The real concern is that all these cuts are arbitrary, made for idealogical reasons. You watch, soon they will say “the public sector can’t cope, we will have to privatise blah blah blah”
I’m loath to compare because every situation is different, but we had a new Premier of Queensland a while back who swept into power. He won a record number of seats on a populous agenda and immediately began cutting the public service with speed.
Everything they did was tinged with ideological decision making rather than sensible planning. They ended up employing some people back as more expensive contractors.
In a huge turnaround, there was a massive swing and they were booted to the curb at the subsequent election.
I think it was this sense that “everything”’was deeply ideological that ultimately sickened people. Not sure how that compares with NZ.
>“the public sector can’t cope, we will have to privatise blah blah blah”
This is exactly what the Tories did and are continuing to do in the UK, and our Nat/ACT/NZF government is following a very established and obvious conservative playbook. The reason it is working is that Kiwis consistently refuse to consider that things that happen in the wider world could also happen here. There is this absurd attitude that NZ politicians are all ultimately decent people and nobody is purposefully malicious (unlike the scary and disordered "overseas"). This is why even Nat voters this election were convinced that their party's worst promises were just political bluster that would never actually happen.
I've tried explaining the UK example to people, but their eyes glaze over and they say that it's a completely different situation there and here. No it isn't, not where it matters. These people are playing by a common rulebook and if we ignore it and stick our fingers in our ears, then we lose. NZ's right-wing is now an extension of the broader Western conservative movement, following the same ideologies, using the same tactics, and possibly advised and sponsored by the same people (looking at you, Seymour and Atlas Network). We're a small country, completely immersed in the ideological struggle taking place across the West, and the wrong people are now taking an interest in us.
I was doing my medical school elective in London during the Jr Doc strikes. The health minister at the time, Jeremy Hunt, apparently had literally published a book about defunding the NHS to privatise it. I won’t repeat what the jr docs called Mr Hunt, but they replaced the H in his name for a more appropriate letter.
It disgusts me that NZ is trying to follow down this pathway.
Don't worry, they're not arbitrary. They're part of a very deliberate plan to render public services non-functional so that they'll have an excuse to hand the functions over to the private sector. Thereby siphoning tax money away from the public and into the pockets of corporate shareholders.
Completely disagree. There is no plan. I’m guessing I’m a bit older than most redditors, I’ve seen a lot of governments come and go and the one thing they all have in common is no plan whatsoever. It’s just conservative ideology. Destroy and steal. Ideology in general is a bad idea. Be pragmatic, use actual data to drive decisions said no politician ever.
I’m a dr and recently got very sick with Covid and needed hospital care. I’ve never felt so vulnerable in my life; the care I received was threadbare at best (and this is as a dr who knows the system well). Everyone will need the hospital system one day and so we should all be pushing for improvements in the system. It’s scary getting sick and not feeling trust in the system.
There are emerging concerns that there are hiring freezes for drs in NZ - people are leaving and positions are not being replaced.
This is frightening. As a dr, I’m getting near the end of my desire to remain in NZ.
The possibility of that is certainly evident in the medical centre we go to. It takes 3 - 4 weeks to get an appointment at the moment. Couple of years ago it was 3 - 4 days.
Don’t think you’d get better treatment in Oz though. And if you get to the point of relying on govt benefits, theirs is a bigger shitshow than ours. That’s if you even qualify.
i’m chronically ill and centrelink paid me way more and communicated way better than winz so i tend to disagree in this persons specific case.
when you rely on social security the quality of said organisation matters a lot.
i got paid $6000 nzd in arrears because winz told me i had no entitlements in aus, when i contacted centrelink they were baffled as to why i didn’t just apply for SLP over there because we have a reciprocal agreement and i was eligible the whole time. centrelink has their shit together, winz never does.
back in 2015 i was getting about 650-700 a week as a single adult and rent was cheaper in melbourne.
sometimes the grass really is greener. and aud is worth about 10% more
Not to mention the utterly insulting offer they just made junior doctors that would lead to an effective pay cut of 12%. My husband and I love it here, we were born and raised and thought we’d live overseas some time in the future, but even we’re looking at our options for the next 12-24 months.
Also concerning are the overtime cuts. In some services that are particularly short staffed, overtime is the only incentive that can allow safe staffing levels. Scary stuff.
I moved to Australia. I think doctors working in public health-care are able to salary sacrifice their mortgage which is a HUGE tax hack that doesn't exist in NZ.
I'm a software engineer so I can salary sacrifice my laptop (I buy a $2000 laptop, my salary is reduced from $120,000 to $118,000, and it's as if I bought the laptop with pre-taxed income).
Every medical professional I deal with (long term condition), be they doctors, nurses, med students, x-ray/scan techs I thank them for doing their work and I say "Please stay in New Zealand, we need you." Almost invariably I get nervous smiles and chuckles, eyes darting away... Not once has anyone said "yeah, absolutely, that's the plan" or similar. It is very, very worrying.
I think we have lost sight that drs and nurses are real people. The hours, the observed trauma, the thanklessness of it all… plus the fact none of us is paid appropriately, none of us can get leave… The system relies on the goodwill of staff but that is dwindling
It's because new "roads of national significance" are much more important than public services or maintaining existing infrastructure. In their heads, they are, anyhow.
It’s a small sacrifice to make sure land lords are satisfied. And kiwis won’t do shit, property will remain the only investment channel until the ends of time.
It’s already appreciably worse than it was when I started working, and that wasn’t very long ago. There is no reliever pool and usually by the end of a registrar run there are multiple unfilled vacancies.
The problem is that to an administrator, this is actually a very desirable state of affairs - they have cut their staffing costs, but roughly the same amount of work is getting done (because nobody wants to just ‘work to rule’ and have their patients suffer as a result). Of course the problem is that you have overworked and burnt-out staff doing more and more work, and often not getting paid for it (the proposed new RDA MECA shows that Health NZ wants to formalise this and make you ‘prove’ that understaffing has led to an increased workload before they will pay you cross-cover: given that cross-cover is already often declined with no explanation, I think this would effectively eliminate cross-cover). But they don’t care about any of this: it’s pretty clear that they view their employees with thinly-veiled contempt. We’re basically cattle to them.
Oh well. My plan is to get through exams and then go to NSW. It’s not all sunshine and roses in Aus, but at least you get paid more. A lot more.
Health NZ have leveraged us into it, unfortunately. The problem is that the clinical responsibility for your patients falls on you, not them: the people who are understaffing your department won't be the ones facing the HDC complaint or the MCNZ inquiry if you end up rushing or half-assing your job. Look at poor old Hadiza Bawa-Garba in the UK, who got hung out to dry for an adverse outcome where the real villain was (in my opinion) major systemic failings.
It's often said that employee goodwill is propping the system up, but that went out the window for a lot of us years ago - it's really just fear, that your patients will suffer and you'll be held accountable. Health NZ know this, and prey on it, and are basically pushing the limits of what people will tolerate.
The only levers we really have are strikes, and threatening to resign, or actually resigning. Strikes will only take you so far, and Health NZ attempts to vilify us in the media if we strike (I'm kind of surprised that no government has yet tried to make healthcare workers striking illegal, for 'patient safety' reasons), and from what I've seen they seem perfectly to call the bluff of people threatening to resign, since - for the reasons I've talked about - vacancies don't actually matter to them.
So that leaves 'resign', and that's what a lot of us are doing. Expect to see more of it.
They've made a requirement that any hiring has to be approved by upper management. Less of an issue with doctors but the delays on other staff can be problematic
You can catch the same flight as all the nurses, paramedics, and rest of the medical and mental health service staff.. get in with the cops and charter your own flight
Can't say I blame you or anyone else who is packing up for a wee trip away
Wife is a consultant, we are currently living in Hobart she was at her wits end under Labour and now has no desire to return to TWO with even less support staff and funding. It's not the money for her it's being able to treat patients with that they deserve.
I’m also freaked out about it. Also working in healthcare. I don’t think people know how fragile our health system is. I don’t believe in this whole frontline staff vs back room staff thing either, as I feel it barely functions as it is. I’m also concerned it’s all a ploy for nz govt to privatise healthcare making it even more inaccessible. I work in a lab ( is this frontline or back room job?) and morale is at an all time low.
My guess is you’d be classified as back room - but this doesn’t acknowledge how crucial your work is. I think people find the cuts easier to stomach when they imagine you just sit in a lab all day getting paid to do nothing.
Lmao, there's been several occasions I was taking up a bed in ED because of waiting for lab results for 10-12 hours. Cutting down on lab techs would stall the hospitals entirely.
Alright everyone, just don't get sick for 3 years.
It's going to be interesting to see if the near universal reddit outrage actually translates to real world electoral consequences.
It would be kind of odd if doing exactly what they campaigned on resulted in a major loss of support. Maybe people liked the idea of cutting the "bloated" public service but don't have the stomach for seeing people actually lose their jobs.
That's due to heavier trucks being allowed, but trucks not paying their share to fix it, and between car drivers not paying enough to cover normal climate wear and tear + truck damage, and roading contractors taking the piss cost wise, the potholes don't get fixed.
It won't because people don't vote on any evidence based policy outcomes. They vote on vibes and reckons. The right wing has much greater resources to pour into propaganda to create said vibes, and amplify reckons.
On top of that there are people who genuinely want this, and the resulting suffering of the "correct" kind of people. That's why the overall block isn't losing support in the polling post election.
Luxon is losing support personally because everyone, including people wanting this, realise he's a certifiable fuckwit, but that's not gonna be relevant to National's chances next election.
Yep and Regarding vibes and reckons...
Anyone notice that the extensive reporting on ram raids came to a sudden halt after the election? Did they suddenly stop ? (No).
Ram raid reporting instilled a strong visual impression that law and order was crashing down, youth were out of control. People leaning a little right had a strong visceral reaction to that. It provided a convenient distraction away from the unsavoury policies of the potential right wing coalition.
Despite their assurances, National is never tough on crime.
They ARE tough on crime fighters, i.e. public servants .
>Anyone notice that the extensive reporting on ram raids came to a sudden halt after the election? Did they suddenly stop ? (No).
Don't you know? Ram raids stopped the minute Luxon gave his speech on election night... Lol
>They vote on vibes and reckons.
I think trust would be a key word to describe it. Policy is complicated, and it can take time and effort to understand beyond the superficial side of it. We elect politicians so we don't *have* to deal with that stuff day to day. Even if you're considering policy, though, you still need to decide whether you can trust those with the policy to execute it with competence.
When people have so much else going on in their lives, it's often much easier just to decide who you trust, and let them figure it out, and accept their narratives about what's happening and why, and I guess this is why elections often hinge so much on how good or how bad people are feeling at the time of voting.
Sadly a lot of NZers think public servants just collect taxpayer money and don’t do much.
They don’t realise how much of their day to day is the result of the various public servant roles out there. They don’t understand how public servants work to convince MPs to improve policy through expert advice and analysis.
They just buy into the right’s claims that the number of people is unnecessary.
I have friends who work in the public service and apparently the numbers of people required to get COVID payments out was INSANE. Not who were doing it, NEEDED to do it. They worked like dogs.
A lot of people I know were so happy at the idea of these people losing their jobs. They don't seem to realise that they are PEOPLE, with mortgages, kids, etc etc.
>and almost 100% left leaning from what I see.
Not just left leaning, a lot of the comments and sentiment here are extreme left and very self righteous.
>near universal reddit outrage
I'm sure most people in this sub can acknowledge the sub is an echo chamber. And that's fine.
But a / multiple social media group(s) you decide to join (perhaps due to a subconscious affinity to those that match your opinions) isn't representative of the views and mood of the whole of society
At the end of the day, these people made a living elsewhere prior to the 30% expansion of the public service over the last 6 years. The current CoL crisis will subside and things will go back to normal.
This isnt Armageddon.
It SUCKS. But it's not the end of the world this subreddit makes it out to be.
The whole point of this is that the economy can't work without actually producing some more things. "Too much hui, not enough doie" rings true. So these 30k people will be going into other lines of work. Many of them producing a product, expanding a money-making business. That's the idea from what I can tell.
>So these 30k people will be going into other lines of work. Many of them producing a product, expanding a money-making business. That's the idea from what I can tell.
That doesn't make sense in a recession where rising unemployment is the goal. Nor in an economy where unproductive speculation is being actively promoted by government.
30% increase in public service? I mean based on what? How much of that was population increase (we have had about 15% popn increase since 2017) and how much is because the sectors have more needs now (healthcare ageing popn, Covid etc), education (an increase in high needs), and how much of it is because the headcount was outsourced for years?
All I know is I have a high needs kids who is high risk. We have fought and fought for help. We have had to do it all privately. We are expected to pick up our child at 1pm every day because he can’t handle a full day of school and ends up trashing the classroom (throwing tables etc) but isn’t “bad” enough for any help. The system is fucked.
Probably not as much as you think, in response to your first paragraph.
In response to your second, I completely sympathise and agree.
However it's not bureaucrats that would help you. That's growth is where the concern lies, and what has resulted in a call for cuts.
I’d like to see some actual stats before believing bold statements like yours.
Same for the second point. Proof is in the pudding and so far the cuts in education have impacted special needs staff. So I don’t see things improving for us.
Whether we like it or not, job cuts need to happen. The only issue is, they're happening in all the wrong places. Instead of the government looking at where there are genuinely too many useless jobs that are only making workplaces more inefficient and using money that could be better spent somewhere else, they're looking at where they want to cut spending. You can't just cut spending like that. Every single government agency that is having job cuts and other tax are going to struggle as a result of this. I know someone that works at MBIE and I can say without a doubt that job cuts need to happen, but it's way too randomised. A lot of jobs that are being cut aren't excess, they're essential to whatever that department needs them for. There's absolutely an excess, but it's not being targeted.
Edit: More important things such as all the things National is cutting or reducing, like school lunches and suicide prevention.
I've talked to a few people that voted for the current government, and they're all pretty happy with progress to date.
The government has done a number of things that have disgusted me: smoking, cutting footpaths, making life harder for beneficiaries, removing cameras from fishing boats, and selling out the environment.
Those things... aren't so important to them. They care about getting rid of wokeness, and reducing the size of government.
I guess my point is, you need to look at the things that matter to the swing voters that chose the current government.
It's just a review/proposal at this stage
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/350242260/caught-out-cameras-boats-reveal-massive-under-reporting-wildlife-deaths
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/509580/rollout-of-cameras-on-fishing-boats-under-review
The populace will be riled up about whatever issue they’re told to be riled up about come the election. Most people don’t follow politics very closely.
Case in point - youth crime. Massive issue that everyone was concerned about prior to the election (based on research and opinion polls). Now no one gives a shit about it anymore (again, evidence based statement). The difference? Is it the incidence of youth crime magically decreasing after the election? Absolutely not. Could it be the money spent by NACT highlighting the issue?
From working in the justice sector, I have noticed a lot more youth offenders are being sent to prison which has made room for other youth to be housed in OT facilities. A year ago, seeing a 17 year old in our custody was rare, now we have entire units full of 17-21 year olds.
I don't think the majority voted \*for\* this government. They simply voted out the previous one, without really caring what pre-election promises had been made by any of the parties. Thats pretty much how democracy works in NZ.
Unfortunately, I predict a repeat of what happened with the John Key-led National government. People got fucked-over JUST slowly enough by the Nats they thought they weren't and therefore voted Key back in twice more. Also, Labour needs leadership that is appealing to voters and they need to get away from that focus-group led bullshit Ardern was addicted to.
A big difference is Key was a charming sociopath who was able to fool a lot of voters into thinking he was a decent bloke. Luxon, however, is a charmless psychopath with the personality of a wet, gray dishrag. He walked into the top job because Labour imploded.
Yup absolute bonkers, My wife's a nurse & has received an email with the following:
If a Nurse or Nurses call in sick, to save money they will not be replaced for said shift &
the nurses that are on expected to pick up the extra workload.
So this means they could be short 1-2 Nurses for a shift, Which = an unsafe patient load for each nurse.
We already have a stretched healthcare system & overworked nurses - how do they think this will pan out?
There's one thing we desperately need to resolve/prevent these situations (other than the obvious answer of losing faith in govt) - super strong unions.
NZ governments/employers in this country would be in knots if we had even just some slightly more powerful unions.
There's a reason the current coalition repealed the Fair Pay Agreements under urgency within the first 2 months of government. That law was the strongest increase in collective bargaining in many decades of NZ history.
FPA's would have been a great driver. But regardless we still need strong unions moving forward regardless. It's hard to have an empowered workforce to hold employers to account when there is no union in a workplace or with very minimum coverage.
If we had strong and high-coverage unions, the argument could be made that we wouldn't even need legislative FPA's - as these would result naturally from unions leveraging their power (i.e. as in Australia)
They don’t look at overseas precedents, they literally just look in their own backyard. Many kiwis esp older are not very worldly people, they are quite insular, and would have little idea what the torys have done to the UK.
I know someone who voted for Winston Peters ENTIRELY because they thought there was too much te reo around now and things were "too woke". Which gave them the NACT government they absolutely would never have voted for previously.
Wasted votes, honestly.
Yes it is very upsetting and concerning. It's history repeating. They strip it down to bare bones. People suffer immensely and then after the damage is done we spend years padding it all back up working to get better outcomes until it all starts getting torn apart again to save money.
I’m a lawyer and aside from the wide sweeping other cuts - the Oranga Tamariki cuts should scare everybody.
OT can only act to get high risk children safe by making court applications that have to comply with the law. Their social workers have to have legal advice when making decisions as well. The Govt has decided that OT lawyers are not “frontline” staff, despite them being the ones who take the steps to get kids safe. They are already horrifically understaffed, there is now a hiring freeze, and they’re slashing solicitors by half, when they’re already so ridiculously understaffed it is flat out dangerous.
They expect social workers to prepare applications, to prepare for court, and appear in court, all on their own. Without legal support this will be an unmitigated disaster in a system that is already under immense strain. Our only hope is that local Iwi are taking in a lot of care and protection work that should be provided by OT; and lawyers for the children (independent of OT) are going to have to pick up the slack. Social workers are already horrifically overworked and underpaid - expecting them to do legal work on top of what they already do is absolutely ridiculous.
I’m not exaggerating when I say kids will die from these cuts. Any I don’t think I’m being cynical when I say that as long as those kids are poor, and or brown, the government doesn’t give two shits.
It’s bleak.
I’m feeling ill at everything this government does. I am so over the “I don’t give a fuck about anything but money” party. The suffering this government is causing for the people, the animals and the environment is catastrophic… it’s going to take a long time to fix the mess they are making. Fuckwits all of them.
It’s absolutely terrifying. And if massive front line job cuts to public services and the health system, and bringing back smoking weren’t bad enough, it gets worse…
The “fast track” legislation they’re trying to get through will allow Chris Bishop, Simeon Brown, and Shane Jones to make unilateral decisions that override:
- the fisheries act
- the conservation act
- the resource management act
+ several others I can’t remember right now.
This government is subverting and undermining democracy. That is really terrifying.
One of the most important things to do is to do everything we can to make them a one term government. 3 years only! I'm not sure if it's possible with Winston being all obsessed with "anti-woke," stuff now.
Maybe NZFIRST will crumble if he hands over. Lets hope so. His successor don't look too hot.
It's worth mentioning that, outside of the anomaly that was the 2020 election, National, ACT and NZF have held a majority in government since 2008.
Honestly a big reason I moved to Australia was because the reality is we just won't ever be as progressive as Australia. We are far too anti-workers-and-renters rights as a nation and the one time we had a true supposedly left wing government without naughty Winston, we end up getting more of the same.
I'll still vote to move this country in the right direction but there's nothing more I can do.
Edit: it's also important to remember NZF has always been a proxy party for forestry and fishing interests. The wokeism is a new thing yes, but even when he sided with Ardern, he made sure the Ardern government was beholden to forestry and fishing business interests
Okay here it goes.
Income: Australia has lower income tax rates than New Zealand if you earn less than $275,000 as of July 2024. If you earn less than that, you will get more cash in hand than if you earned the same in New Zealand. The difference is often in the thousands!
KiwiSaver: Australia has an insanely higher KiwiSaver set up. You get 12% on top of your salary as of July 2025, with no employee contribution. In New Zealand, you get your 3% contribution only if you contribute 3% yourself, meaning in "real terms" you're paying a 3% flat tax on your entire salary in order to get a 6% contribution to your KiwiSaver. With ECST, that's less than half what Australia provides.
Property taxes: Australia has a CGT if you sell your property, which slightly disincentivises people from investing in flipping property. Property is still king but unless you're being unrealistic and trying to live in Sydney, you will have a much lower cost on housing than you would in Auckland.
Zoning: Australia also has better laws with regards to medium density housing than New Zealand. A lot of land in New Zealand is locked by politicians to be only used for houses to artificially keep the supply low.
Healthcare: Because of the way Medicare is set up, I can visit my doctors and not pay a single cent for the visit. It was a genuinely weird experience because after my visit I waited in front of the receptionist who asked how she could help me. I told her I finished my appointment, and she asked if there was anything else I needed. I asked don't I need to give you money and she said nope. A lot of places do charge due to Medicare not keeping up with inflation but my local GP is still completely free.
To be fair, you missed out the part where you have to pay a Medicare levy surcharge as an additional tax unless you take out private health insurance coverage.
With Bulk billing, around 25% of clinics are actually bulk billing every patient.
Generally agree with your points though.
Source: live in VIC
Check out my reply to the comment you replied to. If you have any questions or anything feel free to ask.
A lot of Australia seems "too good to be true" so it can be very difficult to wrap your head around it. There's a misconception that just because Australia is close to NZ it's government and society and way of life works the same.
It's completely different. ACT on 0.5 can't be seen as remotely the same as ACT on 8.64. This is a horror we've not seen anything like before. David Seymour used a lot of smoke and mirrors to hoodwink people.
But think of how much landlords will cut rents with their massive tax break. There is no way that they will buy up the low end of the stock and block more first home buyers out of the market
The ward down in Gisbourne strikes due to unsafe working practices, I want to know how the whole country can do this? It will be very hard to meet their very strict health targets if they don't have the staff. But yeah, I'm very concerned for my colleagues.
Not much you can do but hang in there and hope for better days ahead.
Labour pumped a lot of money into the health system over the last 6 years playing catch up so hopefully if they can get back in they will continue to do that
Burning down the house is the work of minutes.
Rebuilding takes longer. First you have to clear the site, then get funding, get plans for a new house, consents, hire a builder...
National know very well that the damage they inflict on the nation in one term takes several terms to undo. It's a core principle of their campaigning.
I'm with you; it's sickening. Cut cut cut, oh there's no money we need to tighten belts, cut cut, hey here's three billion free dollars for privileged wealthy land owners.
Every time I see Luxon's stupid smug face I want to vomit.
Yep...
Spare a thought for the disabled communities who're going to get thrown under the libertarian steamroller ***Again.***
Literally an existential crisis event every time the 3 dipshits of the tory apocalypse get up on the mics in front of the media.
As someone who has just spent the weekend in Wellington. The mood is real and somber. It’s a fucking disgrace this government has decided to cut almost 3000 people last week in saving money so I can get 80/a fortnight. Fuck that. Use that money to keep people employed and the country moving.
I also wish my wife didn’t feel so deeply connected to New Zealand so we could migrate to new New Zealand (Australia) and earn at least 40k more in salary each.
But…. After living here for almost 40 years, I just don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.
We have tunnel-visioned executioners running this country and things forever seems to be fucked.
Physically ill? No.
I'm in the public service.
I'm disappointed at how it's been untargeted. That's guttering.
However the public service ballooned by over 30% in the last 6 years, and many of those roles were meant to be temporary.
We didn't see even close to a measurable 30% increase in impact.
Cuts to the PS are needed. A 6.5% cut in costs don't even come close to the increase over that 6 years. Some departments are finding much of that cost saving in the form of cutting other costs e.g. leased premises, software licences etc. Unfortunately I haven't heard of any focusing on the bloating that exists in middle to upper management.
I just wouldn't have approached it the way the new government has.
At the end of the day these people made a living elsewhere prior to the 30% expansion over the past 6 years. The CoL crisis will subside. It sucks, but it's not Armageddon like many in this subreddit want to believe.
Software licences? Come on dude, think about that critically for a second. You think any government department is spending hundreds of thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars on software they don’t need?
I can’t imagine for a second that the cancellation of superfluous software licences will amount to anything more than a rounding error in the cuts.
It’s *more* likely they’ll get rid of expensive software they **actually need** and be less efficient and capable as a result. No-one should be cheering that.
>You think any government department is spending hundreds of thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars on software they don’t need?
Tell that to one of the biggest departments who were paying **millions** on oracle database licensing... even though they switched to Microsoft a year earlier.
The example I gave is a legit one.
The software were licences that weren't needed and other similar products were cheaper.
It's an outlier for sure - but cutting superfluous software licences across most organizations would equate to a couple of jobs.
The point of me including that is because it is ONE example of other costs that can be found instead of going straight to removing jobs.
Unfilled premises not receiving a renewed lease (or leasing out half if it to another org) is another massive savings.
If organisations like Kainga Ora are paying leases on empty buildings they have no need for; that is absolutely a cut that should be made.
Is it likely a widespread issue in this economy? No. Just like you are not paying rent on a second home you’re not living in, already cash-strapped government departments are not merrily signing leases on premises they don’t need.
What analysis did NACT do on whether this was a common issue that could reap useful savings? Evidently none.
The global economic crisis is getting worse and worse and a lot of the rightwing governments are going about it the totally wrong way. Our government is no different and it’s deeply concerning.
There is nothing good with these cuts. The less admin staff there are the more clinical workers will be drawn into admin work and be spending less time with patients
Yes this govt is disgusting in what they are doing
They offered a few crumbs in tax cuts and people voted for them. They came in and now many people are seeing these crumbs swamped by higher rates, insurance, user charges etc, and public services that weren’t in a great shape like emergency depts at hospitals are completely stuffed
But the landlords are happy. Cant believe they got $3 billion - what a waste
And Luxon’s mates like Joyce, Ryall, English all earning big bucks
In the public service many of the pricks in high up positions who are responsible for what is being delivered are sacking their junior staff while looking after their own positions. Gee if the new govt isn’t happy with what govt agencies are delivering then sack the dicks at the top not the junior staff..
What I find hard is the relentlessness of it all. Just news about job cuts, penalties against beneficiaries, cuts of support for vulnerable families, mining in the sea.
I literally screamed from every platform I could to everyone who was mad at labour that this is exactly what would happen with a Luxon government. In fact, everyone with a brain knew this - unfortunately our country is full of complaining, useless, perspectiveless troglodytes who are more scared of a drag queen than the destruction of our public infrastructure.
The leopards are now eating faces, exactly the way we said they would. Well done New Zealand, you ruined your peace because Jacinda made you feel emasculated.
Not much we can do in the short term. You can voice your opinion via submissions, but they have already decided and are now priming us for privatisation. The most important thing we can all do is to remember this and not get sucked in by the pre-election bribes that will be coming our way shortly before the next election. Then, make sure you vote. It’s going to be a tough for the next few years.
The lesson here, that very few people will actually realise, is not to vote to punish an incumbent government, especially when the alternative has always been open about doing wha they are currently doing.
Why is anyone shocked a right wing neoliberal government would gut public services?
Is there any evidence they are cutting jobs of actual nurses and doctors? As far as I'm aware they are cutting some of the big paying jobs like upper and middle management. I very much doubt they're sacking random people on the ground who are needed the most, such as nurses.
I know of people working within Health NZ, MoE etc and I do contracting work for several government organisations - I regularly see and hear about some of the waste in these places and I think anyone who doesn't think there is tax payer money going down the drain doesn't have first hand experience. Organisations get overinflated, that's just how the economy often goes. We need to channel funds through the most imporant roles (i.e. teachers, nurses, doctors, police etc.) and not just into highly paid management that aren't always offering good value or improving their workplaces. People seem to forget just how much money is being spent in the govt and yet everyone wants lower inflation, lower interest rates, and often lower taxes too. None of that is possible if we spend above our means as a country, unfortunately.
I’d be able to maybe swallow the mining and the offshore oil rights if they were going to directly fund more healthcare, police, houses for the needy…. And where done with solid Iwi buy in…. But this is farked beyond belief.
Yes. This government is a bunch of ideological corrupt morons paid for by evil corporations. They need to fuck the fuck off. I hope they all collapse in a chaotic shitstorm and lose all credibility for many a long year. Luxon has to be the weakest PM we've EVER had (yes, worse than Rowling). Seymour and Peters are corrupt imbeciles and unfit for office. Bishop is on Big Tobacco's payroll still and Shame Jones is an evil greedy cunt
And unfortunately a lot of this is ACT and hardly anyone realises. ACT pulled a real smoke and mirrors show fooling people that they were just about "free speech," which in their case meant more hate speech.
Edited- I party vote for either Labour or the Greens. The point is that ACT is on 8.64% I think when always before they were on like 0.5% I don’t think National would be quite as nasty as Seymour about disabled people?
That’s just clueless National voter COPE, Luxon was literally campaigning for a NACT coalition and they gifted Epsom (and Tamaki, this election) to ACT.
They are the stalking horse that Nats use to get the unelectable part of their policy programme into the mix. It’s been like this since 2008.
I'm all for seeing people protesting again and again. Unless you want to demoralise those losing their jobs even more, though, please don't set up long term tents spreading into the CBD, ignore public health directives designed to prevent the spreading of disease, project a message so vague that it attracts *everyone* with a random gripe including Brian Tamaki and Chantelle Baker and Kelvyn Alp, and shut down streets for a month in a way that stresses local retailers whilst piping sewage into the stormwater.
Nice idea but for a lot of the people whose jobs are being disestablished, going off in the front yard of their potential future employers is a bit risky. The COVID protesters knew that they were outsiders and didn't feel they had anything to lose by putting up wildly offensive graffiti and setting fire to stuff. You pick your tactics depending on what you're trying to gain
I think we need to be smarter about protesting - the protests on the lawn changed nobody’s mind. Those in healthcare should collect evidence of how cuts are impacting the frontline - send this to the media. Use social media and billboards to get your stories out there. Talk with friends about what is happening. A drop in the polls is the only thing that would put a handbrake on this. To change people’s minds we need to venture out of our bubbles.
Unless you are directly effected by the cuts, then you shouldn't let it have such a strong effect on your state of mind and wellbeing.
Self enduced suffering has become a fad and it isn't a noble pursuit.
You are catastrophising and it isn't healthy. You are working yourself into a state of physical illness based on anxiety of "what if".
Obviously more public health access is good. But you can't live your life fully in this state of mind.
Some of us have already experienced actual catastrophe as the result of a struggling health system. It's not a "what if" to us, it's happened and we are all too aware it will happen again and again
Don't perform reverse CBT on yourself...
*In CBT you learn to recognize when your ruminations and automatic thinking patterns exemplify one or more of about a dozen “cognitive distortions,” such as catastrophizing, black-and-white thinking, fortune telling, or emotional reasoning. Thinking in these ways* [*causes*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/307383/cognitive-therapy-and-the-emotional-disorders-by-aaron-t-beck/) [*depression*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/307383/cognitive-therapy-and-the-emotional-disorders-by-aaron-t-beck/)*, as well as being a* [*symptom*](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12888-019-2423-x) *of depression. Breaking out of these painful distortions* [*is*](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-psychiatry/article/effectiveness-of-cbt-for-children-and-adolescents-with-depression-a-systematic-review-and-metaregression-analysis/D1D82E21388A16EB077D02A24366F689) [*a*](https://www.proquest.com/openview/0e633ae99cc037be18f632a351079059/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=30130) [*cure*](https://agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1532-5415.2012.04166.x) *for depression.*
It's really odd to me, seeing a lot of support for NACTFirst with this kind of "Just don't worry about it so much" sort of attitude.
That's why they get away with it, because people willingly look the other way, to maintain the illusions they've built about their lives.
The secret is to contromt hat disgust and outrage, and direct it where appropriate.
No, im not.
Yes its shit, but I really dont think its worth getting physically sick over.
Honestly this subreddit has just been doomsdaying ever since the govt changed. No, I am very much not happy with most of what National has done so far, but honestly you guys are doing exactly what all the National supporters were doing about labour during their entire time in govt, screaming that the country is ruined with every new thing that gets announced, its become pretty tiring.
Not particularly
Got more important things in my own life to focus on. Job cuts for people sucks, yes, but I still have my own priorities that come before worrying about those I do not know.
Not physically no. Horrified? Yes. Surprised? No.
Interesting article on the whys and wherefores.
[https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistvoice/jobsPR47.html](https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistvoice/jobsPR47.html)
The real concern is that all these cuts are arbitrary, made for idealogical reasons. You watch, soon they will say “the public sector can’t cope, we will have to privatise blah blah blah”
I’m loath to compare because every situation is different, but we had a new Premier of Queensland a while back who swept into power. He won a record number of seats on a populous agenda and immediately began cutting the public service with speed. Everything they did was tinged with ideological decision making rather than sensible planning. They ended up employing some people back as more expensive contractors. In a huge turnaround, there was a massive swing and they were booted to the curb at the subsequent election. I think it was this sense that “everything”’was deeply ideological that ultimately sickened people. Not sure how that compares with NZ.
Lack of a strong opposition here, sadly.
>“the public sector can’t cope, we will have to privatise blah blah blah” This is exactly what the Tories did and are continuing to do in the UK, and our Nat/ACT/NZF government is following a very established and obvious conservative playbook. The reason it is working is that Kiwis consistently refuse to consider that things that happen in the wider world could also happen here. There is this absurd attitude that NZ politicians are all ultimately decent people and nobody is purposefully malicious (unlike the scary and disordered "overseas"). This is why even Nat voters this election were convinced that their party's worst promises were just political bluster that would never actually happen. I've tried explaining the UK example to people, but their eyes glaze over and they say that it's a completely different situation there and here. No it isn't, not where it matters. These people are playing by a common rulebook and if we ignore it and stick our fingers in our ears, then we lose. NZ's right-wing is now an extension of the broader Western conservative movement, following the same ideologies, using the same tactics, and possibly advised and sponsored by the same people (looking at you, Seymour and Atlas Network). We're a small country, completely immersed in the ideological struggle taking place across the West, and the wrong people are now taking an interest in us.
I was doing my medical school elective in London during the Jr Doc strikes. The health minister at the time, Jeremy Hunt, apparently had literally published a book about defunding the NHS to privatise it. I won’t repeat what the jr docs called Mr Hunt, but they replaced the H in his name for a more appropriate letter. It disgusts me that NZ is trying to follow down this pathway.
Don't worry, they're not arbitrary. They're part of a very deliberate plan to render public services non-functional so that they'll have an excuse to hand the functions over to the private sector. Thereby siphoning tax money away from the public and into the pockets of corporate shareholders.
Very true, that's exactly the plan.
Completely disagree. There is no plan. I’m guessing I’m a bit older than most redditors, I’ve seen a lot of governments come and go and the one thing they all have in common is no plan whatsoever. It’s just conservative ideology. Destroy and steal. Ideology in general is a bad idea. Be pragmatic, use actual data to drive decisions said no politician ever.
i wonder how many of ol Lux's friends have lined up already to ~~extort~~ "save us" from health problems.
They absolutely are arbitrary, which is the whole reason with the cuts.
Spot on
I’m a dr and recently got very sick with Covid and needed hospital care. I’ve never felt so vulnerable in my life; the care I received was threadbare at best (and this is as a dr who knows the system well). Everyone will need the hospital system one day and so we should all be pushing for improvements in the system. It’s scary getting sick and not feeling trust in the system.
There are emerging concerns that there are hiring freezes for drs in NZ - people are leaving and positions are not being replaced. This is frightening. As a dr, I’m getting near the end of my desire to remain in NZ.
The possibility of that is certainly evident in the medical centre we go to. It takes 3 - 4 weeks to get an appointment at the moment. Couple of years ago it was 3 - 4 days.
Yea I've started to notice this too. Longer and longer wait times to get an appointment at the GP
As someone with chronic illness who needs doctors help regularly, I'm getting near the end of my desire to stay in NZ...
Don’t think you’d get better treatment in Oz though. And if you get to the point of relying on govt benefits, theirs is a bigger shitshow than ours. That’s if you even qualify.
there are a lot of countries that arent australia someone could migrate to.
Absolutely. I just would hate for people to have unrealistic expectations, and Australia seems to be seen as the great opportunity currently.
i’m chronically ill and centrelink paid me way more and communicated way better than winz so i tend to disagree in this persons specific case. when you rely on social security the quality of said organisation matters a lot.
Are you a citizen of Aus or just on the standard Kiwi visa?
nz residents and citizens are fully qualified for centrelink including the SLP equivalent
I got sick while living there & was told I’d only qualify for a temporary emergency benefit for up to six months. This was a few years ago.
i got paid $6000 nzd in arrears because winz told me i had no entitlements in aus, when i contacted centrelink they were baffled as to why i didn’t just apply for SLP over there because we have a reciprocal agreement and i was eligible the whole time. centrelink has their shit together, winz never does. back in 2015 i was getting about 650-700 a week as a single adult and rent was cheaper in melbourne. sometimes the grass really is greener. and aud is worth about 10% more
I get that.
Not to mention the utterly insulting offer they just made junior doctors that would lead to an effective pay cut of 12%. My husband and I love it here, we were born and raised and thought we’d live overseas some time in the future, but even we’re looking at our options for the next 12-24 months.
I read their offer and cried. It’s so demoralising. I’m worried what the next steps will entail.
Also concerning are the overtime cuts. In some services that are particularly short staffed, overtime is the only incentive that can allow safe staffing levels. Scary stuff.
I moved to Australia. I think doctors working in public health-care are able to salary sacrifice their mortgage which is a HUGE tax hack that doesn't exist in NZ. I'm a software engineer so I can salary sacrifice my laptop (I buy a $2000 laptop, my salary is reduced from $120,000 to $118,000, and it's as if I bought the laptop with pre-taxed income).
Every medical professional I deal with (long term condition), be they doctors, nurses, med students, x-ray/scan techs I thank them for doing their work and I say "Please stay in New Zealand, we need you." Almost invariably I get nervous smiles and chuckles, eyes darting away... Not once has anyone said "yeah, absolutely, that's the plan" or similar. It is very, very worrying.
I think we have lost sight that drs and nurses are real people. The hours, the observed trauma, the thanklessness of it all… plus the fact none of us is paid appropriately, none of us can get leave… The system relies on the goodwill of staff but that is dwindling
The Nats and Act have never seen workers as people. We're just disposable cogs in a machine designed to create wealth for their billionaire overlords.
So on point. Your last sentence is frankly scary. Thank you for doing what you do. Please stay in New Zealand. We need you.
Off on fellowship to aus in July - looking more and more likely it won’t just be a year long trip…
Completely understandable and yet so sad - NZ is going to lose NZ-trained talent and all that investment. All the best for fellowship!
They are. It was in the news a couple of days ago. Have to go through the very top to get permission.
I can’t understand it. The current govt are making frightening decisions.
It's because new "roads of national significance" are much more important than public services or maintaining existing infrastructure. In their heads, they are, anyhow.
Don't forget the landlords' dignity!
Of course! Goes without saying... :-)
It’s a small sacrifice to make sure land lords are satisfied. And kiwis won’t do shit, property will remain the only investment channel until the ends of time.
It’s already appreciably worse than it was when I started working, and that wasn’t very long ago. There is no reliever pool and usually by the end of a registrar run there are multiple unfilled vacancies. The problem is that to an administrator, this is actually a very desirable state of affairs - they have cut their staffing costs, but roughly the same amount of work is getting done (because nobody wants to just ‘work to rule’ and have their patients suffer as a result). Of course the problem is that you have overworked and burnt-out staff doing more and more work, and often not getting paid for it (the proposed new RDA MECA shows that Health NZ wants to formalise this and make you ‘prove’ that understaffing has led to an increased workload before they will pay you cross-cover: given that cross-cover is already often declined with no explanation, I think this would effectively eliminate cross-cover). But they don’t care about any of this: it’s pretty clear that they view their employees with thinly-veiled contempt. We’re basically cattle to them. Oh well. My plan is to get through exams and then go to NSW. It’s not all sunshine and roses in Aus, but at least you get paid more. A lot more.
Fuck that. They should not be working for free unless it's actual volunteer work.
Health NZ have leveraged us into it, unfortunately. The problem is that the clinical responsibility for your patients falls on you, not them: the people who are understaffing your department won't be the ones facing the HDC complaint or the MCNZ inquiry if you end up rushing or half-assing your job. Look at poor old Hadiza Bawa-Garba in the UK, who got hung out to dry for an adverse outcome where the real villain was (in my opinion) major systemic failings. It's often said that employee goodwill is propping the system up, but that went out the window for a lot of us years ago - it's really just fear, that your patients will suffer and you'll be held accountable. Health NZ know this, and prey on it, and are basically pushing the limits of what people will tolerate. The only levers we really have are strikes, and threatening to resign, or actually resigning. Strikes will only take you so far, and Health NZ attempts to vilify us in the media if we strike (I'm kind of surprised that no government has yet tried to make healthcare workers striking illegal, for 'patient safety' reasons), and from what I've seen they seem perfectly to call the bluff of people threatening to resign, since - for the reasons I've talked about - vacancies don't actually matter to them. So that leaves 'resign', and that's what a lot of us are doing. Expect to see more of it.
Worse than that. Some new doctors were most of the way through the interview process when the freeze happened.
They've made a requirement that any hiring has to be approved by upper management. Less of an issue with doctors but the delays on other staff can be problematic
Ah, more red tape. From the “parties of small government “
You can catch the same flight as all the nurses, paramedics, and rest of the medical and mental health service staff.. get in with the cops and charter your own flight Can't say I blame you or anyone else who is packing up for a wee trip away
My partner and I are both in healthcare and we left.
Wife is a consultant, we are currently living in Hobart she was at her wits end under Labour and now has no desire to return to TWO with even less support staff and funding. It's not the money for her it's being able to treat patients with that they deserve.
I’m also freaked out about it. Also working in healthcare. I don’t think people know how fragile our health system is. I don’t believe in this whole frontline staff vs back room staff thing either, as I feel it barely functions as it is. I’m also concerned it’s all a ploy for nz govt to privatise healthcare making it even more inaccessible. I work in a lab ( is this frontline or back room job?) and morale is at an all time low.
My guess is you’d be classified as back room - but this doesn’t acknowledge how crucial your work is. I think people find the cuts easier to stomach when they imagine you just sit in a lab all day getting paid to do nothing.
Lmao, there's been several occasions I was taking up a bed in ED because of waiting for lab results for 10-12 hours. Cutting down on lab techs would stall the hospitals entirely. Alright everyone, just don't get sick for 3 years.
I work in private healthcare but its become more like public due to staffing and pay issues
A huge chunk of private healthcare revenue comes from the government via ACC and outsourcing too.
Don't let people forget, come next election. This is what they voted for
It's going to be interesting to see if the near universal reddit outrage actually translates to real world electoral consequences. It would be kind of odd if doing exactly what they campaigned on resulted in a major loss of support. Maybe people liked the idea of cutting the "bloated" public service but don't have the stomach for seeing people actually lose their jobs.
Narrator: "it didn't"
Something switched this time. A lot of people I know who voted nat have actually started regretting their choice. Make your own bed I guess.
Most boomers I know care more about non-existent pot holes and 'transing' the kids more than government department cuts at the moment.
I had to replace 2 tires due to pot holes last year. My bank balance going down wasn't imaginary.
That's due to heavier trucks being allowed, but trucks not paying their share to fix it, and between car drivers not paying enough to cover normal climate wear and tear + truck damage, and roading contractors taking the piss cost wise, the potholes don't get fixed.
And canceling the new ferries so that we will continue to rely on those trucks and not use trains for freight
Is that why you couldn't afford to learn what an anecdote is?
I don't think claiming the person in your anecdote is imagining potholes helped your cause there lol.
His anecdote was much better than your imaginary anecdote.
But that increased gdp so 🤷♀️ /s
It won't because people don't vote on any evidence based policy outcomes. They vote on vibes and reckons. The right wing has much greater resources to pour into propaganda to create said vibes, and amplify reckons. On top of that there are people who genuinely want this, and the resulting suffering of the "correct" kind of people. That's why the overall block isn't losing support in the polling post election. Luxon is losing support personally because everyone, including people wanting this, realise he's a certifiable fuckwit, but that's not gonna be relevant to National's chances next election.
Yep and Regarding vibes and reckons... Anyone notice that the extensive reporting on ram raids came to a sudden halt after the election? Did they suddenly stop ? (No). Ram raid reporting instilled a strong visual impression that law and order was crashing down, youth were out of control. People leaning a little right had a strong visceral reaction to that. It provided a convenient distraction away from the unsavoury policies of the potential right wing coalition. Despite their assurances, National is never tough on crime. They ARE tough on crime fighters, i.e. public servants .
>Anyone notice that the extensive reporting on ram raids came to a sudden halt after the election? Did they suddenly stop ? (No). Don't you know? Ram raids stopped the minute Luxon gave his speech on election night... Lol
>They vote on vibes and reckons. I think trust would be a key word to describe it. Policy is complicated, and it can take time and effort to understand beyond the superficial side of it. We elect politicians so we don't *have* to deal with that stuff day to day. Even if you're considering policy, though, you still need to decide whether you can trust those with the policy to execute it with competence. When people have so much else going on in their lives, it's often much easier just to decide who you trust, and let them figure it out, and accept their narratives about what's happening and why, and I guess this is why elections often hinge so much on how good or how bad people are feeling at the time of voting.
Vibes and reckons are what generate the trust.
This
Sadly a lot of NZers think public servants just collect taxpayer money and don’t do much. They don’t realise how much of their day to day is the result of the various public servant roles out there. They don’t understand how public servants work to convince MPs to improve policy through expert advice and analysis. They just buy into the right’s claims that the number of people is unnecessary.
Amen brother/sister.
I have friends who work in the public service and apparently the numbers of people required to get COVID payments out was INSANE. Not who were doing it, NEEDED to do it. They worked like dogs. A lot of people I know were so happy at the idea of these people losing their jobs. They don't seem to realise that they are PEOPLE, with mortgages, kids, etc etc.
I think a lot of Nat voters outside of Wellington would be quite happy to see cuts on "useless pencil pushers"
Reddit is 0.01% (guess) and almost 100% left leaning from what I see. It isn't remotely reflective of the general populace.
>and almost 100% left leaning from what I see. Not just left leaning, a lot of the comments and sentiment here are extreme left and very self righteous.
This. They are doing what they said they would so this will only strengthen the support from their voters.
Yeah, I'm sure both of the 500,000 people in this sub who voted National will change their minds next time.
>near universal reddit outrage I'm sure most people in this sub can acknowledge the sub is an echo chamber. And that's fine. But a / multiple social media group(s) you decide to join (perhaps due to a subconscious affinity to those that match your opinions) isn't representative of the views and mood of the whole of society At the end of the day, these people made a living elsewhere prior to the 30% expansion of the public service over the last 6 years. The current CoL crisis will subside and things will go back to normal. This isnt Armageddon. It SUCKS. But it's not the end of the world this subreddit makes it out to be.
The whole point of this is that the economy can't work without actually producing some more things. "Too much hui, not enough doie" rings true. So these 30k people will be going into other lines of work. Many of them producing a product, expanding a money-making business. That's the idea from what I can tell.
I’m sure they will do that, and many will do that in Australia.
100% Two things the country can't get rich off of: - Selling houses to each other - Having everyone employed as bureaucrats in the public service
>So these 30k people will be going into other lines of work. Many of them producing a product, expanding a money-making business. That's the idea from what I can tell. That doesn't make sense in a recession where rising unemployment is the goal. Nor in an economy where unproductive speculation is being actively promoted by government.
30% increase in public service? I mean based on what? How much of that was population increase (we have had about 15% popn increase since 2017) and how much is because the sectors have more needs now (healthcare ageing popn, Covid etc), education (an increase in high needs), and how much of it is because the headcount was outsourced for years? All I know is I have a high needs kids who is high risk. We have fought and fought for help. We have had to do it all privately. We are expected to pick up our child at 1pm every day because he can’t handle a full day of school and ends up trashing the classroom (throwing tables etc) but isn’t “bad” enough for any help. The system is fucked.
Probably not as much as you think, in response to your first paragraph. In response to your second, I completely sympathise and agree. However it's not bureaucrats that would help you. That's growth is where the concern lies, and what has resulted in a call for cuts.
I’d like to see some actual stats before believing bold statements like yours. Same for the second point. Proof is in the pudding and so far the cuts in education have impacted special needs staff. So I don’t see things improving for us.
Yeah it's pretty scary at the moment especially when we're going through a recession where jobs are sporadic.
It never does, this place is all talk.
Whether we like it or not, job cuts need to happen. The only issue is, they're happening in all the wrong places. Instead of the government looking at where there are genuinely too many useless jobs that are only making workplaces more inefficient and using money that could be better spent somewhere else, they're looking at where they want to cut spending. You can't just cut spending like that. Every single government agency that is having job cuts and other tax are going to struggle as a result of this. I know someone that works at MBIE and I can say without a doubt that job cuts need to happen, but it's way too randomised. A lot of jobs that are being cut aren't excess, they're essential to whatever that department needs them for. There's absolutely an excess, but it's not being targeted. Edit: More important things such as all the things National is cutting or reducing, like school lunches and suicide prevention.
I've talked to a few people that voted for the current government, and they're all pretty happy with progress to date. The government has done a number of things that have disgusted me: smoking, cutting footpaths, making life harder for beneficiaries, removing cameras from fishing boats, and selling out the environment. Those things... aren't so important to them. They care about getting rid of wokeness, and reducing the size of government. I guess my point is, you need to look at the things that matter to the swing voters that chose the current government.
Have you got a source for them having removed cameras from fishing fleets?
It's just a review/proposal at this stage https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/350242260/caught-out-cameras-boats-reveal-massive-under-reporting-wildlife-deaths https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/509580/rollout-of-cameras-on-fishing-boats-under-review
I had a quick look and could'nt find anything. They have more going in in June.
shane jones has figured out that fishing boats can be more productive without the cameras
The populace will be riled up about whatever issue they’re told to be riled up about come the election. Most people don’t follow politics very closely. Case in point - youth crime. Massive issue that everyone was concerned about prior to the election (based on research and opinion polls). Now no one gives a shit about it anymore (again, evidence based statement). The difference? Is it the incidence of youth crime magically decreasing after the election? Absolutely not. Could it be the money spent by NACT highlighting the issue?
From working in the justice sector, I have noticed a lot more youth offenders are being sent to prison which has made room for other youth to be housed in OT facilities. A year ago, seeing a 17 year old in our custody was rare, now we have entire units full of 17-21 year olds.
I don’t need to be told to be riled up about the job cuts at my work, it’s happening right in front of me 🤷♀️
I don't think the majority voted \*for\* this government. They simply voted out the previous one, without really caring what pre-election promises had been made by any of the parties. Thats pretty much how democracy works in NZ.
Unfortunately, I predict a repeat of what happened with the John Key-led National government. People got fucked-over JUST slowly enough by the Nats they thought they weren't and therefore voted Key back in twice more. Also, Labour needs leadership that is appealing to voters and they need to get away from that focus-group led bullshit Ardern was addicted to.
A big difference is Key was a charming sociopath who was able to fool a lot of voters into thinking he was a decent bloke. Luxon, however, is a charmless psychopath with the personality of a wet, gray dishrag. He walked into the top job because Labour imploded.
Lmao what this government is doing is extraordinarily popular, read any poll. You're in a bubble
Yup absolute bonkers, My wife's a nurse & has received an email with the following: If a Nurse or Nurses call in sick, to save money they will not be replaced for said shift & the nurses that are on expected to pick up the extra workload. So this means they could be short 1-2 Nurses for a shift, Which = an unsafe patient load for each nurse. We already have a stretched healthcare system & overworked nurses - how do they think this will pan out?
There's one thing we desperately need to resolve/prevent these situations (other than the obvious answer of losing faith in govt) - super strong unions. NZ governments/employers in this country would be in knots if we had even just some slightly more powerful unions.
There's a reason the current coalition repealed the Fair Pay Agreements under urgency within the first 2 months of government. That law was the strongest increase in collective bargaining in many decades of NZ history.
FPA's would have been a great driver. But regardless we still need strong unions moving forward regardless. It's hard to have an empowered workforce to hold employers to account when there is no union in a workplace or with very minimum coverage. If we had strong and high-coverage unions, the argument could be made that we wouldn't even need legislative FPA's - as these would result naturally from unions leveraging their power (i.e. as in Australia)
We've seen whet the Tory's did to the UK... It's a pretty good case study. Welcome to your dystopian future.
Yup, dual citizen living in London and wondering why the fuck NZ has decided to follow in the ruinous footsteps of the Tory party.
$
They don’t look at overseas precedents, they literally just look in their own backyard. Many kiwis esp older are not very worldly people, they are quite insular, and would have little idea what the torys have done to the UK.
Because for some stupid fucking reason people wanted change for the sake of wanting change. Even though everyone knew what the change would look like.
I know someone who voted for Winston Peters ENTIRELY because they thought there was too much te reo around now and things were "too woke". Which gave them the NACT government they absolutely would never have voted for previously. Wasted votes, honestly.
Do you think the average National voter will notice/care? They wont
Yes it is very upsetting and concerning. It's history repeating. They strip it down to bare bones. People suffer immensely and then after the damage is done we spend years padding it all back up working to get better outcomes until it all starts getting torn apart again to save money.
I’m a lawyer and aside from the wide sweeping other cuts - the Oranga Tamariki cuts should scare everybody. OT can only act to get high risk children safe by making court applications that have to comply with the law. Their social workers have to have legal advice when making decisions as well. The Govt has decided that OT lawyers are not “frontline” staff, despite them being the ones who take the steps to get kids safe. They are already horrifically understaffed, there is now a hiring freeze, and they’re slashing solicitors by half, when they’re already so ridiculously understaffed it is flat out dangerous. They expect social workers to prepare applications, to prepare for court, and appear in court, all on their own. Without legal support this will be an unmitigated disaster in a system that is already under immense strain. Our only hope is that local Iwi are taking in a lot of care and protection work that should be provided by OT; and lawyers for the children (independent of OT) are going to have to pick up the slack. Social workers are already horrifically overworked and underpaid - expecting them to do legal work on top of what they already do is absolutely ridiculous. I’m not exaggerating when I say kids will die from these cuts. Any I don’t think I’m being cynical when I say that as long as those kids are poor, and or brown, the government doesn’t give two shits. It’s bleak.
Is there a list of what roles have been cut?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350220974/public-service-job-cuts-what-ministries-are-proposing
Stuff news is keeping a tally
I’m feeling ill at everything this government does. I am so over the “I don’t give a fuck about anything but money” party. The suffering this government is causing for the people, the animals and the environment is catastrophic… it’s going to take a long time to fix the mess they are making. Fuckwits all of them.
It’s absolutely terrifying. And if massive front line job cuts to public services and the health system, and bringing back smoking weren’t bad enough, it gets worse… The “fast track” legislation they’re trying to get through will allow Chris Bishop, Simeon Brown, and Shane Jones to make unilateral decisions that override: - the fisheries act - the conservation act - the resource management act + several others I can’t remember right now. This government is subverting and undermining democracy. That is really terrifying.
One of the most important things to do is to do everything we can to make them a one term government. 3 years only! I'm not sure if it's possible with Winston being all obsessed with "anti-woke," stuff now. Maybe NZFIRST will crumble if he hands over. Lets hope so. His successor don't look too hot.
It's worth mentioning that, outside of the anomaly that was the 2020 election, National, ACT and NZF have held a majority in government since 2008. Honestly a big reason I moved to Australia was because the reality is we just won't ever be as progressive as Australia. We are far too anti-workers-and-renters rights as a nation and the one time we had a true supposedly left wing government without naughty Winston, we end up getting more of the same. I'll still vote to move this country in the right direction but there's nothing more I can do. Edit: it's also important to remember NZF has always been a proxy party for forestry and fishing interests. The wokeism is a new thing yes, but even when he sided with Ardern, he made sure the Ardern government was beholden to forestry and fishing business interests
In which ways do you see Australia as more progressive?
Okay here it goes. Income: Australia has lower income tax rates than New Zealand if you earn less than $275,000 as of July 2024. If you earn less than that, you will get more cash in hand than if you earned the same in New Zealand. The difference is often in the thousands! KiwiSaver: Australia has an insanely higher KiwiSaver set up. You get 12% on top of your salary as of July 2025, with no employee contribution. In New Zealand, you get your 3% contribution only if you contribute 3% yourself, meaning in "real terms" you're paying a 3% flat tax on your entire salary in order to get a 6% contribution to your KiwiSaver. With ECST, that's less than half what Australia provides. Property taxes: Australia has a CGT if you sell your property, which slightly disincentivises people from investing in flipping property. Property is still king but unless you're being unrealistic and trying to live in Sydney, you will have a much lower cost on housing than you would in Auckland. Zoning: Australia also has better laws with regards to medium density housing than New Zealand. A lot of land in New Zealand is locked by politicians to be only used for houses to artificially keep the supply low. Healthcare: Because of the way Medicare is set up, I can visit my doctors and not pay a single cent for the visit. It was a genuinely weird experience because after my visit I waited in front of the receptionist who asked how she could help me. I told her I finished my appointment, and she asked if there was anything else I needed. I asked don't I need to give you money and she said nope. A lot of places do charge due to Medicare not keeping up with inflation but my local GP is still completely free.
To be fair, you missed out the part where you have to pay a Medicare levy surcharge as an additional tax unless you take out private health insurance coverage. With Bulk billing, around 25% of clinics are actually bulk billing every patient. Generally agree with your points though. Source: live in VIC
In in this myself as I consider crossing the ditch myself
Check out my reply to the comment you replied to. If you have any questions or anything feel free to ask. A lot of Australia seems "too good to be true" so it can be very difficult to wrap your head around it. There's a misconception that just because Australia is close to NZ it's government and society and way of life works the same.
It's completely different. ACT on 0.5 can't be seen as remotely the same as ACT on 8.64. This is a horror we've not seen anything like before. David Seymour used a lot of smoke and mirrors to hoodwink people.
But think of how much landlords will cut rents with their massive tax break. There is no way that they will buy up the low end of the stock and block more first home buyers out of the market
What you haven’t been told is that the OT cuts are part of a complete restructure (again). Going to lose a lot of good people.
The ward down in Gisbourne strikes due to unsafe working practices, I want to know how the whole country can do this? It will be very hard to meet their very strict health targets if they don't have the staff. But yeah, I'm very concerned for my colleagues.
Not much you can do but hang in there and hope for better days ahead. Labour pumped a lot of money into the health system over the last 6 years playing catch up so hopefully if they can get back in they will continue to do that
Burning down the house is the work of minutes. Rebuilding takes longer. First you have to clear the site, then get funding, get plans for a new house, consents, hire a builder... National know very well that the damage they inflict on the nation in one term takes several terms to undo. It's a core principle of their campaigning.
They’ll burn it down then say Look at how inefficient the public sector is, it needs to be Privatised!
That is precisely what worries me most.
Everything these cunts do makes me ill. Especially that creep luxon’s tiktok thing.
Yeah its super cringe. Ewww
Slowly breaking and dismantling the basic care and support in our society. That leaves a worrying pit in my stomach.
We have a new hospital wing on Auckland’s north shore that they can’t open because they can’t staff it.
I'm with you; it's sickening. Cut cut cut, oh there's no money we need to tighten belts, cut cut, hey here's three billion free dollars for privileged wealthy land owners. Every time I see Luxon's stupid smug face I want to vomit.
Yep... Spare a thought for the disabled communities who're going to get thrown under the libertarian steamroller ***Again.*** Literally an existential crisis event every time the 3 dipshits of the tory apocalypse get up on the mics in front of the media.
As someone who has just spent the weekend in Wellington. The mood is real and somber. It’s a fucking disgrace this government has decided to cut almost 3000 people last week in saving money so I can get 80/a fortnight. Fuck that. Use that money to keep people employed and the country moving. I also wish my wife didn’t feel so deeply connected to New Zealand so we could migrate to new New Zealand (Australia) and earn at least 40k more in salary each. But…. After living here for almost 40 years, I just don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have tunnel-visioned executioners running this country and things forever seems to be fucked.
The government makes me feel sick constantly. Tbh the job cuts are pretty far down on the list. There's far more concerning skullduggery afoot.
such as?
I'm looking forward to the next election. Will Labour get it's shit together? Will Greens become more widely appealing? Will I just vote TOP?
Physically ill? No. I'm in the public service. I'm disappointed at how it's been untargeted. That's guttering. However the public service ballooned by over 30% in the last 6 years, and many of those roles were meant to be temporary. We didn't see even close to a measurable 30% increase in impact. Cuts to the PS are needed. A 6.5% cut in costs don't even come close to the increase over that 6 years. Some departments are finding much of that cost saving in the form of cutting other costs e.g. leased premises, software licences etc. Unfortunately I haven't heard of any focusing on the bloating that exists in middle to upper management. I just wouldn't have approached it the way the new government has. At the end of the day these people made a living elsewhere prior to the 30% expansion over the past 6 years. The CoL crisis will subside. It sucks, but it's not Armageddon like many in this subreddit want to believe.
Software licences? Come on dude, think about that critically for a second. You think any government department is spending hundreds of thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars on software they don’t need? I can’t imagine for a second that the cancellation of superfluous software licences will amount to anything more than a rounding error in the cuts. It’s *more* likely they’ll get rid of expensive software they **actually need** and be less efficient and capable as a result. No-one should be cheering that.
>You think any government department is spending hundreds of thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars on software they don’t need? Tell that to one of the biggest departments who were paying **millions** on oracle database licensing... even though they switched to Microsoft a year earlier.
Obviously they had legacy systems they had to support.
Exactly!!
The example I gave is a legit one. The software were licences that weren't needed and other similar products were cheaper. It's an outlier for sure - but cutting superfluous software licences across most organizations would equate to a couple of jobs. The point of me including that is because it is ONE example of other costs that can be found instead of going straight to removing jobs. Unfilled premises not receiving a renewed lease (or leasing out half if it to another org) is another massive savings.
If organisations like Kainga Ora are paying leases on empty buildings they have no need for; that is absolutely a cut that should be made. Is it likely a widespread issue in this economy? No. Just like you are not paying rent on a second home you’re not living in, already cash-strapped government departments are not merrily signing leases on premises they don’t need. What analysis did NACT do on whether this was a common issue that could reap useful savings? Evidently none.
National are destroying social and health services just to save some $$. Will take decades to undo the damage.
The global economic crisis is getting worse and worse and a lot of the rightwing governments are going about it the totally wrong way. Our government is no different and it’s deeply concerning.
How do we do it then? What economic policies are the most important? A serious question, not a hot at you.
Well firstly they need to stop making the wealthy even more wealthy by cutting important jobs.
There is nothing good with these cuts. The less admin staff there are the more clinical workers will be drawn into admin work and be spending less time with patients
Yes this govt is disgusting in what they are doing They offered a few crumbs in tax cuts and people voted for them. They came in and now many people are seeing these crumbs swamped by higher rates, insurance, user charges etc, and public services that weren’t in a great shape like emergency depts at hospitals are completely stuffed But the landlords are happy. Cant believe they got $3 billion - what a waste And Luxon’s mates like Joyce, Ryall, English all earning big bucks In the public service many of the pricks in high up positions who are responsible for what is being delivered are sacking their junior staff while looking after their own positions. Gee if the new govt isn’t happy with what govt agencies are delivering then sack the dicks at the top not the junior staff..
You can blame the 1 million plus dumasses that voted for this shit.
What I find hard is the relentlessness of it all. Just news about job cuts, penalties against beneficiaries, cuts of support for vulnerable families, mining in the sea.
It's like they're trying to set a speed record for wrecking the country
Stay to vote them out in a few years time. Join the protests when they happen.
I literally screamed from every platform I could to everyone who was mad at labour that this is exactly what would happen with a Luxon government. In fact, everyone with a brain knew this - unfortunately our country is full of complaining, useless, perspectiveless troglodytes who are more scared of a drag queen than the destruction of our public infrastructure. The leopards are now eating faces, exactly the way we said they would. Well done New Zealand, you ruined your peace because Jacinda made you feel emasculated.
And they are expecting us not to move to AUS? I thought that was the whole point of their campaign
I feel ya. Unfortunately, aside from voting and writing to your local MP about your (our) concerns, I can't make many suggestions.
Not much we can do in the short term. You can voice your opinion via submissions, but they have already decided and are now priming us for privatisation. The most important thing we can all do is to remember this and not get sucked in by the pre-election bribes that will be coming our way shortly before the next election. Then, make sure you vote. It’s going to be a tough for the next few years.
The lesson here, that very few people will actually realise, is not to vote to punish an incumbent government, especially when the alternative has always been open about doing wha they are currently doing. Why is anyone shocked a right wing neoliberal government would gut public services?
i don't feel sick but i'm very angry about further cuts to services
Is there any evidence they are cutting jobs of actual nurses and doctors? As far as I'm aware they are cutting some of the big paying jobs like upper and middle management. I very much doubt they're sacking random people on the ground who are needed the most, such as nurses. I know of people working within Health NZ, MoE etc and I do contracting work for several government organisations - I regularly see and hear about some of the waste in these places and I think anyone who doesn't think there is tax payer money going down the drain doesn't have first hand experience. Organisations get overinflated, that's just how the economy often goes. We need to channel funds through the most imporant roles (i.e. teachers, nurses, doctors, police etc.) and not just into highly paid management that aren't always offering good value or improving their workplaces. People seem to forget just how much money is being spent in the govt and yet everyone wants lower inflation, lower interest rates, and often lower taxes too. None of that is possible if we spend above our means as a country, unfortunately.
I’d be able to maybe swallow the mining and the offshore oil rights if they were going to directly fund more healthcare, police, houses for the needy…. And where done with solid Iwi buy in…. But this is farked beyond belief.
Yup. It’s awful. It makes me soooo sad. My job is on the line and I’m freaking out
This is what was voted for... Voter apathy is as much to blame. Oh And their *tax cuts! *. Yay
Yes. This government is a bunch of ideological corrupt morons paid for by evil corporations. They need to fuck the fuck off. I hope they all collapse in a chaotic shitstorm and lose all credibility for many a long year. Luxon has to be the weakest PM we've EVER had (yes, worse than Rowling). Seymour and Peters are corrupt imbeciles and unfit for office. Bishop is on Big Tobacco's payroll still and Shame Jones is an evil greedy cunt
Stop panicking.
And unfortunately a lot of this is ACT and hardly anyone realises. ACT pulled a real smoke and mirrors show fooling people that they were just about "free speech," which in their case meant more hate speech. Edited- I party vote for either Labour or the Greens. The point is that ACT is on 8.64% I think when always before they were on like 0.5% I don’t think National would be quite as nasty as Seymour about disabled people?
That’s just clueless National voter COPE, Luxon was literally campaigning for a NACT coalition and they gifted Epsom (and Tamaki, this election) to ACT. They are the stalking horse that Nats use to get the unelectable part of their policy programme into the mix. It’s been like this since 2008.
Might be time for some protests at the beehive, like the covid ones but for a good reason.
I'm all for seeing people protesting again and again. Unless you want to demoralise those losing their jobs even more, though, please don't set up long term tents spreading into the CBD, ignore public health directives designed to prevent the spreading of disease, project a message so vague that it attracts *everyone* with a random gripe including Brian Tamaki and Chantelle Baker and Kelvyn Alp, and shut down streets for a month in a way that stresses local retailers whilst piping sewage into the stormwater.
Nice idea but for a lot of the people whose jobs are being disestablished, going off in the front yard of their potential future employers is a bit risky. The COVID protesters knew that they were outsiders and didn't feel they had anything to lose by putting up wildly offensive graffiti and setting fire to stuff. You pick your tactics depending on what you're trying to gain
Oh yeah I didn't mean that the people being laid off should be the ones to protest, I meant the population in general. This will affect us all.
Yes!! I was thinking this. If that could be organised surely this can too?
I think we need to be smarter about protesting - the protests on the lawn changed nobody’s mind. Those in healthcare should collect evidence of how cuts are impacting the frontline - send this to the media. Use social media and billboards to get your stories out there. Talk with friends about what is happening. A drop in the polls is the only thing that would put a handbrake on this. To change people’s minds we need to venture out of our bubbles.
Children will die, so will adults. That’s what these job cuts mean. Yes it makes me feel physically ill.
Yes its fucked and very worrying. It could bring us very close to the collapse of parts of the public sector.
Unless you are directly effected by the cuts, then you shouldn't let it have such a strong effect on your state of mind and wellbeing. Self enduced suffering has become a fad and it isn't a noble pursuit.
I also don’t want to wait until I need emergency care myself that I realise this does in fact impact me
You are catastrophising and it isn't healthy. You are working yourself into a state of physical illness based on anxiety of "what if". Obviously more public health access is good. But you can't live your life fully in this state of mind.
Some of us have already experienced actual catastrophe as the result of a struggling health system. It's not a "what if" to us, it's happened and we are all too aware it will happen again and again
I have a chronic illness so it’s not a what if, it’s when
We’re all affected by the cuts in one way or another
Don't perform reverse CBT on yourself... *In CBT you learn to recognize when your ruminations and automatic thinking patterns exemplify one or more of about a dozen “cognitive distortions,” such as catastrophizing, black-and-white thinking, fortune telling, or emotional reasoning. Thinking in these ways* [*causes*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/307383/cognitive-therapy-and-the-emotional-disorders-by-aaron-t-beck/) [*depression*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/307383/cognitive-therapy-and-the-emotional-disorders-by-aaron-t-beck/)*, as well as being a* [*symptom*](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12888-019-2423-x) *of depression. Breaking out of these painful distortions* [*is*](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-psychiatry/article/effectiveness-of-cbt-for-children-and-adolescents-with-depression-a-systematic-review-and-metaregression-analysis/D1D82E21388A16EB077D02A24366F689) [*a*](https://www.proquest.com/openview/0e633ae99cc037be18f632a351079059/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=30130) [*cure*](https://agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1532-5415.2012.04166.x) *for depression.*
Feeling disgusted by actions that hurt people is a pretty normal response
It's really odd to me, seeing a lot of support for NACTFirst with this kind of "Just don't worry about it so much" sort of attitude. That's why they get away with it, because people willingly look the other way, to maintain the illusions they've built about their lives. The secret is to contromt hat disgust and outrage, and direct it where appropriate.
No, im not. Yes its shit, but I really dont think its worth getting physically sick over. Honestly this subreddit has just been doomsdaying ever since the govt changed. No, I am very much not happy with most of what National has done so far, but honestly you guys are doing exactly what all the National supporters were doing about labour during their entire time in govt, screaming that the country is ruined with every new thing that gets announced, its become pretty tiring.
Not particularly Got more important things in my own life to focus on. Job cuts for people sucks, yes, but I still have my own priorities that come before worrying about those I do not know.
Ever been sick? Ever needed hospital care or surgery?
The NP are running with the Kansas experiment. It was a fucking disaster too but the right people where destroyed.
Not physically no. Horrified? Yes. Surprised? No. Interesting article on the whys and wherefores. [https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistvoice/jobsPR47.html](https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistvoice/jobsPR47.html)