Blame Michael not Bill for the budget

Bill Ralston in the HoS addresses the issue of how Governments get to ensure their will is carried out by the public service. He notes the comments made this week by Chris Hipkins and the PSA concerning Bill English’s appointment of purchase advisers.

Ralston agrees that Hipkins might be right that these are political appointments, but wonders how else the government is to ensure it’s programme is carried out by a bloated bureaucracy.

Ralston goes on to wonder whether we should consider adopting a version of the US practice of appointing senior posts anew on a change of regime.

Hipkins might be right on ‘politicisation’ but his comments are a bit rich coming from one who was a political adviser himself, although not paid from public service funds as such. Though that is such a thin line, that many would regard it as invisible.

Adam’s view is that poor quality spend and bloated staffing levels need to be attacked so as to provide for necessary spend and long term debt reduction.

After all as Vernon Small wrote of Michael Cullen this week:-

In hindsight, he could have claimed he was right when, after the 2008 Budget, he gleefully claimed he had stolen National’s tax-cut fox, eviscerated it, strangled it and thrown it into their back garden.

A dramatically expanded public service, huge increases in beneficiary numbers through Working for Families  and larges rises in health spending but little improvement in outcomes. Of course Bill English is going to take strong and effective steps to bring things under control. If Hipkins is looking for a villain he should look to Cullen not English.

Adam suggests that the villain as regards potential public spending cuts is not John Key or Bill English, but the profligate Dr Cullen. After 9 years of over taxing and poor spending we have to pay the bill.

Advertisement