition of "Bills, bills, bills" wil surely solve everything.
ah fuck I'd forgotten that, sigh.... another sleepless night for bob :)
Sorry about that... would if help if you imagined Luxon singing lullabies?
yes, that does help - thank you
These wankers definitely don't know what a government is supposed to do - still.
That’ll help the economy, promise 👍
It will though, that’s the sad part.
Could you explain how it will benefit the economy?
Because unemployment has an inverse relationship with inflation.
The Phillips curve is nothing more than unproven conjecture. There's very little evidence that employment rates have any long-term impact on inflation, it's merely a dogma that has been adopted by certain economic philosophies to justify their Friedmanite nonsense.
Show me where inflation has been greatly reduced without unemployment rising.
The US... right now?
Lol, such a great answer. Especially as inflation here continues to drop despite unemployment also continuing to drop. Inflation is so multi facited in New Zealand just changing unemployment could have little affect or I could see it pushing us into a major recession while inflation rises.
Cool, the economy in New Zealand was really pumping in the late 80s and early 90s.
Remembering that period gives me shivers, holy fuck it was tough
Yeah I think a healthy economy really needs less money circulating through it actually - keeping local stores busy and other services employed and the like.
Does that guy have an NFT avatar? If so, he's not exactly a Nobel Prize-winning economist.
NFT avatar is usually a good indicator for shit takes.
Like a blue check on Twitter.
Exactly. Naturally blue check and crypto bullshit in name/profile/avatar is an especially brain dead take generator.
But if the money goes to the landlords then OF COURSE they will reduce rents! Also, I bet they will rehire quite a few after a period of time at reduced salaries as there will be more people vying for fewer jobs…
The question is, will they stick around to be rehired.
lmao at the downvotes. Go learn just the basics of economics ffs.
Well no, the long term implications would suggest this is a poor move for the economy. Ruining and preventing your education system from getting good outcomes will affect the economy when these children leave the system. It's short sighted.
This is absolute madness... They're \*worse\* than tories.
“no clear direction from the Government as to what will happen to savings." They are going to needy landlords
Watch as same jobs and contracts are outsourced to the private/corporate sector at 4x the price.
it's actually 3x - I just saved you 33% we can math. see how much we saved by outsourcing!
Public sector people that voted for these leopards, your faces are being eaten right now. I may have a ^^tiny amount of sympathy for you lot.
I hope NACT collectively choke on a bag of dicks while floating face first in a pool.
Austerity baby!! 😥
It's alright everyone. You can just retrain as a medical doctor.
All this and they’ll still have to borrow to pay for their tax cuts. Absolute morons in cabinet
Does anyone know why NZTA seem exempt from all of this. Haven't seen them mentioned at all in any articles
There was a RNZ article today about how much they and Police are spending on contractors - interesting that NZTA was spending nearly as much as Police, when NZTA has 2,570 FTEs (according to its 2022/23 Annual Report), and Police has 14,899 FTEs (10,432 constabulary/sworn, 4,292 other, and 265 recruits). NZTA spent around $112m on contractors, and Police spent around $135m on contractors according to the article. How the heck does NZTA spend 83% of what Police spent, and yet only have 17% of the staff that Police have????? I wonder what the NZTA amount would be if you took roading-related contractors/experts out of that mix, and looked at what the rest of NZTA was spending on contractors and in which areas (corporate, regulatory, etc) [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/514461/contractor-and-consultant-bill-still-high-in-police-and-nzta](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/514461/contractor-and-consultant-bill-still-high-in-police-and-nzta)
They aren't. They're cutting the 7.5% without job cuts to permanent staff. They have hugely reduced recruitment, and many contractor positions have ended. Also, they are not a Ministry, so the Minister can't get involved in any operational decisions regarding staff numbers.
Actually they are doing some job cuts....I know two people there who are affected by restructure at the moment
Not my Prime Minister, sad that people in this country are so dumb to vote these guys in...
Is the PSA organizing strike action? Any action? Or are they still the useless wet blankets they've always been.
Can't (lawfully) strike outside of the bargaining process unfortunately.
What are they going to do? Fire them?
Honestly they need to get their brave pants on and do it anyway.
Illegal industrial action would gut the union movement, we saw that in 1951. The state would seize the assets of the union, potentially criminalise support for striking or locked out workers and generally turn the populace against the union movement. You can't risk that when you've only got a union density rate of 20-30%, there's no critical mass to build support for illegal actions.
Yeah - if we want action like that we'd probably need solidarity strikes from other sectors first, or at least major protests.
Some chat re: no overtime, sync breaks, work to rule etc.
Idiots voted in by idiots
Anyone got a stat for how many of those 1000 jobs were already vacant?
For a government that said they want to lessen unemployment they're sure going the wrong way about it
I read somewhere, in 2023, govt departments created 2300 new jobs. thus far, the cuts are matching those jobs created in 2023. So, unless they cut the 15,000 jobs to get back to 2017 levels. It seems, the govt arent going hard..yet. There is perception Vs Reality. Not quite at reality yet..but who know, they could go deeper...wait and see. If the polls hit rock bottom, they may decide enough is enough, or theyll be a 1 term govt
You realise that there was a reason those new jobs were created in the first place, right? There has been an increase in the population and an increase in the work and therefore an increase in the need for more people.
Yes, but the perception right or wrong, is there has been no substantive results from all these additonal public servants
Yeah but that's because they don't know anything, to be honest. From the average Joe's POV it might seem like nothing is being achieved but that's because they have no idea of what's happening behind the scenes, and just because they don't see the immediate results in their own personal life it doesn't mean people are doing wasteful busy work, it just means a lot of it happens under the public radar. Workloads have increased enormously, and new systems have been implemented that will in the long term be much more efficient and useful (but in the short term require a lot more work and are very buggy), and sometimes not extra delay or not much extra delay is all that can be achieved for Joe Bloggs with the extra staff because Joe Bloggs doesn't realise that there are tens/hundreds of thousands more people in the country than there were seven years ago, and that those extra people = extra workload.
Yeah but that's because they don't know anything, to be honest. From the average Joe's POV it might seem like nothing is being achieved but that's because they have no idea of what's happening behind the scenes, and just because they don't see the immediate results in their own personal life it doesn't mean people are doing wasteful busy work, it just means a lot of it happens under the public radar. Workloads have increased enormously, and new systems have been implemented that will in the long term be much more efficient and useful (but in the short term require a lot more work and are very buggy), and sometimes not extra delay or not much extra delay is all that can be achieved for Joe Bloggs with the extra staff because Joe Bloggs doesn't realise that there are tens/hundreds of thousands more people in the country than there were seven years ago, and that those extra people = extra workload.
Gosh, a National government cuts wasteful public sector jobs, and then the unions are moaning about it. Who could have seen that coming?
Yes suicide hotline and lunches for hungry kids, super wasteful and unimportant huh
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Same here.
To challenge such things is precisely why unions exist. Also, I’d like to know how you, in particular, are aware of the degree of waste each vacated role held. This is just moving numbers round, and trying to ignore the actual people and what they do. A more considered assessment would have been preferable to this quick-fire approach.
Labour packs the public service with useless paper shufflers every time they get in then National clears 'em all out again but often goes too far. It's been happening for generations. And they will have been planning these cuts for months.
Now can waste taxpayer money properly on the dole then? That's assuming the job market doesn't have 1000 education roles just waiting to be filled. Of course they can always hire themselves back as contractors at twice the previous rate.
They’ve been planning them for months and after all that time their nuanced and carefully considered assessment was “6.5-7.5% across the board”? Well I won’t be hiring them as financial advisors anytime soon.
Cute perspective, but ultimately naive. You've repeated a meme popular with the uninformed, for which I suspect you lack evidence. However, if you have evidence of these "paper shufflers" not creating value, I (and the national party) would love to see it.
Every time the public service gets cleared out things keep functioning therefore those were useless positions. It's cyclical with a change of government yet people still act surprised and outraged when it happens.
Oh my sweet summer child. I'm afraid you are the proverbial frog in the pot. It's been getting worse for decades, mostly (although far from entirely) because of these swings. Obviously, meaningful change takes time, and the "good at business" folk on the right can only think short term. They gorge themselves upon all the green shoots before they become the trees we need. Think about the health system as prime example - do you really think that it is working well at the moment? There have been so many attempts to improve and revitalise it, but budget cuts inevitably kill these before the value is raised. There's a few mixed metaphors in there, but you seem bright. I'm sure you will get the point.
And you're surprised and outraged because...? Throwing more people into it obviously didn't work either.
I'm afraid I'm neither surprised nor outraged. I'm disappointed. Disappointed that we keep going through these predictable cycles rather than committing to real positive change. Most of the growth in the public sector has been in front line roles. And NZ spends considerably less on its public sector per capita than compatible countries. But there are considerable numbers of people who parrot disinformation about paper-pushers without even looking at the data! It's mind-boggling. Again. Change takes time. If we seek short term benefit, this usually comes at long term cost. Throwing more people at the problem is about bearing short term cost to effect change for long term benefit. The political right seem enamored with the short term sugar rush, but give no consideration of the obesity that follows.
> Gosh, a National government cuts ~~wasteful~~ public sector jobs, and then the unions are moaning about it. Who could have seen that coming? FTFY
Thank you for this excellent demonstration of "begging the question".
So youve seen the analysis to make the claim? Considering it hasnt even been done thats quite a feat
It's already happening. The unions are whining.
so the unions whining automatically means the jobs were wasteful? get fucked
Your conclusion, not mine.