Chesterr Borrows: Getting most from our taxpayer dollar

In Wanganui, people are focused on productivity. Our local industry is largely built on primary production, the by-products of that primary production, or engineering industry associated with it. People in our electorate balance the costs of government versus productivity and the gains of trading on the world market.
We can't forget those who need the state, which is all of us, as we ramp up our exporting ability. Without exports, we'd be bankrupt. But if we were to lose the state sector, we'd be rudderless, uneducated, disease-ridden and in poverty.
Under the National Government, we have 300 more police officers, 1600 more teachers, 1000 more nurses, and more than 500 extra doctors, and the total number of full-time-equivalent positions in important frontline areas has increased by around 6 per cent. Yet we are constantly being berated by the Opposition for "gutting" the public sector. But the cost of growing the public sector was huge during Labour's term in government where administration grew by 50 per cent under Labour. Growth in the public service averaged 5 per cent or around 1800 people per year for nine years. New Zealand currently has 39 government departments, over 150 Crown entities and more than 200 other agencies.
It is very difficult to see how we can afford to continue to grow a public sector at the administrative end, rather than the end which does all the good work, while at the same time hearing a howl of opposition to growing the productive sector.
Everybody sees the need for more teachers, nurses and doctors and hopes for less of a need for police and corrections officers, judges, traffic wardens and dare I say it, politicians - and they are right. But we need less administrators, too, even accepting that there will always be a requirement for people to manage the numbers and paperwork, or we'll have all those valuable practitioners stuck in a back-room office filling in forms and applying for reimbursements. We have to get the balance right. The National Government has capped core government administration, excluding frontline services, at 38,859 full-time-equivalent positions. There are now 2000 fewer full-time positions. Under National, there are 17 per cent fewer communications and PR advisers in the public service.
When someone works with people's lives as a teacher, a police officer, or an accountant's clerk, we can't just wrap a weight band around their girth and decide on their value. They can't be herd tested to check productivity, or have their dry matter measured, but there is a certain limit that is reached where efficiency is challenged by the number of bums on seats in some areas.
Owning and running a business teaches you that margins are narrow and the best must be made of each dollar invested. Farmers and business people don't retain three accountants to check on each other and cover the posterior of the one in front, or keep multiple sets of books as a back-up.
The Government aims to put taxpayers' dollars where they are of most benefit, on the front line. More doctors and nurses mean more operations. More teachers means a better education, so a better-skilled workforce, leading to a healthier economy, environment and a brighter future.