National Party leader Christopher Luxon, Act leader David Seymour, and NZ First leader Winston Peters on their way to sign their coalition agreement. A letter writer says past National governments have sacked people, then ended up hiring many back as consultants at sometimes four times the cost. Photo / Mark Mitchell
OPINION
Previous National governments have reduced the public services to breaking point, just as they’re doing now.
As far as I can tell, there has been no assessment of the needs of the public services to determine what is needed.
It seems unwise to reduce the public services solely on ideological grounds and without real basis.
The cuts are also senseless because people who have developed good institutional knowledge will be sacked and again, some public services will become defunct.
Shane Reti has apparently stopped hiring to fill vacant positions in the health sector and kids are still being abused, but Oranga Tāmariki is being cut back.
We still need state houses, but several large subdivisions have been halted.
What will be the next expensive biosecurity threat without decent border control?
M. bovis, PSA, and painted apple moth all cost us a lot of money to resolve.
Under past National Party governments, they sacked people then ended up hiring many back as consultants at sometimes four times the cost.
The Nats can’t see that public servants have to be impartial and take the direction of the government of the day, so like to purge for the heck of it.
Contractors can, however, be hired — without the responsibility of giving impartial advice, as public servants do.
Sadly, Labour will again get the blame for poor services and then have to recruit, train and build public services up once again.
In addition, can you imagine the carnage in Wellington and around Aotearoa when thousands of jobs are suddenly disestablished, creating struggles for small businesses and in the housing market.
The money earned from working feeds businesses and other jobs, but when it’s taken away, everybody goes backwards.
If there truly is fat in the public service, our Government should find that specific fat rather than destroy lives and communities to give landlords tax cuts.
Mary-Ann de Kort
Gisborne
Source of the 'really unpleasant' noise has been identified, but a fix is some time away.