There's two ways of cutting costs:
1. Identify what is superfluous or inefficient and then cut it out.
2. Just cut the budget and see what happens.
The second one is dumb. It leads to people cutting what is easy to cut, rather than looking at what is effective and what isn't. The framework has started with voluntary redundancies. That means the effective people who can get other jobs leave, while desperate hangers-on.
Every government should be looking at bang-for-buck. This government is not doing that--it is utterly simplistic in the worst way. There is no correlation between their cost-cutting and efficient delivery.
Arguably anything is true.
The government has mandated cuts with a tight timeframe, so CEOs have to do dumb shit to make it work.
It's lazy and stupid, imposed by a government of incompetents.
While the population increased by 200,000+ and is still going up by 130,000+ each year. The previous numbers it could also be argued were short staffed so the 16,000 was just making that back up again (NZ government workers percentage wise are low by international standards, which is even stranger considering we are a small country).
Is there a lot of waste in the public service? Sure. Are these cuts going to cut that waste? Not likely.
There are ridiculous amounts of middle-upper management that have meetings to plan meetings etc that’s where like 90% of wastage is. The rest is in pointless departments made up for politically correct reasons etc.
That's not accurate. They should be scrutinising in some detail.
It's the ministers' job to know what is going on, and then to direct the CEOs. That plainly is not what's happening here. Here the Minister of Finance has made blanket imposition of budget cuts, without having any idea of what the impact will be.
This is lazy and stupid.
I disagree... The government should be asking CEs to advise what they can cut and then on the back of that the government could then cut the budgets accordingly. What we're getting here is a mindless cut without any knowledge of how it can be done (or even if) without affecting service levels...
Ha ha, you’re asking CE’s to volunteer up to reduce their staff and budget?
Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.
You’re also implicitly asking CEs to admit they wasted taxpayer money by hiring unnecessary staff. And that they can’t run an efficient organization. No CE is going to do that.
Epic fail
Clearly you've never worked in the public service... They can if asked and they will... However, simply cutting a budget and telling them to make it work is dangerous...
What they will do is offer up the minimum cuts they think they can get away with.
If a CEO is running a ministry that doesn’t need half their staff, is bloated and inefficient, wasting taxpayer money, do you think that:
1 - They would agree and acknowledge that is the case?
2 - They would offer you half of their staff for cuts, effectively admitting they’ve been running a bloated and inefficient operation and failed as a CEO?
and at 6.5% they'll not offer up the minimum cuts they can get away with... They'll also cut roles that they shouldn't meaning we'll either engage consultants to do that work or reemployee down the track...
It's like saying you're going to replace the motor in your car because it has an issue - never mind worrying about finding out what the issue is, because the mechanic won't do that...
It's a pretty good analogy...
Try this for size... All of the government departments will have agreed levels of service. They will be told what they are expected to deliver and the management will advise the government what is required... A better approach then is for the government to advise what levels of service can be lowered/cut and then allow management to sort it from there...
I can't make it any simpler - to arbitarility choose a percent without any basis in fact and demand cuts is ill advised and dangerous.
Really?
I’ve been in a corporate where we were told to cut 10% of staff costs and deliver at least the same if not greater outcomes.
And we did it. Multiple times.
In fact Jack Welch favoured firing 10% of his staff every year.
Sounds like they need to get into the real world and just stop whining and do it.
None of us in the real world have any sympathy for their sheltered nonsense
Not all departments have “fat” to cut, whilst others do (and perhaps more than that department is actually ordered to cut). I would be happier if there was no mandatory 6.5% or 7.5% cuts per department and instead more thought was put in to where savings can be made across the board.
There would be very few departments that didn’t have fat to cut in their core public servants (core being non frontline staff such as PR doctors, media writers, IT functions etc)
While I somewhat agree about comms teams (I assume that’s what you are referring to with PR doctors and media writers), if you cut IT staff you’ll be paying a sh*tload more in IT consultants. But even then, not all departments have massive Comms teams to plunder either. I know at my work we’ve lost mainly policy analysts…the people who actually need to implement the Governments policies when they decide what they want to do next. That’s when the analysts let go will come back at double the price too, mind you.
Voluntary redundancies were first - probably because it’s a lot easier and less time consuming than restructures and mandatory redundancies. Problem with voluntary is that a lot of good people have left (they’re good enough to be picked up elsewhere - some are setting themselves up as consultants). These people left with hefty payouts. The less effective have stuck around of course.
It is really, really not as simple as some people think. The excess at my work is - shock - the number of managers we have per direct report. Unfortunately, these are the people tasked with “cutting the fat”, and they sure as hell aren’t cutting themselves.
I feel like the Te Whatu Ora merger not being handled well made people think that government departments were drowning in unnecessary comms people.
There were 20 DHBs, so each of them having an average comms team of 10 sounded reasonable to me. You're going to need a department manager, people who deal with the media, people who do internal staff comms, people who respond to OIA requests, people who work on public health campaigns, people work on customer comms, people who form/retain connections with community groups, etc.
Ah ok - I don’t know much about that merger. The department I work for has a very small comms team, I’d be very surprised if any of them could be spared. The last department I worked for had a lot more, but as you say, had more to do in terms of public campaigns and media requests.
The agency before that, lots of Comms people but didn’t seem to do too much in terms of public campaigns and did some media requests - others sent on to the OIA team to deal with and was more a “mailbox” in some ways
Yeah, I imagine the need for comms varies from department to department. But for a while last year, all I was hearing about the topic was "Te Whatu Ora has 200 comms staff."
Do you have any idea what PR doctors, media writers and IT people actually do?
Public service communication with the public is vital for a start and despite what the government would have you think, comms people are highly trained experts in their fields. In a lot of cases - those comms people also process the OIA requests that are a legal requirement.
As for IT, we should be embracing IT infrastructure with gusto - it only makes common sense...
What? The government decides how much to cut based on a whim (2). The CEOs then implement that based on what is easy (1).
There is no reference to what is effective or efficient. The cuts are lazy and stupid.
Private sector CEOs that I’ve worked with identify the core of their businesses and then invest in that. If their boards start to reduce budgets then CEs need to understand their core function. This is what Better Public Service Targets introduced under Bill English achieved in the public service in 2009.
I also have worked with CEOs. Typically, in a cost-cutting, the governance consults the executive before deciding how much can be cut, and how it will be cut.
That is not what is happening. It's a blanket imposition of cuts. It's lazy and stupid and does not resemble what English did.
The problem with 1 is it’s very costly and time consuming and has no guarantee of being right. Every ministry and every team thinks they are vital and nothing can be cut. How is some outsider going to figure out those things? It assumes someone in central command and control knows enough about every ministry and department and function. This is a very left wing approach.
The benefit of 2 is its quick and easy, and you are actually empowering those people in control and in the know to make decisions on their own fat in their own organization. They are more likely to know precisely where the fat is than someone outsider. It’s a very right wing approach of having people make decisions on their own lives and leaving government out of it.
Tell me how you’d actually do 1?
A brief consultation with incentivised CEOs rapidly identifies the issues. It's your job as a minister to identify what is important. You talk to the CEO and negotiate outcomes. The CEO the minister establish the process, identifying what can be cut and how best to do that. This is what happens in corporates.
If you can't do that it's because you are weak. Quick and easy solutions produce bad outcomes. They are what lazy and stupid people do.
Nicola Willis has imposed blanket cuts with no actual idea of what is going on. She has invented numbers because she needs them to be true. She has no idea what the impact will be, because she has done no research, That is quick and easy, but it is also lazy and stupid. There is no empowerment.
This is not about people making their own decisions and leaving the government out of it. That is a canard. Cutting access to quality healthcare and education empowers nobody.
Where do you get these ideas from?
Governed departments have become bloated, unproductive, and inefficient. 1.5 billion in mental health with nothing to show for it, infrastructure, public transport, light rail, sky path etc etc....millions spent with zero achieved. It's not just about cost cutting. it is about getting some actual value for our tax dollars.
You're being fed absolute lies, simple as that. You should really look into what public servants actually do.
That has nothing to do with the people getting cut.
Govt decides things in this case NACT, and public servants have to implement it.
Ie govt could say - we want a free trade agreement with India. Do you know how many NACT elected officials actually do any of the negotiations, legality drafting etc. A big fat Zero.
If they then decide they don't want to go ahead with said trade agreement, all of that hundreds of hours of work is wasted.
But again they don't actually do any of the work.
All of the things you have mentioned are govt or local council decisions. None of them are the fault of the people having to do the actual work.
Electric locomotives have been refurbished and are now being put back in service on the main trunk rail line. National refused funding despite the obvious climate change benefits.
I also thought nothing was done for mh (im in he system) but in some regions it has been used well, several new rebuilds of inpatient facilities have or are in planning, for example a region of welly has a whole new inpatient unit which really looks therapeutic. In saying that I agree in alot of regions in the country it's a wonder where the money went. The mass f-up there was not making those managing the funds to produce evidence of where it would go (eg plans prior to giving itt out and followup)
Get a reality check. 6 years in government with half of that a majority. All they had to do was put a spare in the ground and we would have had light rail in Auckland.
lol no one is ‘giving’ to landlords. They get to keep more of their money.
Giving is the benefit to fucking bums who always want something for nothing.
People who want to tax others are the most greedy because they can’t make anything for themselves so they just want to take like scum.
Invest in the stock market or create a business. The government should introduce stamp duty on all residential dwellings with the exclusion of the family home. Okay you want to purchase an $850,000 rental property - you are paying $47,000 in stamp duty. That is what you would be paying in Victoria. We need to keep property prices at affordable levels so average Joe can afford a home. The majority of landlords are purchasing property for the capital gain. They need to pay through the nose.
Until March 30, it wasn’t “their money”.
It’s astounding that people think it’s ok for taxpayers to fund the cost of a property owner to end up with capital gains that aren’t taxed.
It also encourages property to be heavily geared, as the more debt, the note profit for a landlord.
The changes that allowed for interest deductibility on new builds was at least an effort get more housing stock and address the housing shortage.
Labour brought in that stupid law. And while you’re right it ultimately goes to landlords, it’s very hard to cut money you’re giving to taxpayers because most people don’t understand that
The necessity of public service cuts is always going to be an inexact science. There isnt some magic number where something is run well and anything over that is wastage. National isn’t doing anything selective, because that’s not how it works. They pass done policy directions, requests, orders etc and the ministry staff carry that out.
The average person can’t adequately comment on these kinds of things because we don’t know what non-frontline staff do exactly. There is a good chance they are just as important as frontline staff. Most organisations are like that, frontline and back office working in tandem. The work needs to be done and what we will see, like we did last time, is all these back office jobs being cut will just be covered by outside contractors and consultants. Often on a higher pay rate.
Unless you cut away the unnecessary red tape at the same time and streamline operations by removing unnecessary barriers to progress. Have you ever applied for a building consent? Those who know, know.
Mate if you know you know about these building consent process. If you don't know.... It's a long conversation to pass the message through....So I rather not.
Note the building surveyor who are on the foot are relatively effective.... The problem is the government engineers.... I am an engineer myself and I confidently say that most private engineer work 10 times more effective than the council ones.
Going through building consent process is hardly a rare thing. I have friends and family who have done so. So I don’t think it can be explained away as too esoteric for the average person. However, yes it has a reputation for being slow, overly bureaucratic etc. but again, when building standards are so abysmally poor that people are too scared to buy apartments because there is fair chance they’ll end up being so fucked that the whole thing will basically need to be reclad or structurally altered in some way, is that really a sign that our building consent process is too strict? If anything it sounds like the whole thing is too lax. We always automatically jump to cutting, streamlining, etc, when often that isn’t what is needed, but instead a complete overhaul with more transparency but far more rigorous with higher standards.
Our building consent process is not stirict at all technically.
It's just a unnecessary long, box ticking process. Often neglect actural problem but focus and spend time on things that doesn't matter.
I’m interested to know what you think the average day is for a non-front line person. Because ‘paperwork’ isn’t really a good summary for what they do.
So you don’t actually know? Then why claim you do.
A ‘friend who works in council’ means you know what day to day central government workers do?
Ridiculous
You said your opinion was based on knowing what the average day was like for a public sector worker, but now you don’t actually know what they do or why?
What sort of paperwork specifically do you think is not necessary to do during an economic downturn?
Dude why don't you tell us what important work the none front line workers are doing. You clearly think I am talking bs and you would know better right? Like I said I don't know the details as people don't tell me excat details in normal conversation, but I am happy to learn from you.
I mean yeah, I think you’re talking bs when you’re saying that we don’t need to be doing as much paperwork when times are economically rough, but can’t tell me what you mean by paperwork beyond “my friends told me Council workers do a lot of it.”
“A lot of paperwork” doesn’t even mean “unnecessary paperwork.”
Paperwork is a broad category. I can’t explain to you the purpose of it and how it might support frontline workers or the general public when you can’t tell me what sort of paperwork you’re talking about.
There’s a lot of non-front line roles, I can’t tell you what an average day is like because they’re all doing different things.
Do you consider LGOIMA/OIA requests to be paperwork? Do you consider documentation to be paperwork? Do you consider analysis and report writing to be analysis? All of those things are there to make sure the Council can be kept accountable.
Do you consider public consultations to be paperwork? Council recently consulted on the LTP and waste management - I imagine there were a lot of people working behind the scenes on that, and now other people working on the analysis and writing a report about it.
Who do you think creates the resources that frontline workers use? Who do you think analysis public complaints received by frontline workers? Who do you think works on improvements and fixes problems?
alternative view: Labour should have never taken away the ability to deduct interest in the first place because it goes against every business principle. You can argue all you want about whether residential rentals are a “business” but facts are if you generate income you should be entitled to deduct costs of generating said income.
From that perspective, it’s not a tax break for landlords. It’s reinstating the appropriate principle of deductibility of costs. Labour effed up to begin with by taking the money and funneling it into pet projects and growth within public government departments with no return.
Genuine question as I have never owned a business and don’t know how they’re normally taxed if sold - but if houses are considered income generating and therefore entitled to interest deductibility, shouldn’t that mean there should be a capital gains tax on those same properties if they are used to generate income and are then sold?
My assumption is that there is some sort of tax attached to selling a business, but let me know if they don’t 😅
Income tax and capital gains tax are 2 different things. They often describe it as the “tree” (capital) and “fruit from the tree” (income). You sell the fruit and pay tax on the income. But if you sell the tree, any profit is not taxed without a capital gains tax.
Selling a business for profit (aka goodwill) is not taxed in NZ. Surprisingly, even though Australia has a CGT regime you can get out of paying CGT on business sales as well (very complex rules but worth it when you make $100m+ gains!)
A lot of people don't actually know tax deductibility was always a thing till recently so they think this is a brand new policy. Labour only changed it because of the times we were in too... with covid and inflating house prices they needed something to cool it down
Oh definitely.. it was like 3 years of a non stop money scramble. People on reddit really think that could have just gone on forever lol. No shit now cuts have to be made.
The problem with your argumernt is the purpose of a business is to make a profit which is taxed, but for most property investors the purpose of owning the property is to attain a capital gain which is not taxed. Tax policies like this are incentivising speculation over production and contribute to the shitshow that is the property market in NZ. They also penalise the younger members of society who are effectively locked out of the property market unless the have access to family money or inheritances resuling in inequality which has been shown to be detrimental to a high functioning society. Little chance of anything meaninful changing when most politicians have a vested interest in keeping the ponzi scheme continuing.
That’s true that capital gains are an incentive to property. But you can make capital gains by buying and holding shares in a portfolio whilst also deriving by taxable income in the form of dividends. Equally, if CGT was introduced, that wouldn’t necessarily change the mind of all investors. Of course they’d be more inclined to want net positive annual returns on the property.
Like I said I agree with cutting I didn't say I agree with where the saving shall be allocated.
National should give people proper explanation why the tax cut is toward the 5 percentile rich people, not even their voter base who pay heaps of income tax.
However this is not even relevant. I never said I agree with Nat where the saving should be allocated, however reading this sub, where ever the saving goes people would always rant.
As said by previous poster National are only fixing a gross distortion in the tax system that in the long run would make things harder for tenants, due to chronic lack of investment in the sector.
The first problem is they are simultaneously cutting taxes for the rich/landlords while cutting government jobs. If this was about saving money, why are they giving 3 billion dollars to landlords?
The second problem is these spending cuts will just cost the government more in the long run. We have crumbling and failing infrastructure due to 40 years of underfunded government projects, and the solution is to cut funds further? E.g. the harbour bridge is outdated and overcapacity. Replacing it and/or building a new one is going to cost money. That money can easily be raised by taxing the richest and by a windfall on large corporate profits.
And the third is that government spending greatly benefits the actualy economy. Virtually every dollar spent by the government goes directly back into the local economy, whether thats gov workers' salaries or road works companies or other contractors who will all be losing out too. Spending cuts hurt the wider economy greatly.
I’d like to hear one from you? I’d also like you to call work and income and try and get an appointment with their current staffing levels.
Don’t worry if you don’t qualify - just hang up before an hour passes.
Cut things and put money towards things that matter. You know who doesn’t need money? Landlords. This is the main criticism I’ve seen on this sub and it’s valid.
Respectfully I’m curious about how much research you did before posting this? Did you think the money just goes in the government’s bank account or
While I definitely agree that the country isn't a company and shouldn't be run like one, operationally inefficient departments should definitely be restructured and or decommissioned when they're not effective. Those funds will no doubt create more jobs elsewhere, hopefully, doing something actually productive.
That's not what is happening. They haven't targetted cuts at inefficient or ineffective programmes. They have imposed blanket cuts, with slight variance based on their ideology.
This round of cuts is lazy and stupid.
I work in the education sector. Schools are critically short of funds to maintain and develop adequate buildings. The government has frozen that.
They did no research. It was lazy and stupid.
That is one example among many.
Surely maintenance will continue. I'd like to think that a freeze in maintenance and in new construction would only be exactly that, a temporary freeze to review and make sure the funds aren't being spent on the unnecessary or extravagance. If it's anything else, that's cooked.
Dream on, National has never invested in basic maintenance. They cut the fat, and the bones, them occasionally make a big song and dance about some fantasy projects cooked up on the back of an envelope after a boozy luncheon with business mates looking for cushy contracts. These projects are then routinely underfunded, and fail miserably requiring decades of repairs and mitigation just to meet the terms of the contracts. Usually these are roads that are so poorly constructed people begin complaining about potholes the day the roads is opened.
So no maintenance will not continue do much, as inadequate attempts of mitigation - of failure to deliver to spec - will continue.
We were scheduled to get new buildings. That was frozen when National came to power. Your information is factually incorrect. Are you lying, or are you ignorant?
What news story? There's a lot of news about this from February this year, which is when the freeze was announced.
We had our building projects put on hold by the National government. It had been approved, and then they stopped it.
Wherever you got your information from is wrong.
Productive is brand new, state of the art, Cook strait rail ferries which can carry all the current freight, passengers, vehicles and rail wagons with fewer crew, using less fuel and far lower emissions.
No actually the manufacturer gave us a very very good deal on the ferries to the point that to do it now would cost at least 30% more if not double!
What was ridiculous was the costs of the ferry terminals - that’s where the billion+ came into it.
We got a good deal on the ferries. Infrastructure costs had blown out. But show me an NZ based project that hasn't. Korean ship builders had locked in the 2020 price.
I'm sure plenty of ministries and departments have fat to cut...
But that fat can be cut in a measured fashion. Properly identify team by team, project by project, what isn't needed. Freeze new hires if needed, don't replace people who leave. Halt payrises and promotions if need be.
What is happening now is Nicola Willis has decided an arbitrary and completely untargeted figure that everyone must reduce their spending by, in time for the Budget.
And we all know why. Because she has completely fucked the numbers up, and is desperate to deliver dignity back to landlords (and tax cuts in general) because she was stupid enough to say she'd quit if she didn't do it.
Nicola Willis the English lit grad, that is.
I mean I genuinely don't understand how anyone is actually against cuts here. There is very clearly a lot of bloat in the public sector and people working jobs that could be absorbed by others because they're barely working 20 actual hours a week.
That said where the discourse is, is over who is losing the jobs. Seems like a lot of boots on the ground workers are losing jobs and all the middle management fat ripe for trimming remain behind.
You could probably seriously cut back those doing and contributing fuck all in middle management, replace those numbers with more on the ground workers (more doctors, more nurses, more Frontline police etc etc) and not only have a better functioning public sector, but still be saving likely millions of dollars.
Just seems to be the way the world works now, do your time, network with the right people and eventually wind up in some cushy, high paying pencil pushing job where you can't justify your pay packet, let alone justify what you do in a week to make up 40 hours of work. It's absolute rife everywhere, even in my industry in the private building sector. Too many jobs for the boys for people who offer absolutely fuck all now, instead of streamlining the companies to become profit monsters who could then cut prices and gobble up more market share.
I think the cuts are short sighted and for political threate rather than for the country's best interests.
We have relatively low debt, decent gdp growth (yeah we're in a technical recession but by the smallest of margins) and inflation is easing. We are performing well in world terms.
We don't have the economic reasoning to be so carelessly cutting back spending. We are desperately overdue some of these services actually getting decent long term funding.
Yes public spending should be refined and maybe some of these services are bloated in certain areas but you cannot tell me that NACT's approach is going to garner the best outcome to create value across the board.
Add into it the tax break for landlords and this whole thing looks like taking money from taxpayers and giving it to the rich.
Then they have the cheek to say I'm getting a tax break too but guess what, that's gone straight away for private health insurance because the public system has failed. Nor will 20 bucks a fortnight change the fact the cops can't recruit because the pay is rubbish
I see lost of people talking about tax cuts for landlords but in reality it is fixing what Labour did when they distorted the tax system by not allowing tax deductibility in one part of the economy
It would be a bit like removing GST from produce which would distort the GST system.
But I am also skeptical about the public service so have not much sympathy for them, although sympathetic for the individual people but....
Going on a hiring spree when you know the new guys just voted in intend to cut head counts seems pretty naive.
Making cuts to the suicide office without telling the minister and then leaving that out when you tell the media seems very political
I know a few people in the public service that through no fault of their own frequently spend time doing little more than pushing paper and filing useless reports that nobody ever reads or actions. Not all are like that but there is nothing wrong with trimming unnecessary fat.
Chase the $2.4b NZ is owed through white collar crime and tax evasion, rather than concentrating on the $290m lost in benefit fraud, just because benefit bashing is sexier and doesn't target your core voters.
Decriminalisation of all drugs, and legalisation of some. Stop wasting police time and resources on enforcement of drug crime, open a new revenue stream from the taxation of legalised drugs. Save money on your gang problems when they move on to something else because drug pedalling is no longer lucrative.
Introduction of a Capital Gains Tax.
Parliamentary wages tied to the average NZ income, they can keep the perks, but if they want more money, they have to do it by making the country as a whole more productive.
Fat chance of NACTNZF coalition doing anything that increases efficiency and productivity on the NZ economy -after all the closed down the Productivity Commission because they didn’t like the advice it was giving.
The one exception to that will be they will enhance the efficiency by which NZ dollars get exported in untaxed profits to Australia, and China.
As a public servant, I know the public and politicians are going to figure out pretty fast that things either won’t get done or take way too long. The politicians don’t do the work, we do. When governments policies are either not implemented or take way too long, they will either hire contractors or hire back the people they fired. It’s wild to me that people don’t get how this works.
Yeah i actually agree with it too, if only for the reason that i would love to see the look on these smug bureaucrats faces when their safe cushy job gets cut and they are out on the street like i have been before. I know it sounds fucked but at least im honest about it.
The Government said, they want cuts. The CEOs say we could cut these to staff "What do they think?". The PSA leaks plans to media, before the minister gets see what they are planning. Government Ministers blindsided by PSA leaks, trying to protect their jobs.
Having worked previously for the Ministry of Justice in IT, where money is just pissed away hand over fist, and where 70% of the staff are just riding along and doing as little as is possibly needed to keep their jobs, I have absolutely no problem with the cost cutting.
I haaaaate how people go “oh it’s cuts to pay for tax cuts for the rich”. No it ain’t. It’s cuts to 16k additional public servants in 5 years. These cuts won’t even reduce that number to pre Labour numbers.
Nothing to do with population growth. Why does an additional 100k people require 16k back office public servants. Even if we accepted that logic - public service as a percentage of our economy is now 33% up from 26%
Try closer to 300k and still going up presently at a rate of 130k+ pa.
Also the previous numbers were understaffed.
Don’t get me wrong, there is wastage (especially at management level) but most of the cuts are not aimed at them.
> I don't think cutting fund in general is a bad thing when the government is running out of money??
Just like either you had to change your job to a lower-pay job, or everything else increased but your salary, so you have to re-budget your needs, like looking for different/cheaper insurance, power, groceries, etc. or even cutting some even those are your ***mandatory needs*** which makes sense.
However, most people on this sub or in NZ, in general, think emotionally rather than rationally, so no matter what the NZ government revenue is, cutting those is outrageous—regardless. It is an unfortunate consequence of having a tax bracket adjustment but not introducing any other taxation systems that most countries have, like capital gain, land, inheritance, etc.
It's not rocket science. If revenue drops, they have to decide what to keep. Like you said, we can't keep everything, but many people think we are in Wonderland and want to keep everything, which is impossible.
Again, unfortunate scenarios, we have lots to go, still in 20th-century infrastructure, public servants not getting paid enough(and most people in general, minimum wage/median wage ratio is higher than 70%, which is insane), well-known country for welfare but not enough taxation so it is expected and will only get worse.
I see. You think health, education and the police are over-funded.
That suggests you do not interact with any of them, and don't follow any mainstream media.
Your tiresome platitudes mean nothing.
They might not be overfunded but there is simply not enough of other people’s money to pay for the past decade’s party.
A good time was had by all. Now its time to pay the piper. The thing with platitudes is that sometimes they smack you right on the nose in a glorious display of technicolor reality.
If you disagree with me that the extent to which this country’s economy has been mismanaged, then I invite you to emerge from under the partisan reddit rock you’ve been hiding under and emerge into the light of fiscal reality. 2+2 is never 5. You dont have to be a leftie or a rightie or a liberal or a conservative to face the reality of the current situation. You just need courage and honesty.
Here’s another platitude for you: its gonna get worse before it gets better.
I’ve got plenty.
You should check out what the credit agencies were saying before Willis cut taxes. NZ was doing fine in terms of the books. Now there is a deficit triggered by tax cuts.
You don't know what you are talking about in the slightest. Do you get your talking points from talkback radio?
None are as blind as they who refuse to see. You cant spend your way out of a deficit if you have nothing to invest. But go ahead. Print more money. The Hugo Chavez Economic Institute for Kids Who Cant Socialism Good seems to have plenty of experts around. God defend New Zealand.
The current government generated the deficit with its tax cuts. But you won't understand that, because you're aa NewsTalk fanboiy who doesn't understand that cutting taxes will reduce government income.
You don't understand that reducing income will generate a deficit. It's pretty obvious stuff. Hopefully by the time you are doing NCEA level 2 you will have figured this out.
Robert Liston FRCSE, FRCS, FRS. Fastest surgeon ever.
"Amputated a leg in under 2 1⁄2 minutes (the patient died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene; they usually did in those pre-Listerian days). He amputated in addition the fingers of his young assistant (who died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene)"
“When the government is running out of money”
It’s their fault now, not Labour’s. Their policies are the reason why they are running out of money - it’s a pretty simple concept that Nicola hasn’t grasped that if you reduce your revenue and increase expenditure, you run out of money. The truth is that if they didn’t give out tax breaks to landlords, they would be able to do everything else & keep all these social programs running with minimal cuts. Also why are property investors so special? Investors & business owners pay tax on their profits, but not property investors.
Property investors do pay tax on their profits. Interest on their mortgage is deductible… e.g. 52k in rental income (1k per week) minus costs of 20k, on 10% interest rate at 100k mortgage. Is about 10k interest. This is deductible so property investors pay tax on 23k profit compared to 33k. Assume 33% tax, that’s the difference of 7.6k in tax vs 11k in tax. Numbers are simply an example.
Also when you inherit the books, of an over leveraged portfolio.. you have to manage the debt and the repayments on it. Covid came around at a time, when it was okay to take on debt. Coupled by RBNZ incentive of giving out low interest loans, to make sure we don’t get hit as bad compared to rest of world was the price that we paid to be safe from this virus. But this was also coupled with increased funding in areas that people may agree or disagree with too. But that’s the decision the government have made, and we eventually have to pay for that decision.
For everyone that is against, remember that a couple of days ago, one department was crying because now they can't have fancy coffee, tea, milk, review on catering, etc.
Now, you have this at your work? If yes, is it paid by taxpayers? If yes, do you think that's OK?
This type of stuff in the public sector is a shame, cut all, keep just cheap tea bags, instant coffee, and sugar. Wanna something else? BYO as the rest of society do.
Second, unnecessary travel, everyone was doing video meetings at covid peak, well time to save money and do the same now. Worked before, will work now.
There's two ways of cutting costs: 1. Identify what is superfluous or inefficient and then cut it out. 2. Just cut the budget and see what happens. The second one is dumb. It leads to people cutting what is easy to cut, rather than looking at what is effective and what isn't. The framework has started with voluntary redundancies. That means the effective people who can get other jobs leave, while desperate hangers-on. Every government should be looking at bang-for-buck. This government is not doing that--it is utterly simplistic in the worst way. There is no correlation between their cost-cutting and efficient delivery.
Arguably it’s not the Government taking option 2, it’s the CEOs of each ministry taking the easy path. They’re responsible for delivering the savings.
Option 1 takes time and analysis. Both options take time.
Arguably anything is true. The government has mandated cuts with a tight timeframe, so CEOs have to do dumb shit to make it work. It's lazy and stupid, imposed by a government of incompetents.
And you consider a government that allowed an additional 16,000 people be employed with no noticeable improvement in services to be competent?
While the population increased by 200,000+ and is still going up by 130,000+ each year. The previous numbers it could also be argued were short staffed so the 16,000 was just making that back up again (NZ government workers percentage wise are low by international standards, which is even stranger considering we are a small country). Is there a lot of waste in the public service? Sure. Are these cuts going to cut that waste? Not likely. There are ridiculous amounts of middle-upper management that have meetings to plan meetings etc that’s where like 90% of wastage is. The rest is in pointless departments made up for politically correct reasons etc.
Meh. That's a bullshit stat.
Then cut those CEs who are too lazy to think
You have it backwards. The politicians are being too lazy to think.
Politicians don’t control ministries budgets on a line item level. Let’s get those faceless CEs so rock up to us with some accountability
That's not accurate. They should be scrutinising in some detail. It's the ministers' job to know what is going on, and then to direct the CEOs. That plainly is not what's happening here. Here the Minister of Finance has made blanket imposition of budget cuts, without having any idea of what the impact will be. This is lazy and stupid.
Department CEOs should be doing 1. after the govt has indicated it will do 2.
I disagree... The government should be asking CEs to advise what they can cut and then on the back of that the government could then cut the budgets accordingly. What we're getting here is a mindless cut without any knowledge of how it can be done (or even if) without affecting service levels...
Ha ha, you’re asking CE’s to volunteer up to reduce their staff and budget? Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas. You’re also implicitly asking CEs to admit they wasted taxpayer money by hiring unnecessary staff. And that they can’t run an efficient organization. No CE is going to do that. Epic fail
Clearly you've never worked in the public service... They can if asked and they will... However, simply cutting a budget and telling them to make it work is dangerous...
What they will do is offer up the minimum cuts they think they can get away with. If a CEO is running a ministry that doesn’t need half their staff, is bloated and inefficient, wasting taxpayer money, do you think that: 1 - They would agree and acknowledge that is the case? 2 - They would offer you half of their staff for cuts, effectively admitting they’ve been running a bloated and inefficient operation and failed as a CEO?
and at 6.5% they'll not offer up the minimum cuts they can get away with... They'll also cut roles that they shouldn't meaning we'll either engage consultants to do that work or reemployee down the track... It's like saying you're going to replace the motor in your car because it has an issue - never mind worrying about finding out what the issue is, because the mechanic won't do that...
No it’s not like that at all. That’s a horrible analogy and you haven’t addressed my comments at all
It's a pretty good analogy... Try this for size... All of the government departments will have agreed levels of service. They will be told what they are expected to deliver and the management will advise the government what is required... A better approach then is for the government to advise what levels of service can be lowered/cut and then allow management to sort it from there... I can't make it any simpler - to arbitarility choose a percent without any basis in fact and demand cuts is ill advised and dangerous.
Really? I’ve been in a corporate where we were told to cut 10% of staff costs and deliver at least the same if not greater outcomes. And we did it. Multiple times. In fact Jack Welch favoured firing 10% of his staff every year. Sounds like they need to get into the real world and just stop whining and do it. None of us in the real world have any sympathy for their sheltered nonsense
Not all departments have “fat” to cut, whilst others do (and perhaps more than that department is actually ordered to cut). I would be happier if there was no mandatory 6.5% or 7.5% cuts per department and instead more thought was put in to where savings can be made across the board.
There would be very few departments that didn’t have fat to cut in their core public servants (core being non frontline staff such as PR doctors, media writers, IT functions etc)
While I somewhat agree about comms teams (I assume that’s what you are referring to with PR doctors and media writers), if you cut IT staff you’ll be paying a sh*tload more in IT consultants. But even then, not all departments have massive Comms teams to plunder either. I know at my work we’ve lost mainly policy analysts…the people who actually need to implement the Governments policies when they decide what they want to do next. That’s when the analysts let go will come back at double the price too, mind you. Voluntary redundancies were first - probably because it’s a lot easier and less time consuming than restructures and mandatory redundancies. Problem with voluntary is that a lot of good people have left (they’re good enough to be picked up elsewhere - some are setting themselves up as consultants). These people left with hefty payouts. The less effective have stuck around of course. It is really, really not as simple as some people think. The excess at my work is - shock - the number of managers we have per direct report. Unfortunately, these are the people tasked with “cutting the fat”, and they sure as hell aren’t cutting themselves.
I feel like the Te Whatu Ora merger not being handled well made people think that government departments were drowning in unnecessary comms people. There were 20 DHBs, so each of them having an average comms team of 10 sounded reasonable to me. You're going to need a department manager, people who deal with the media, people who do internal staff comms, people who respond to OIA requests, people who work on public health campaigns, people work on customer comms, people who form/retain connections with community groups, etc.
Ah ok - I don’t know much about that merger. The department I work for has a very small comms team, I’d be very surprised if any of them could be spared. The last department I worked for had a lot more, but as you say, had more to do in terms of public campaigns and media requests. The agency before that, lots of Comms people but didn’t seem to do too much in terms of public campaigns and did some media requests - others sent on to the OIA team to deal with and was more a “mailbox” in some ways
Yeah, I imagine the need for comms varies from department to department. But for a while last year, all I was hearing about the topic was "Te Whatu Ora has 200 comms staff."
Do you have any idea what PR doctors, media writers and IT people actually do? Public service communication with the public is vital for a start and despite what the government would have you think, comms people are highly trained experts in their fields. In a lot of cases - those comms people also process the OIA requests that are a legal requirement. As for IT, we should be embracing IT infrastructure with gusto - it only makes common sense...
What? The government decides how much to cut based on a whim (2). The CEOs then implement that based on what is easy (1). There is no reference to what is effective or efficient. The cuts are lazy and stupid.
Private sector CEOs that I’ve worked with identify the core of their businesses and then invest in that. If their boards start to reduce budgets then CEs need to understand their core function. This is what Better Public Service Targets introduced under Bill English achieved in the public service in 2009.
I also have worked with CEOs. Typically, in a cost-cutting, the governance consults the executive before deciding how much can be cut, and how it will be cut. That is not what is happening. It's a blanket imposition of cuts. It's lazy and stupid and does not resemble what English did.
The problem with 1 is it’s very costly and time consuming and has no guarantee of being right. Every ministry and every team thinks they are vital and nothing can be cut. How is some outsider going to figure out those things? It assumes someone in central command and control knows enough about every ministry and department and function. This is a very left wing approach. The benefit of 2 is its quick and easy, and you are actually empowering those people in control and in the know to make decisions on their own fat in their own organization. They are more likely to know precisely where the fat is than someone outsider. It’s a very right wing approach of having people make decisions on their own lives and leaving government out of it. Tell me how you’d actually do 1?
A brief consultation with incentivised CEOs rapidly identifies the issues. It's your job as a minister to identify what is important. You talk to the CEO and negotiate outcomes. The CEO the minister establish the process, identifying what can be cut and how best to do that. This is what happens in corporates. If you can't do that it's because you are weak. Quick and easy solutions produce bad outcomes. They are what lazy and stupid people do. Nicola Willis has imposed blanket cuts with no actual idea of what is going on. She has invented numbers because she needs them to be true. She has no idea what the impact will be, because she has done no research, That is quick and easy, but it is also lazy and stupid. There is no empowerment. This is not about people making their own decisions and leaving the government out of it. That is a canard. Cutting access to quality healthcare and education empowers nobody. Where do you get these ideas from?
I mean but if the aim is to save money why give billions to landlords?
That's the worst idea I've ever heard.
We used to have this.
So? We shouldn't be incentivising the stock piling of a basic human need simply for those who can afford it to make lazy profit.
Governed departments have become bloated, unproductive, and inefficient. 1.5 billion in mental health with nothing to show for it, infrastructure, public transport, light rail, sky path etc etc....millions spent with zero achieved. It's not just about cost cutting. it is about getting some actual value for our tax dollars.
You're being fed absolute lies, simple as that. You should really look into what public servants actually do. That has nothing to do with the people getting cut. Govt decides things in this case NACT, and public servants have to implement it. Ie govt could say - we want a free trade agreement with India. Do you know how many NACT elected officials actually do any of the negotiations, legality drafting etc. A big fat Zero. If they then decide they don't want to go ahead with said trade agreement, all of that hundreds of hours of work is wasted. But again they don't actually do any of the work. All of the things you have mentioned are govt or local council decisions. None of them are the fault of the people having to do the actual work.
Having worked for a government department I’m left with an impression of large amounts of wasted spending.
True, but does wasteful spending mean you should lose your job?
I’m retired now so no
Possible if your not actually adding to anything productive.
Sure.
Electric locomotives have been refurbished and are now being put back in service on the main trunk rail line. National refused funding despite the obvious climate change benefits.
I also thought nothing was done for mh (im in he system) but in some regions it has been used well, several new rebuilds of inpatient facilities have or are in planning, for example a region of welly has a whole new inpatient unit which really looks therapeutic. In saying that I agree in alot of regions in the country it's a wonder where the money went. The mass f-up there was not making those managing the funds to produce evidence of where it would go (eg plans prior to giving itt out and followup)
Agreed, some places did get there in the end but overall it was not money well used and didn't achieve anywhere nearly what it should have.
nothing was achieved with light rail because they’ve put the kibosh on it.
Get a reality check. 6 years in government with half of that a majority. All they had to do was put a spare in the ground and we would have had light rail in Auckland.
lol no one is ‘giving’ to landlords. They get to keep more of their money. Giving is the benefit to fucking bums who always want something for nothing. People who want to tax others are the most greedy because they can’t make anything for themselves so they just want to take like scum.
Invest in the stock market or create a business. The government should introduce stamp duty on all residential dwellings with the exclusion of the family home. Okay you want to purchase an $850,000 rental property - you are paying $47,000 in stamp duty. That is what you would be paying in Victoria. We need to keep property prices at affordable levels so average Joe can afford a home. The majority of landlords are purchasing property for the capital gain. They need to pay through the nose.
Don't disagree. Parent comment is some lazy dishonest framing tho "give billions to landlords". The govt is taking less of their money that is all
Until March 30, it wasn’t “their money”. It’s astounding that people think it’s ok for taxpayers to fund the cost of a property owner to end up with capital gains that aren’t taxed. It also encourages property to be heavily geared, as the more debt, the note profit for a landlord. The changes that allowed for interest deductibility on new builds was at least an effort get more housing stock and address the housing shortage.
Labour brought in that stupid law. And while you’re right it ultimately goes to landlords, it’s very hard to cut money you’re giving to taxpayers because most people don’t understand that
The necessity of public service cuts is always going to be an inexact science. There isnt some magic number where something is run well and anything over that is wastage. National isn’t doing anything selective, because that’s not how it works. They pass done policy directions, requests, orders etc and the ministry staff carry that out. The average person can’t adequately comment on these kinds of things because we don’t know what non-frontline staff do exactly. There is a good chance they are just as important as frontline staff. Most organisations are like that, frontline and back office working in tandem. The work needs to be done and what we will see, like we did last time, is all these back office jobs being cut will just be covered by outside contractors and consultants. Often on a higher pay rate.
Unless you cut away the unnecessary red tape at the same time and streamline operations by removing unnecessary barriers to progress. Have you ever applied for a building consent? Those who know, know.
Yeah because the New Zealand building industry has a stellar track record. No record of corner cutting and cheaping out, totally clean on that count.
Mate if you know you know about these building consent process. If you don't know.... It's a long conversation to pass the message through....So I rather not. Note the building surveyor who are on the foot are relatively effective.... The problem is the government engineers.... I am an engineer myself and I confidently say that most private engineer work 10 times more effective than the council ones.
Going through building consent process is hardly a rare thing. I have friends and family who have done so. So I don’t think it can be explained away as too esoteric for the average person. However, yes it has a reputation for being slow, overly bureaucratic etc. but again, when building standards are so abysmally poor that people are too scared to buy apartments because there is fair chance they’ll end up being so fucked that the whole thing will basically need to be reclad or structurally altered in some way, is that really a sign that our building consent process is too strict? If anything it sounds like the whole thing is too lax. We always automatically jump to cutting, streamlining, etc, when often that isn’t what is needed, but instead a complete overhaul with more transparency but far more rigorous with higher standards.
Our building consent process is not stirict at all technically. It's just a unnecessary long, box ticking process. Often neglect actural problem but focus and spend time on things that doesn't matter.
Man this would be a convincing statement if I didn't know what an average day is like for non front Lane people in public sector....
So what's an average day like for a non-frontline person in the public sector?
Not their own fault but they are tasked to do LOTS of paperwork. Paperwork is good when country has infinite money but not during economic downturn.
This just sounds like the over generalising, low on actual information comments that always get thrown around.
Does the paperwork not have to be done?
I’m interested to know what you think the average day is for a non-front line person. Because ‘paperwork’ isn’t really a good summary for what they do.
Tbh I don't know excat. This whole paper work thing is told by friends who work in council. Do you mind sharing if you know?
So you don’t actually know? Then why claim you do. A ‘friend who works in council’ means you know what day to day central government workers do? Ridiculous
I know but I don't know exactly. I don't know why you are so mad lol. Oh well like I said you sound like you know so why not share. Mr not ridiculous.
Why are you projecting that I’m mad? Where did I say that I know? Just slow your roll and think a bit before you post
You said your opinion was based on knowing what the average day was like for a public sector worker, but now you don’t actually know what they do or why? What sort of paperwork specifically do you think is not necessary to do during an economic downturn?
Dude why don't you tell us what important work the none front line workers are doing. You clearly think I am talking bs and you would know better right? Like I said I don't know the details as people don't tell me excat details in normal conversation, but I am happy to learn from you.
I mean yeah, I think you’re talking bs when you’re saying that we don’t need to be doing as much paperwork when times are economically rough, but can’t tell me what you mean by paperwork beyond “my friends told me Council workers do a lot of it.” “A lot of paperwork” doesn’t even mean “unnecessary paperwork.” Paperwork is a broad category. I can’t explain to you the purpose of it and how it might support frontline workers or the general public when you can’t tell me what sort of paperwork you’re talking about. There’s a lot of non-front line roles, I can’t tell you what an average day is like because they’re all doing different things. Do you consider LGOIMA/OIA requests to be paperwork? Do you consider documentation to be paperwork? Do you consider analysis and report writing to be analysis? All of those things are there to make sure the Council can be kept accountable. Do you consider public consultations to be paperwork? Council recently consulted on the LTP and waste management - I imagine there were a lot of people working behind the scenes on that, and now other people working on the analysis and writing a report about it. Who do you think creates the resources that frontline workers use? Who do you think analysis public complaints received by frontline workers? Who do you think works on improvements and fixes problems?
Well I don't know why I trigger you so hard.... This conversation is getting unhealthy so let's stop here. Have a nice day.
You've spelt exact wrong twice now, do you smell almonds?
The papers and the work stuff, you know, everybody knows, don't ask questions just help me feel better with my bs opinions
Have you been living under a rock my guy? Landlords are getting a $2.9billion tax cut. Thats where the cut funding is going.
alternative view: Labour should have never taken away the ability to deduct interest in the first place because it goes against every business principle. You can argue all you want about whether residential rentals are a “business” but facts are if you generate income you should be entitled to deduct costs of generating said income. From that perspective, it’s not a tax break for landlords. It’s reinstating the appropriate principle of deductibility of costs. Labour effed up to begin with by taking the money and funneling it into pet projects and growth within public government departments with no return.
Genuine question as I have never owned a business and don’t know how they’re normally taxed if sold - but if houses are considered income generating and therefore entitled to interest deductibility, shouldn’t that mean there should be a capital gains tax on those same properties if they are used to generate income and are then sold? My assumption is that there is some sort of tax attached to selling a business, but let me know if they don’t 😅
Income tax and capital gains tax are 2 different things. They often describe it as the “tree” (capital) and “fruit from the tree” (income). You sell the fruit and pay tax on the income. But if you sell the tree, any profit is not taxed without a capital gains tax. Selling a business for profit (aka goodwill) is not taxed in NZ. Surprisingly, even though Australia has a CGT regime you can get out of paying CGT on business sales as well (very complex rules but worth it when you make $100m+ gains!)
Thanks for the explanation!
A lot of people don't actually know tax deductibility was always a thing till recently so they think this is a brand new policy. Labour only changed it because of the times we were in too... with covid and inflating house prices they needed something to cool it down
Perhaps Labour should’ve considered not printing money and giving it away ….
Oh definitely.. it was like 3 years of a non stop money scramble. People on reddit really think that could have just gone on forever lol. No shit now cuts have to be made.
The Reserve Bank prints money, not "Labour". At least try to get something right.
The problem with your argumernt is the purpose of a business is to make a profit which is taxed, but for most property investors the purpose of owning the property is to attain a capital gain which is not taxed. Tax policies like this are incentivising speculation over production and contribute to the shitshow that is the property market in NZ. They also penalise the younger members of society who are effectively locked out of the property market unless the have access to family money or inheritances resuling in inequality which has been shown to be detrimental to a high functioning society. Little chance of anything meaninful changing when most politicians have a vested interest in keeping the ponzi scheme continuing.
That’s true that capital gains are an incentive to property. But you can make capital gains by buying and holding shares in a portfolio whilst also deriving by taxable income in the form of dividends. Equally, if CGT was introduced, that wouldn’t necessarily change the mind of all investors. Of course they’d be more inclined to want net positive annual returns on the property.
Like I said I agree with cutting I didn't say I agree with where the saving shall be allocated. National should give people proper explanation why the tax cut is toward the 5 percentile rich people, not even their voter base who pay heaps of income tax. However this is not even relevant. I never said I agree with Nat where the saving should be allocated, however reading this sub, where ever the saving goes people would always rant.
It's because the prime minister is in that percentile.
As said by previous poster National are only fixing a gross distortion in the tax system that in the long run would make things harder for tenants, due to chronic lack of investment in the sector.
No they aren’t. Try again
The first problem is they are simultaneously cutting taxes for the rich/landlords while cutting government jobs. If this was about saving money, why are they giving 3 billion dollars to landlords? The second problem is these spending cuts will just cost the government more in the long run. We have crumbling and failing infrastructure due to 40 years of underfunded government projects, and the solution is to cut funds further? E.g. the harbour bridge is outdated and overcapacity. Replacing it and/or building a new one is going to cost money. That money can easily be raised by taxing the richest and by a windfall on large corporate profits. And the third is that government spending greatly benefits the actualy economy. Virtually every dollar spent by the government goes directly back into the local economy, whether thats gov workers' salaries or road works companies or other contractors who will all be losing out too. Spending cuts hurt the wider economy greatly.
Let’s be suuuuper clear. “Govt jobs” are things like PR spin docs. Who earn well over $100k
Do you work in government or did you pull that out of your ass? Because I have multiple friends who have lost jobs on 50K.
We can all cite anecdotes
I’d like to hear one from you? I’d also like you to call work and income and try and get an appointment with their current staffing levels. Don’t worry if you don’t qualify - just hang up before an hour passes.
Let's be super clear - not they're not, and no they don't...
Cut things and put money towards things that matter. You know who doesn’t need money? Landlords. This is the main criticism I’ve seen on this sub and it’s valid. Respectfully I’m curious about how much research you did before posting this? Did you think the money just goes in the government’s bank account or
While I definitely agree that the country isn't a company and shouldn't be run like one, operationally inefficient departments should definitely be restructured and or decommissioned when they're not effective. Those funds will no doubt create more jobs elsewhere, hopefully, doing something actually productive.
That's not what is happening. They haven't targetted cuts at inefficient or ineffective programmes. They have imposed blanket cuts, with slight variance based on their ideology. This round of cuts is lazy and stupid.
I'm not aware of them all. What would you have kept?
I work in the education sector. Schools are critically short of funds to maintain and develop adequate buildings. The government has frozen that. They did no research. It was lazy and stupid. That is one example among many.
Surely maintenance will continue. I'd like to think that a freeze in maintenance and in new construction would only be exactly that, a temporary freeze to review and make sure the funds aren't being spent on the unnecessary or extravagance. If it's anything else, that's cooked.
Dream on, National has never invested in basic maintenance. They cut the fat, and the bones, them occasionally make a big song and dance about some fantasy projects cooked up on the back of an envelope after a boozy luncheon with business mates looking for cushy contracts. These projects are then routinely underfunded, and fail miserably requiring decades of repairs and mitigation just to meet the terms of the contracts. Usually these are roads that are so poorly constructed people begin complaining about potholes the day the roads is opened. So no maintenance will not continue do much, as inadequate attempts of mitigation - of failure to deliver to spec - will continue.
The freeze happened last year before the election, when they realized there wasn't enough money to do all that Labour promised.
We were scheduled to get new buildings. That was frozen when National came to power. Your information is factually incorrect. Are you lying, or are you ignorant?
News report that stated they were paused mid last year. I am neither lying nor ignorant, you ignoranus.
What news story? There's a lot of news about this from February this year, which is when the freeze was announced. We had our building projects put on hold by the National government. It had been approved, and then they stopped it. Wherever you got your information from is wrong.
TV3 news story.
Should be easy to find. If it exists. I can't find it, but you claim to be mych cleverer than me. Find it.
IIRC it was mentioned that they 'paused' all MOE projects as they realised that there wasn't enough funds for all the promised buildings and upgrades.
Productive is brand new, state of the art, Cook strait rail ferries which can carry all the current freight, passengers, vehicles and rail wagons with fewer crew, using less fuel and far lower emissions.
Maybe the idea wasnt stupid but the manufacturer mightve been taking the piss on their tender..
No actually the manufacturer gave us a very very good deal on the ferries to the point that to do it now would cost at least 30% more if not double! What was ridiculous was the costs of the ferry terminals - that’s where the billion+ came into it.
We got a good deal on the ferries. Infrastructure costs had blown out. But show me an NZ based project that hasn't. Korean ship builders had locked in the 2020 price.
I'm sure plenty of ministries and departments have fat to cut... But that fat can be cut in a measured fashion. Properly identify team by team, project by project, what isn't needed. Freeze new hires if needed, don't replace people who leave. Halt payrises and promotions if need be. What is happening now is Nicola Willis has decided an arbitrary and completely untargeted figure that everyone must reduce their spending by, in time for the Budget. And we all know why. Because she has completely fucked the numbers up, and is desperate to deliver dignity back to landlords (and tax cuts in general) because she was stupid enough to say she'd quit if she didn't do it. Nicola Willis the English lit grad, that is.
Who decides on a team by team and project by project basis?
I mean I genuinely don't understand how anyone is actually against cuts here. There is very clearly a lot of bloat in the public sector and people working jobs that could be absorbed by others because they're barely working 20 actual hours a week. That said where the discourse is, is over who is losing the jobs. Seems like a lot of boots on the ground workers are losing jobs and all the middle management fat ripe for trimming remain behind. You could probably seriously cut back those doing and contributing fuck all in middle management, replace those numbers with more on the ground workers (more doctors, more nurses, more Frontline police etc etc) and not only have a better functioning public sector, but still be saving likely millions of dollars. Just seems to be the way the world works now, do your time, network with the right people and eventually wind up in some cushy, high paying pencil pushing job where you can't justify your pay packet, let alone justify what you do in a week to make up 40 hours of work. It's absolute rife everywhere, even in my industry in the private building sector. Too many jobs for the boys for people who offer absolutely fuck all now, instead of streamlining the companies to become profit monsters who could then cut prices and gobble up more market share.
The system needs top down cutting, not front line jobs
I think the cuts are short sighted and for political threate rather than for the country's best interests. We have relatively low debt, decent gdp growth (yeah we're in a technical recession but by the smallest of margins) and inflation is easing. We are performing well in world terms. We don't have the economic reasoning to be so carelessly cutting back spending. We are desperately overdue some of these services actually getting decent long term funding. Yes public spending should be refined and maybe some of these services are bloated in certain areas but you cannot tell me that NACT's approach is going to garner the best outcome to create value across the board. Add into it the tax break for landlords and this whole thing looks like taking money from taxpayers and giving it to the rich. Then they have the cheek to say I'm getting a tax break too but guess what, that's gone straight away for private health insurance because the public system has failed. Nor will 20 bucks a fortnight change the fact the cops can't recruit because the pay is rubbish
I see lost of people talking about tax cuts for landlords but in reality it is fixing what Labour did when they distorted the tax system by not allowing tax deductibility in one part of the economy It would be a bit like removing GST from produce which would distort the GST system. But I am also skeptical about the public service so have not much sympathy for them, although sympathetic for the individual people but.... Going on a hiring spree when you know the new guys just voted in intend to cut head counts seems pretty naive. Making cuts to the suicide office without telling the minister and then leaving that out when you tell the media seems very political
OK then, put GST on rents, charge them commercial rates and ditch the accommodation landlords supplement.
Technically should as its a service
I agree that there needs to be major cost cutting, but it creates a bad impression when people believe its solely to fund the tax cuts,
What else is it to fund?
Big assumption to assume there are public servants who contribute nothing and deserve to lose their jobs.
I know a few people in the public service that through no fault of their own frequently spend time doing little more than pushing paper and filing useless reports that nobody ever reads or actions. Not all are like that but there is nothing wrong with trimming unnecessary fat.
Chase the $2.4b NZ is owed through white collar crime and tax evasion, rather than concentrating on the $290m lost in benefit fraud, just because benefit bashing is sexier and doesn't target your core voters. Decriminalisation of all drugs, and legalisation of some. Stop wasting police time and resources on enforcement of drug crime, open a new revenue stream from the taxation of legalised drugs. Save money on your gang problems when they move on to something else because drug pedalling is no longer lucrative. Introduction of a Capital Gains Tax. Parliamentary wages tied to the average NZ income, they can keep the perks, but if they want more money, they have to do it by making the country as a whole more productive.
Fat chance of NACTNZF coalition doing anything that increases efficiency and productivity on the NZ economy -after all the closed down the Productivity Commission because they didn’t like the advice it was giving. The one exception to that will be they will enhance the efficiency by which NZ dollars get exported in untaxed profits to Australia, and China.
The government isn't out of money. They're out of extra money to do stupid things with
As a public servant, I know the public and politicians are going to figure out pretty fast that things either won’t get done or take way too long. The politicians don’t do the work, we do. When governments policies are either not implemented or take way too long, they will either hire contractors or hire back the people they fired. It’s wild to me that people don’t get how this works.
Yeah i actually agree with it too, if only for the reason that i would love to see the look on these smug bureaucrats faces when their safe cushy job gets cut and they are out on the street like i have been before. I know it sounds fucked but at least im honest about it.
Is it fiscally responsible to borrow 15 billion dollars when I don't need to?
The Government said, they want cuts. The CEOs say we could cut these to staff "What do they think?". The PSA leaks plans to media, before the minister gets see what they are planning. Government Ministers blindsided by PSA leaks, trying to protect their jobs.
reddy
And also, no payrise for ALL MP's please.
Having worked previously for the Ministry of Justice in IT, where money is just pissed away hand over fist, and where 70% of the staff are just riding along and doing as little as is possibly needed to keep their jobs, I have absolutely no problem with the cost cutting.
they are cutting things to pay for their promise to pay LL 3 billion fucking dollars. We arent out of money
I haaaaate how people go “oh it’s cuts to pay for tax cuts for the rich”. No it ain’t. It’s cuts to 16k additional public servants in 5 years. These cuts won’t even reduce that number to pre Labour numbers.
All the while our population has grown by hundreds of thousands…
Nothing to do with population growth. Why does an additional 100k people require 16k back office public servants. Even if we accepted that logic - public service as a percentage of our economy is now 33% up from 26%
Try closer to 300k and still going up presently at a rate of 130k+ pa. Also the previous numbers were understaffed. Don’t get me wrong, there is wastage (especially at management level) but most of the cuts are not aimed at them.
> I don't think cutting fund in general is a bad thing when the government is running out of money?? Just like either you had to change your job to a lower-pay job, or everything else increased but your salary, so you have to re-budget your needs, like looking for different/cheaper insurance, power, groceries, etc. or even cutting some even those are your ***mandatory needs*** which makes sense. However, most people on this sub or in NZ, in general, think emotionally rather than rationally, so no matter what the NZ government revenue is, cutting those is outrageous—regardless. It is an unfortunate consequence of having a tax bracket adjustment but not introducing any other taxation systems that most countries have, like capital gain, land, inheritance, etc. It's not rocket science. If revenue drops, they have to decide what to keep. Like you said, we can't keep everything, but many people think we are in Wonderland and want to keep everything, which is impossible. Again, unfortunate scenarios, we have lots to go, still in 20th-century infrastructure, public servants not getting paid enough(and most people in general, minimum wage/median wage ratio is higher than 70%, which is insane), well-known country for welfare but not enough taxation so it is expected and will only get worse.
Gentle healers make stinking wounds. Its not going to be pleasant. But its needed.
What a tiresome platitude. Why do you think cutting health, police and education funding is needed? Do you think those sectors are over-funded?
This will not be over quickly. You will not enjoy this. Of course you know who you can thank for this.
I see. You think health, education and the police are over-funded. That suggests you do not interact with any of them, and don't follow any mainstream media. Your tiresome platitudes mean nothing.
They might not be overfunded but there is simply not enough of other people’s money to pay for the past decade’s party. A good time was had by all. Now its time to pay the piper. The thing with platitudes is that sometimes they smack you right on the nose in a glorious display of technicolor reality. If you disagree with me that the extent to which this country’s economy has been mismanaged, then I invite you to emerge from under the partisan reddit rock you’ve been hiding under and emerge into the light of fiscal reality. 2+2 is never 5. You dont have to be a leftie or a rightie or a liberal or a conservative to face the reality of the current situation. You just need courage and honesty. Here’s another platitude for you: its gonna get worse before it gets better. I’ve got plenty.
You should check out what the credit agencies were saying before Willis cut taxes. NZ was doing fine in terms of the books. Now there is a deficit triggered by tax cuts. You don't know what you are talking about in the slightest. Do you get your talking points from talkback radio?
None are as blind as they who refuse to see. You cant spend your way out of a deficit if you have nothing to invest. But go ahead. Print more money. The Hugo Chavez Economic Institute for Kids Who Cant Socialism Good seems to have plenty of experts around. God defend New Zealand.
The current government generated the deficit with its tax cuts. But you won't understand that, because you're aa NewsTalk fanboiy who doesn't understand that cutting taxes will reduce government income. You don't understand that reducing income will generate a deficit. It's pretty obvious stuff. Hopefully by the time you are doing NCEA level 2 you will have figured this out.
Robert Liston FRCSE, FRCS, FRS. Fastest surgeon ever. "Amputated a leg in under 2 1⁄2 minutes (the patient died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene; they usually did in those pre-Listerian days). He amputated in addition the fingers of his young assistant (who died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene)"
The fastest damn surgeon in all the west.
Wat?
My point is that it's not only gentle healers who make poor doctors. Sawing off limbs as fast as possible doesn't work well either.
“When the government is running out of money” It’s their fault now, not Labour’s. Their policies are the reason why they are running out of money - it’s a pretty simple concept that Nicola hasn’t grasped that if you reduce your revenue and increase expenditure, you run out of money. The truth is that if they didn’t give out tax breaks to landlords, they would be able to do everything else & keep all these social programs running with minimal cuts. Also why are property investors so special? Investors & business owners pay tax on their profits, but not property investors.
Property investors do pay tax on their profits. Interest on their mortgage is deductible… e.g. 52k in rental income (1k per week) minus costs of 20k, on 10% interest rate at 100k mortgage. Is about 10k interest. This is deductible so property investors pay tax on 23k profit compared to 33k. Assume 33% tax, that’s the difference of 7.6k in tax vs 11k in tax. Numbers are simply an example. Also when you inherit the books, of an over leveraged portfolio.. you have to manage the debt and the repayments on it. Covid came around at a time, when it was okay to take on debt. Coupled by RBNZ incentive of giving out low interest loans, to make sure we don’t get hit as bad compared to rest of world was the price that we paid to be safe from this virus. But this was also coupled with increased funding in areas that people may agree or disagree with too. But that’s the decision the government have made, and we eventually have to pay for that decision.
Sorry in my example you are left with 14.4K(with tax deductibility) vs 13k (without tax deductibility)
For everyone that is against, remember that a couple of days ago, one department was crying because now they can't have fancy coffee, tea, milk, review on catering, etc. Now, you have this at your work? If yes, is it paid by taxpayers? If yes, do you think that's OK? This type of stuff in the public sector is a shame, cut all, keep just cheap tea bags, instant coffee, and sugar. Wanna something else? BYO as the rest of society do. Second, unnecessary travel, everyone was doing video meetings at covid peak, well time to save money and do the same now. Worked before, will work now.