Stuff asked the following question
Roughly one in five public servants are quitting their jobs.
How can a Government deliver the services the public wants if it can’t find the workers to do the jobs and what should be done to retain good civil servants?
Stuart Smith
National MP
Kaikoura
Below is Stuart Smith’s response.
The core role of the public service is to provide New Zealanders with essential services focused on achieving better outcomes and delivering for all Kiwis. Whether it be healthcare, education, transport or infrastructure, New Zealanders should get value for the taxes which they pay to the Crown.
Government is currently spending $1.8 billion of taxpayers hard earned money every year on 14,000 extra bureaucrats, and that’s without mentioning the staggering amount spent on expensive consultants and working groups. The public service in New Zealand has ballooned to unprecedented levels. Yet, we seem to have worse outcomes as a result.
The fact that nearly one in five employees in the public service left their role in the previous year is highly concerning. More churn means more costs, and the lack of continuity puts strain on workflow and projects.
Adding to that, the Crown accounts released earlier this month show that the government’s tax revenue increased from $76 billion to $108 billion in five years. That is an average of $15,000 more in tax for every household in New Zealand.
With all the extra revenue and all the extra government officials and public servants, I struggle to understand how and why New Zealand’s public services are not functioning as they should.
Our health waitlist is sitting at 200,000 people, almost the same number of people that live in Wellington. From Cape Reinga to Bluff we have potholes scattered across our state highway networks, and our latest education figures show that only two per cent of students in decile one schools can pass a writing test.
The question is, why are we getting worse outcomes? Frankly, it’s because this government is focused on the wrong things.
Instead of adjusting our immigration settings to boost the number of nurses coming to New Zealand, they have spent billions on a bureaucratic health restructure during a pandemic. Their ideological agenda has caused them to lose sight of what should be the main focus – making sure New Zealanders have timely access to healthcare.
Rather than attempting to deal with falling numeracy and literacy levels in New Zealand’s children and providing the right support for teachers, the government cut funding for senior teachers within Communities of Learning/Kahui Ako. Meanwhile, the number of Ministry of Education bureaucrats earning over $120,000 has almost tripled to 955.
If New Zealanders are paying high levels of tax, they should get services that deliver for them and their families. We should not be content with mediocrity, we should be ambitious and focused on giving Kiwis the best opportunities and best services possible. I’m confident that a National Government will be able to manage the economy competently and deliver outcomes that rival some of the best in the world.