Public service cuts don’t help, they just hurt people – Sandra Grey
Thousands face uncertainty as thousands of public service cuts were announced. Photo / Getty Images
Across Aotearoa today, people are worried. They are worried about their jobs, their mortgages, their power bills and whether the doctor will be there when their kids get sick. They deserve a Government with a plan. Instead, they just got another round of cuts.
The Government’s economic plan at the last election was seductively simple. Cut taxes, cut a few public sector jobs, drop interest rates and the economy would be back on track. It hasn’t worked. Jobseeker Support numbers have rocketed past every pre-election forecast. Growth has stalled, gone backwards, stalled again and now looks set to go backwards once more.
So the Government is hunting for a scapegoat. First, it was the merchants of misery. Then global headwinds. Last week, migrants. This week, rather than admit the plan isn’t working, the Government has decided to blame public servants – the people who guard our border, protect our biosecurity and look after our conservation estate.
After 920 days in office, with less than 180 days of this term left, the Minister of Finance has suddenly discovered tremendous over-staffing in the public service. Apparently, there are too many people at the Cancer Control Agency (all 54 of them), the National Emergency Management Agency (172) and Whaikaha – the Ministry of Disabled People (79).
Her answer is to cut unprotected budgets by 13% across three years. Factor in inflation and that is closer to a 20% cut in real terms – on top of the cuts already delivered in her first two Budgets. The agencies in the firing line include those tackling child online exploitation, migrant worker exploitation and protection of the environment.
In practice, that is one in four unprotected jobs gone: 1200 at Inland Revenue, 1800 at the Ministry of Social Development, nearly 360 at Customs, almost 900 at Primary Industries: 8700 jobs in total. There is no careful analysis behind these numbers. No value-for-money calculations. The Government is crossing its fingers and hoping.
Responsibility for the cuts is being pushed on to departments themselves, so ministers can blame someone else when things go wrong. The Government hopes artificial intelligence (AI) will make services cheaper, while preparing to sack the very people who would deliver it. The minister says she wants to keep skills and talent in the public service – and has just guaranteed three years of disruption, change and insecurity that will drive good people out of the service and out of the country.
Some of the functions cut by departments will quietly re-emerge elsewhere in government, at higher cost. Public health is a prime candidate. That makes Tuesday’s announcement a cut to frontline services in disguise.
Kiwis deserve better than this. It is a cheat. Push the hard decisions past the election. Hope no one notices. Make the books look better on paper. Pray the future delivers. It is the National Party’s 2023 fiscal plan all over again.
The only winners will be the consultants rubbing their hands at the change programmes about to descend on every department and the contractors who will take over public servants’ jobs at higher cost because they don’t count towards the official headcount. And those who exploit New Zealanders, knowing they are now less likely to be caught.
That is whose side this Government is on. Not yours. Not your family’s. And certainly not the public services your community relies on. This is a Government out of ideas. It knows only how to cut. Tax breaks were found for tobacco companies, but not for the public servants keeping our kids safe online or stopping wage theft on building sites.
Behind every one of the 8700 jobs on the chopping block is a person, a family, a mortgage, a community. And behind every public service being hollowed out are the New Zealanders who will go without – the cancer patient, the disabled person, the family bracing for the next emergency. They deserve a Government that backs them. Our public service workforce deserves your support, not the contempt of a Government that has lost its way.
Catch up on the debates that dominated the week by signing up to our Opinion newsletter – a weekly round-up of our best commentary.