Tuesday, 21 November 2023 13:07

Over fat!

Written by  The Hound

OPINION: The Hound suggests that the new National-led government has plenty of scope to deliver on its – and coalition partner ACT’s – election promise of trimming the fat in the public service.

The jump in the number of bureaucrats under the Labour government from 2017 is clearly evident in figures recently released by the Public Service Commission.

This shows the number of Wellington public servants – excluding health and education workers – has increased by 7255 since 2017.

That’s an increase of 35.64%.

Meanwhile, the average public service pay was $97,200 which suggests that increase in the government’s annual wage bill in Wellington since 2017 has grown by $705 million.

There’s also been an increase in the number of public servants in Auckland – growing by 2800 to 12,810 since 2017.

Anyone suggesting there is no room for cuts here is delusional!

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Anyone in the primary sector will know about the clowns covering the countryside in the red tape we all have to wade through.

Spare a thought then for media outfit Stuff who were threatened with fines up to $200,000 by a snivelling civil servant from the MoH for illustrating a quiz question with a photo of part of the cover of a 45-year-old copy Playboy.

As Stuff notes, “It wasn’t the Playboy cover which caused offence. No, it was the back page which… featured an advert for a cigarette brand”.

As Regulations Minister David Seymour notes, “The real scandal here is, well, no wonder we’ve got problems in healthcare when they’re doing the Stuff quiz during work time.”

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The Hound

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OPINION: It really is getting harder to lampoon government bureaucrats when they do such a good job of it themselves.…

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