“an artfully crafted mirage”
The massive rise in bureaucrats since 2017.
“On 30 June 2017, close to the end of the nine years of the Key-English Government, people employed in the public service numbered 47,252. Just three years later, by which time the total New Zealand labour force had increased by 6.7%, numbers in the public service had increased to 57,149, an increase of 20.9%, more than three times the increase in the total labour force.
And remember that this was not as a result of hiring more teachers, or nurses, or police officers – those people are not regarded as part of the core public service. This was the direct result of hiring lots more bureaucrats.
Many departments well exceeded that 20.9% average increase – such as
All this might be excused if the Government was really delivering – less child poverty, more affordable housing, a vaccination programme up with the best of other developed countries, reduced congestion in Auckland, less violent crime. But on all those measures and more, there has been absolutely no progress, and indeed on many measures of well-being the country has gone backwards over the last three and a half years.”
Data about just how many spin doctors the Ardern gov’t employs:
From the moment she took office in 2017, Jacinda Ardern promised her government would be the most open and transparent New Zealand has seen.
In her first formal speech to Parliament she pledged: “This government will foster a more open and democratic society. It will strengthen transparency around official information.”
Since then the numbers of faceless communications specialists have skyrocketed. The Government’s iron grip on the control of information has tightened.
Since the current Government took office, the numbers of communications specialists have ballooned. Each minister has at least two press secretaries. (Ardern has four).
In the year Labour took office, the Ministry for the Environment had 10 PR staff. They now have 18. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade more than doubled their staff – up to 25.
MBIE blew out from 48 staff to 64. None of those five dozen specialists could give me those figures for many weeks – and again I was forced to ask the Ombudsman to intervene.
The super ministry – and its colleagues uptown at the Health Ministry – are notorious for stymieing even the simplest requests. Health’s information gatekeepers are so allergic to journalists they refuse to take phone calls, responding only (and sporadically) to emails.
But it is the New Zealand Transport Agency that takes the cake: employing a staggering 72 staff to keep its message, if not its road-building, on track – up from 26 over five years.
At every level, the Government manipulates the flow of information. It has not delivered on promises to fix the broken, and politically influenced OIA system.
Dr Brash made the statement which it is almost impossible to disagree with:
“It’s hard to disagree with those who say that this is a grossly incompetent Government, piling on public servants and new spending programmes without levelling with the electorate about the taxes that will eventually have to be raised to pay for them.”
‘At every level, the Government is manipulating the flow of information. It has not delivered on promises to fix the broken, and politically influenced OIA system.’
I find it hard to understand why people are surprised by this government breaking its promises or failing to deliver after four years of examples. It is my opinion that this Government is both incompetent and has a hidden agenda which is slowly being exposed.
Most people are too busy trying to make a living to be too concerned about the day to day activities of the Government, until those activities and decisions personally affect them, and they then take notice and complain.
It’s interesting to me that the media has complained about unanswered OIAs and obstructive Civil Servants and Politicians, yet the media have in my opinion been supporting this Government since day one and I believe that they only have themselves to blame for this current situation.
Whilst I agree with the basis of their complaints, I personally think it is a bit rich that after spending so long promoting this government and its policies, they are now complaining about being prevented from carrying out one of their core functions (questioning government decision making) by this inability to gain public information from government officials.
If you had asked me a couple of days ago if I would support these views of the media, I would have said probably not. But in this issue I have to agree with their complaints almost in their entirety as I firmly believe that this government has been very disingenuous in the information that it has released to the NZ public in general.
Whilst I support the complaint that this government is being very economical with the information it is prepared to release to the public and media, I think it is way past time that the media in general performed as the general public expect them to.
That is to question the government decision making in an unbiased and neutral manner and report the facts in the same manner to allow the public to make an informed decision on the performance of this government. Unlike the current situation, the media should in no way be seen to be, or used as a support mechanism for government in any shape or form.