Hard News: Pamphleteering
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And do you seriously think that a round of 'cuts' and downsizing won't require a large cadre of managers and consultants to oversee and administer?
Actually that is exactly what happened at TVNZ when they were recently downsized and" the all new human resources team" were hired to smooth the transition for staff who were about to be axed.Noone knew who was to be chopped but my friend was quietly satisfied when, the HR new employee assuring her department that unemployment could be a great opportunity ,arrived one morning to clean out her desk. Surplus to requirement.My friend promptly took lunch to celebrate.Oh..how we laughed.
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I suspect most people would think that 'proving your worth' isn't likely to have too much to do with whether or not you have a job at the other side.
ok but (yeah but na but)one thing I achieved and taught my staff was confidence,competence and worth and that created a good environment.If you are worthy,you will probably keep the job over the one who is miserable about the prospect of losing it Also if you ask(not demand) for help when dealing with people in pulic services,they (9 times outta 10)will feel worthy and try to do a good job.Gotta have some faith,methinks.
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A S,
The difference being that Labour has publicly disavowed the actions of the Fourth Labour Government and did so a while ago.
Yep. That doesn't change the fact that those cuts of the 80s still took place. History doesn't change just because someone promises not to do it again.
And do you seriously think that a round of 'cuts' and downsizing won't require a large cadre of managers and consultants to oversee and administer? I think that managerialism and compliance costs are big problems. I have absolutely no confidence that downsizing is the solution. In fact, the downsizing mentality and its associated languages of efficiency and cost-effectiveness are the primary generators of managerialism.
Downsizing isn't the solution. Invariably what happens is that the monkeys are given the key to banana plantation and idiotic layers of management emerge. Perhaps a better way to do things would be to look at how to establish the frontline staffing needs for departments, and only when those are established should consideration be given to establishing the number of support staff (i.e. managers, comms, policy, research, HR etc.), rather than expanding your head office workforce to meet your annual appropriation or creating new initiatives to keep your newly expanded workforce looking like they're doing something.....
Sadly, the likelihood of that ever happening is somewhere between zero and none.
Hmmm... The discussion has deviated quite substantially from my original quibble about the politicisation of the public sector. But perhaps these various issues are all linked in many ways....
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The thing is, as voters, aren't we entitled to elect a government and have it implement the policies it was elected on? Politicians should decide and public servants advise and implement.
With 60 or so government MPs (some of whom are bound to be incompetent or criminal) plus a budget for maybe the same number of party advisers, that isn't very many people to supervise and make the decisions. Can we really expect somebody who's a dyed-in-the wool neo-liberal to implement social market policy? Or a safety obsessive at LTNZ to accept a less prescriptive attitude to road safety?
Maybe we need to bite the bullet and have a temporary civil service of a few hundred people on 3-year contracts, to *complement* the permanent staff?
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Maybe we need to bite the bullet and have a temporary civil service of a few hundred people on 3-year contracts, to *complement* the permanent staff?
You mean like in the US? A risk is a significant diminution of institutional memory and entrenchment of hackey. Besides, CEs are largely sackable already.
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A S,
With 60 or so government MPs (some of whom are bound to be incompetent or criminal) plus a budget for maybe the same number of party advisers, that isn't very many people to supervise and make the decisions.
Don't forget an Audit Office full of auditors, a Crown Law Office full of lawyers, a Cabinet Office full of expert advice on procedures and appropriate behaviour for MPs and Ministers of the crown, Treasury and SSC oversight of agency activities, not to mention the common or garden variety officials whose agencies offer a multitude of perspectives and advice on any topic. Decisions get made by the 20 or so who end up in Cabinet, based on the advice they get from any of the above fonts of (supposed) wisdom.
The rest of parliament plays a role in keeping Cabinet honest via the select committee process. If they find incompetence, dodgy goings on or anything like that, they are not backwards in coming forwards to let the populace know. Parliament can debate anything that looks dodgy, and Parliament can get rid of incompetent or crooked administrations through a confidence motion, or through making laws off their own bat to stop whatever it is that is dodgy, and then every few years the people get to choose the next bunch of crooks, rogues and charlatans to represent them.
All in all, we probably have the checks and balances about right, and adding more public servants probably won't help much except to confuse things even further.
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AS said:
All in all, we probably have the checks and balances about right
That's about my sense of it, albeit several years removed.
The thing that troubled me about NZ's policy-making process was the risk of a small, and potentially transient, consensus running unchecked - pick whichever example you wish.
I don't think that's much of a risk in an MMP environment, particularly one where the major parties are forced into "agreements" with parliamentary partners - however attenuated. But that's the parliamentary side of things. The other side is the public sector and, importantly, lobby groups.
Again, my somewhat distanced perspective, is that the public sector is pretty professional, thorough and independent. Sure there's instances of sub-optimal policy examination or overly timid criticism but generally the public servants I've worked with (and occasionally for) have been clear about their role, well informed and impartial. The Setchell (sp) instance earlier this year is still remarkable in a NZ context, it sure as hell wouldn't be in Australia where we are approaching a variation of the US model (in some but not all states).
Where I think NZ policy making is deficient is the lack of research-led lobby groups. The bigger groups do pretty good work, sometimes, but many others are under-funded and/or rely on historical and/or industrial muscle. Though I don't always agree with them, the New Zealand Institute is a positive development because, compared with the NZBR, it produces analyses in support of its positions rather than rhetoric.
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I can agree with AS but I think that there are things that need to be done to improve the situation.
It should be seen as a privilage to be in public service not just a job for life, as it used to be. We have been told by National, in the past, that we can not expect good quality people unless we pay the same for people in the public sector as we do in the private sector, the best people just wont take the jobs. Well I think different. We have people in the services, ie. Army, Navy and Airforce, that could make more bucks as mercenaries than they can in the services, and there is the point. If you want to spend your working life working for a living wage, as opposed to "getting rich", doing the best you can for the greater good then you deserve respect.
If you think a public sector job is an easy ride then you are the wrong person for the job and there are opportunities in the private sector but, and it is a great big fat wobbly butt, if there is no good governance of the society that you live in then the private sector is just a jungle full of greedy self serving fat bastards.
Some have said that the reforms of the 80's were introduced by Labour. The fact is that after the mess left by Muldoon we had little choice but to tighten our belts and sell some assets. What happened then was a great example of the corrupive force of powerand greed. Roger Douglas and his pals, including many life long Labour stalwarts (as was Douglas' family), sniffed the butt of greed and raped the nation (I'm sure you already know the story) and sold us all out for the benefit of their mates and themselves.
The present Labour party has done its best to right the wrongs of those turncoat bastards and our economy and, as a whole,it has improved.
We have a world wide economic problem caused by greed and selfishness. Now the supporters of the Right are saying "what about me? it's too hard to get rich" well you had your shot, you have your McMansions, you have your jetskis and your family trusts and your BMWs and big screen TVs. Go back to work instead of living off your stockmarket gains and sell your shit to China, now you can. Let the people that look after your sick Mothers and Fathers, the people that run the checkout at your handy supermarket, the people that dispose of your rubbish and the people that teach your children have a fair suck of the sav. (as they say in that oh so much better country we call Australia where they still have workers rights)
National is the bastard son of the desire for wealth that is the root of all evil and we owe our forefathers so much more after all they did for us. EH? -
I feel so much better now, better than James Brown. ;-)
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My story this morning was based on notes taken by a participant in the closed workshop run by Mike Williams, not by any notes he distributed.
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Audrey. Great, thanks. That really makes a huge difference to the quality of the story and subsequent discussion.
Sorry, Russell, perhaps I should play nice in this apparent moment of media conversion but frankly I thought the story was essentially trivial and Audrey's elaboration/clarification does nothing to convince me otherwise...
Meanwhile, ABC's Four Corners details a series of examples of apparent corruption within the NSW Labor government in a classic example of real investigative journalism.
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Looks like I was wrong.
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Eeewww.
Yep. That's why I stopped reaqding Craig's comments. It gets too stomach churning after a while.
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__The difference being that Labour has publicly disavowed the actions of the Fourth Labour Government and did so a while ago.__
Yep. That doesn't change the fact that those cuts of the 80s still took place. History doesn't change just because someone promises not to do it again.
Well, the original question was who are civil servants likely to vote for this year to be the government of the next three years. So I don't think they're saying history changes, just that unless you're either 1. still bitter at the 4th labour government, or 2. don't believe their disavowing (of which the past three terms is a reasonable follow through of), then the 4th Labour government really is just history.
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A S,
Kyle
Well, the original question was who are civil servants likely to vote for this year to be the government of the next three years. So I don't think they're saying history changes, just that unless you're either 1. still bitter at the 4th labour government, or 2. don't believe their disavowing (of which the past three terms is a reasonable follow through of), then the 4th Labour government really is just history.
The context of the question widened in the next paragraph of the post I was discussing, to talk about reluctance to vote national because of the public sector being historically disemboweled by National in the 90's, which is a fair point. My response was to point out, in an earlier post, and in the one you quote, that Labour also put the public sector to the sword in pretty robust fashion.
Those events took place, and promising not to do it again doesn't alter that.
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The DAFT Party have a better solution than either English, Dunne, Peters, or anyone else in Parliament. Scrap the EFA and replace it with the PEA. I think there might even be a place for Russell on the committee that oversees how funds are distributed.
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Key used "bureaucrat" yet again yesterday in the context of the proposed increase in foreign affairs staff. Once he did that I didn't really bother to listen to the rest of what he had to say.
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Yep. That's why I stopped reaqding Craig's comments. It gets too stomach churning after a while.
Thanks, Don -- that of course is your choice. I personally find my gag relfex twitches when the Prime Minister -- and someone who's been an electorate MP for three decades -- draws a spectacularly disingenuous comparison that passes totally unchallenged. Sadly, I don't really have the option of ignoring the Prime Minister's oral flatulence on this subject.
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Someone mentioned 'Vogons' before & I would love to see it more widely use rather than 'Bureaucrat' in the prejoritive.
This at least explains my slam(ed) poetry.
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