Hard News: Pamphleteering
69 Responses
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Labour will campaign on WFF, Kiwibank/saver etc but I've still got no idea what National will do beyond cut taxes (in line with Labour too)!
Well, as Lila Harre pointed out on National (bias!) Radio this morning, anyone really sure where Labour stands on privatisation -- or are public/private partnerships, outsourcing and so forth only bad when the other bastards do it?
Personally, I think some folks really need to make up their mind: Is National's problem that there's some horrible far-right secret agenda in the offing, or that it's just 'Labour lite' and not extremist enough?
And having seen National put out policy in 2002 that could most charitably be described as 'written on the back of a cocktail napkin over a boozy lunch, and costed with a fistful of D&D dice' I'm willing to be patient. Not forever, but certainly until after the Budget so we're not seeing National making big promises it can't pay for.
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What's scary is that they think that's enough.
That's not scary. It's scary that it will be enough :P
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A S,
I'm far from convinced that the NZ public service is particularly political. I agree there's been a few stupid mistakes and interventions, however overall I see no evidence of public sector independence being structurally compromised.
Hence my suggestion of talking to a few longer term public servants. Ask them whether they feel there is an increasing sense of displeasure when advice on impact of political directives across a wide range of issues is given, or whether they think there has been a shift over time to an increasingly politicised public sector, which may not be in the best interests of the NZ public.
You talked about whether the NZ public service is particularly political. I'd suggest that is exactly the sort of thing I mean. The public sector shouldn't be seen as being political at all.
I agree with the earlier comments about National's clever avoidance of policy itself. Labour will campaign on WFF, Kiwibank/saver etc but I've still got no idea what National will do beyond cut taxes (in line with Labour too)!
Regardless of this, the point I have been trying to make is that no political party should be using information generated by a government department for electioneering. If parties produce their own info then fine, but using info produced by departments for electoral purposes only serves to undermine the independence we should be demanding from our public sector.
Or is it acceptable for the public sector to be used for political ends?
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Not forever, but certainly until after the Budget so we're not seeing National making big promises it can't pay for.
Which really suggests that Labour should be making sure they can't pay for anything without having to borrow, or cut social spending and so take money directly out of people's pockets. Think long-term, and pre-commit that spending now!
It's a winning strategy either way: if Labour wins, they get to implement the policies they've committed to, which shouldn't annoy them. And if they lose, they leave a poison pill, which either binds National to a more left-wing agenda than they had planned, or forces them to betray the electorate.
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That's not scary. It's scary that it will be enough :P
I almost gave up on the voting public when John Banks got elected Mayor of Auckland.
Then he got re-elected ...
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Labour will campaign on WFF, Kiwibank/saver etc but I've still got no idea what National will do beyond cut taxes (in line with Labour too)!
National is going to say as little as possible until the last 90 days.
EFA spending limitations are in place for the entire year and violations may be heavily punished - National will spend money to provide policy info when it is most effective. Labours active promotion of WFF, Kiwisaver risks being deemed political campaigning and these booklets if costed as political adverts will hamstring Labour in September onwards.
And more importantly, apart from some wonderful "people-who-like-discussing-politics-on-the-internet", no one really wants to hear any campaigning. 90 days every 3 years is about as much as most people can stand.
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"...Personally, I think some folks really need to make up their mind: Is National's problem that there's some horrible far-right secret agenda in the offing, or that it's just 'Labour lite' and not extremist enough...?"
You can't make up your mind about this statement when you don't have evidence either way. At moment, National is letting Labour set the agenda with a nice line of "National's Lack of evidence isn't evidence of lacking" a secret agenda because National is afraid to release policy that might upset someone, so its easy for Labour to make up whatever they want National's policy to be. John Key seems comfortable with this because it allows him to tell whatever audience is in front of him what it wants to hear. At the same time, Labour is playing a shrewd game of seizing the agenda and getting Mr. Key to dance to their tune by daring Key to oppose their policies rather than champion his own - and if he doesn't oppose Labour's ideas, it is more evidence of untrustworthiness, and if he does oppose then its evidence National DOES have a secret agenda.
The big question now though is how much can National's new pragmatism (and what a victory for Helen Clark - she has moved the entire political landscape well to the centre) continue without serious dissension appearing in the ranks? Will Peachy really endorse the end of bulk funding?
I think National know they cannot win without an absolute majority, so they are desperate to try and hold together enough anti-government votes to try and get one. It’s a strategy doomed to fail, but it’s the sort of thinking you'd expect from a cynical and absolutist politician like McCully, a strategist utterly unable to come to terms with MMP.
It the long run it seems to me National needs a party like the Greens, a role ACT can't fulfil. What National needs after it fails to form a governing coalition at the next election is, I dare to predict, a break away Country Party led by, say, Bill English and having several deeply rural MP's - a kind of Federated Farmers answer to the Maori Party, or a conservative foil for the Greens.
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It's a winning strategy either way
I think a chap by the name of John Winston Howard might beg to differ. You couldn't fault the Coalition for dishing out the promises of new spending - and a lot of shameless pork - with the psychotic shamelessness that makes Australian politics so entertaining. Problem is that nobody was buying it. Perhaps voters aren't quite as stupid as they're assumed to be.
You can't make up your mind about this statement when you don't have evidence either way.
Tom: Love you, love your work, but the day National convinces you of anything I'll put John Key up for sainthood -- because he'll have worked his first miracle. I'm sure Ian Wishart will go to his grave convinced that Helen Clark has a 'secret agenda' to turn New Zealand into a nation of drug-addled, benefit-dependent Maoist lesbian-feminist atheists. After nine long years, the Dykeocracy is conspicuous by its absence but just you wait. The nice thing about 'secret agendas' is that they're impossible to disprove.
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I'd be very surprised if National doesn't have a fairly good idea of what it wants to achieve in office. The privatization of ACC, for instance.
The matter of public-sector politicization is a complex one, in this context. A lot of public sector employees will be naturally leery of a National administration, for the very good reason that they think their jobs will be at stake. If they work in ACC, MSD, MED, MCH, Kiwibank, or TEC, I imagine that these concerns will be well-founded.
National was rather surprised last election by the margin with which Labour took Wellington Central. It shouldn't have been. The memory of National's wholesale disembowelment of the state sector is still fresh, and there's no reason to think they won't try it on again. And Key's recent talkback-baiting blather about cutting hundreds of millions of dollars of public spending isn't really going to bring on the warm fuzzies, is it?
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A lot of public sector employees will be naturally leery of a National administration, for the very good reason that they think their jobs will be at stake.
As we still have this tiresome thing called a secret ballot and AFAIK civil servants are not barred from voting, they're welcome to vote for whoever they want. But there's only one option for any civil servant who feels unable to meet their legal and ethical obligations following a change of government -- and I imagine their resignations will be accepted with little joy.
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Craig: It's not a matter of public servants being unable to serve a National government - these people are professionals. It's a matter of National's policies putting their jobs and livelihoods at risk. In other words, turkeys not voting for christmas.
I didn't think that would be so difficult to understand.
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The memory of National's wholesale disembowelment of the state sector is still fresh, and there's no reason to think they won't try it on again.
I also think 'we won't sell any SOEs in our *first* term' is the kind of statement which should - hopefully - raise the suspicion levels amongst the population at large.
I'm often wrong, though.
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A S,
The matter of public-sector politicization is a complex one, in this context. A lot of public sector employees will be naturally leery of a National administration, for the very good reason that they think their jobs will be at stake.
Sadly, the days of total job security in the public sector vanished as a result of the reforms of the 80's and anyone in the public sector who thinks they are in a safe role is perhaps a little optimistic.
The point about Turkey's not voting for Xmas has been made, but if the public service is doing its job properly, then if there are a need for cuts, they should be the first to promote them. Maintaining jobs for the sake of maintaing jobs does not equate to administration in the best interests of the country.
All agencies should ask themselves regularly whether they are delivering services in the best interest of NZ (I'm pretty sure this sentiment is set out in the State Sector Act). For public servants self-interest doesn't (read shouldn't) come into the equation. Perhaps the public service ethos has eroded over time....
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AS: Professionalism in doing your job does not rule out self-interest at the ballot box.
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For public servants self-interest doesn't (read shouldn't) come into the equation.
That's all very nice in theory, but if it came down to a choice between eating/paying rent and serving the public good, you could hardly blame anyone for trying to hold on to employment. And I don't think it would have been any different in previous generations, either.
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That's all very nice in theory, but if it came down to a choice between eating/paying rent and serving the public good, you could hardly blame anyone for trying to hold on to employment.
To play devil's advocate for a moment, Danielle, one would hope anyone who has been the civil service for more than five minutes would be more than usually sceptical of Chicken Little vapourings from the Labour Party.
I didn't think that would be so difficult to understand.
I didn't think you'd be quite that disingenuous. Turkeys don't vote for Chirstmas, but they don't run the farm either. Still, if Labour wants to go on the campaign trail pledging that not one job will be lost from the civil service on their watch -- good luck.
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A S,
I S. It doesn't rule out self-interest at all, you're right. But if public servants are brutally honest with themselves, there is an awful lot of wastage, duplication and inefficiency that NZers really shouldn't be supporting through their taxes.
By way of example. Take a large agency and count how many layers of management there were in 99, then count how many there are now. Ask yourself whether the job of the person at the front counter (often the same person in both cases) has changed so much that so many additional layers of management are required. Apply test to any agency you care to name. Repeat. Some will not have changed much, some will have trebled the layers of managment between bottom and top.
The memory of National's wholesale disembowelment of the state sector is still fresh, and there's no reason to think they won't try it on again.
I don't think national even get into the same ball park as labour's cuts to the public sector in the 80's. Both ends of the spectrum are guilty of shafting the public service, lets not forget that.
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Sadly, and anyone in the public sector who thinks they are in a safe role is perhaps a little optimistic.
Plus many have just been put into a category of "too many bureaucrats"( although none will know if it is themselves)and are often being spotlighted for incompetence by the Nats.If I was in this position ,I would b e busy trying to prove my worth,which would be for the greater good of the public sector
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Turkeys don't vote for Chirstmas, but they don't run the farm either.
No, they don't. But you yourself admit that they get to vote for the people who do, and that means they're entitled to have a view about how the farm ought to be run and vote accordingly.
This isn't an issue of public service professionalism. Public servants quite properly keep their views on who ought to be the government to themselves, and do not let them affect their work. But they are entitled to hold those views, and to vote for them at the ballot box.
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I don't think national even get into the same ball park as labour's cuts to the public sector in the 80's. Both ends of the spectrum are guilty of shafting the public service, lets not forget that.
The difference being that Labour has publicly disavowed the actions of the Fourth Labour Government and did so a while ago. When the Nats disavow the 1990s and run on a platform of policies that don't look like a rerun of the failures of the past (market- related rents anyone?) then we might get a working opposition again.
Re: Turkeys' voting for Xmas. We all vote according to our "enlightened self-interest". I don't expect Public Servants to be any more or less beholden to that principle, no matter how naive it may sound.
Still, if Labour wants to go on the campaign trail pledging that not one job will be lost from the civil service on their watch
When have they done that? They are pledging to continue a certain level of social services. Those services require a bureaucracy to run them. National is pledging to decrease bureaucracy without cutting services. Which is more dishonest?
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<blockquote>Personally, I think some folks really need to make up their mind: Is National's problem that there's some horrible far-right secret agenda in the offing, or that it's just 'Labour lite' and not extremist enough? </blockquote>
On what basis should we do this though Craig? Unless they're forced into stating a position, National have given very few indications of their intentions beyond a handful of issues. The speculation, that they've got a far-right secret agenda, is only possible because of the vacuum. Perhaps Key assesses that this is, however, less of a risk than the alternative?
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Perhaps the public service ethos has eroded over time....
Perhaps the events of 1984-99 had something to do with that as well.
The point about managerialism in the public sector is a good one. The proliferation of managerial layers is what you get when you decree that the public sector's role is to be 'efficient' or provide 'value for money' (whatever those things actually mean). Measuring -- or pretending to measure -- these imponderables incurs heavy compliance costs, yes. This process started in the '90s and is by no means limited to the state sector.
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.
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I didn't think you'd be quite that disingenuous. Turkeys don't vote for Chirstmas, but they don't run the farm either. Still, if Labour wants to go on the campaign trail pledging that not one job will be lost from the civil service on their watch -- good luck.
I've been looking at the messages a bit, and it does look as if Labour's been targeting Key and National has been trying to soften public opinion around the public sector.
I know some public sector comms people were pissed off with Brownlee's "spin doctors" pitch (in a press release written by a spin doctor!), and the way the media picked up the phrase. (The same people were probably pissed about the Madeleine Setchell business too, to be fair.)
And National's using the undeniably pejorative "bureaucrats" as a synonym for "public servants" at every opportunity. Key used it more than a dozen times in one short radio interview. That's not gonna make a public servant feel loved.
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Plus many have just been put into a category of "too many bureaucrats"( although none will know if it is themselves)and are often being spotlighted for incompetence by the Nats.If I was in this position ,I would b e busy trying to prove my worth,which would be for the greater good of the public sector
You'd be one of the few. I think lack of job security and resulting stress is probably likely to decrease efficiency, and also reduce morale and increase rumblings and 'work to rule' type behaviour.
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.
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That's not gonna make a public servant feel loved.
Probably not, but as I said at considerable length on another thread I can think of at least one employee of the Inland Revenue Department who did sweet bugger all to make himself lovable. And honesty forces me to admit I'd receive news of his release into the private sector -- and replacement by someone who grasps that being a 'civil servant' requires... well, civility and some grasp of the concept of customer service -- wouldn't upset me at all.
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