Deborah Hill Cone: Capital city of compensation

Never mind being cool - bring back civil servants who just want a nice cardy and a modest pay package. Illustration / Anna Crichton

It is easy to see what is wrong with everyone but ourselves. That's why the apparatus of government in Washington DC, with its powerful lobby groups and snouts in troughs, seems so blatantly corrupt to us, while Wellington is just, well, a nice place to go for a symphony concert.

It may seem gratuitous to indulge in a spot of public-servant bashing - it's probably our nation's second-most popular sport - but I've started to think they need it. Cardigan-wearers and Gliding On tea trolleys have long gone but the jargon-eating spin monkeys that replaced them seem to be even more dysfunctional.

Weren't we assured golden handshakes were a thing of the past? Yet former Treasury Secretary John Whitehead received almost $1 million in pay for his final 11 months in the job, including a final pay cheque of almost $350,000 to cover "outstanding entitlements". We couldn't be told what they were by the State Services Commission "to preserve a modicum of privacy".

In the private sector, if a respected CEO left after many years' service, he would probably get a nice watch in recognition for his hard work, or some share options - not a third of a million dollars for some secret reason.

Do we still sign up bureaucrats on contracts like this? If so, why? Then there was that shameful case of Erin Leigh, a public servant who spent four years trying to clear her name after she questioned why the Environment Minister was appointing Labour insider Claire Curran to a supposedly non-partisan adviser role. The government has changed since then, but I doubt the political empire-building has.

No wonder there is growing resentment from private sector businesspeople, angry they are working twice as hard to keep their businesses going in tough economic times while the government does not do the same.

Economists say the lower-than-expected unemployment statistics reflect the fact that businesses are trying to keep staff on, in the hope that the economy picks up. If you are the owner of a business - a bogannaire, maybe - who has some sleepless nights worrying about how you are going to make sure you don't have to lay off staff, you might look at John Whitehead's payout and feel justifiably slutted.

There is something rotten in Wellington. The public service claims it has to pay high salaries to attract top talent, but then the talent works in a much cosier environment than the real world. Our bureaucracy is in denial. No wonder they have so much time to lose themselves in the fantasy of culture like opera and ballet.

The New York Times recently wrote a travel feature on Wellington. "We ended up at a place called Mighty Mighty, where the band was playing psychobilly rock. We perused the drinks menu, which was hidden in a vintage record sleeve, and observed the wildly decked-out patrons, some dressed in afro wigs and others in lederhosen.

"My wife and I looked at each other, and then at our impromptu guides, their point well and truly made: Wellington is cool." This could double as a handy emetic.

So from where does most of the money come to make Wellington so trendy? Some of it from Peter Jackson - and he did okay out of the taxpayer - but the rest of it came from us. Bring back the tea trolley and those boring public servants who actually were motivated by a public spirit of giving back to the community rather than wearing lederhosen in retro bars. The cardy-wearers might have been inefficient, but at least they weren't pretentious and greedy.

dhc@deborahhillcone.com

* Illustration by Anna Crichton. Email Anna: illustrator@annacrichton.com