Editorial: Equity with Cuts

Under Labour the public service grew like topsy to meet their agenda. Not only were lots of jobs created, but salaries were also high, especially for staff in the environment space.

Under National this carnival is over and that is their right in tough economic times to reduce costs. However, it seems that while there is an obsession by the coalition to put the blowtorch on the public service, there hasn’t been the slightest whisper about Parliament looking in the mirror and cutting its own costs.

For example, people are rightly questioning why there are so many list MPs who are also a burden on the taxpayers, and can someone please tell us what value they add to the economy?

Most are the obedient servants of their party – human voting machines – unaccountable really to no one in any electorate. They were not chosen by electors; they were arbitrarily selected by small committees from their own party. So, let’s have a restructure of Parliament and the electoral system and make some serious savings. Maybe pigs will fly over the Beehive first.

And when central government restructures local government, is there any chance they will have the internal fortitude to put an end to the excessively high salaries of local government officials who are a burden on ratepayers?

A recent advertisement in The Post newspaper has drawn gasps of disbelief in the capital about the money some senior staff are earning. How about central government setting a salary cap on local government salaries – why not?

Getting back to restructuring, wouldn’t it be better if job cuts were done by attrition or just cutting the physical salaries of all staff – like some organisations did during covid. People would still have jobs and pay tax and there would be no redundancy payments and loss of productivity during any restructure – and there would be real savings.

But in case you’ve forgotten, common sense has long been dead, buried and cremated.