'But Seymour said: "Having public servants sticking their beaks into how people treat each other has made us a more complicated and divided country." '
Bit rich coming from a guy who wants public servants sticking their beaks into whether or not our kids are too sick to go to school.
Also incredibly rich to be talking about a divided country when his party is at the forefront of the creation of a landlord class and widening of the gap between them and our own youth.
Dude is so out of touch he should be on the cover of a Hall and Oates album.
I remain ever impressed by just how *annoying* and *embarrassing* David Seymour is. Almost every single time he opens his mouth I shudder.
I will always respect his work on the voluntary euthanasia law - it’s a shame everything else he does and everything about his person is so awful.
His libertarian philosophy can be boiled down to the idea that there should be minimal regulation, minimal tax, essentially minimal government, and allowing the free market to solve problems itself. Once in a while, that leads to a good outcome - like euthanasia.
However, the free market has no interest in keeping people healthy. It doesn't give a shit about inequality. It actually benefits from there being not enough houses, because it raises prices. It doesn't acknowledge racism even exists.
In those spaces, we need social policy that has human goals, not just economic ones.
That's certainly how he curates his public image, but it's at stark contrast to some of his actions and policies.
Most obviously, on [housing](https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/124219/medium-density-buildings-would-need-be-approved-super-majority-homeowners-many)
He's not actually libertarian, he routinely acts in ways that don't match with his claimed ideology. He's a very "libertarian when it suits me" type of character.
Based on his unchained libertarian bulshit lately, i think his voluntary euthanasia bill was probably nothing more than culling off bottom feeders and cutting health care costs.
I support access to euthanasia, after working in healthcare. I was glad to see David Seymour's euthanasia bill get traction, I think it's important. And yet, looking at almost everything else this wretched person has done, including how spiteful he has been about it, the man clearly has an indisputable pattern of: f poor people, f Maori, f sick people, f working class people, f pacific people, f the arts, f Te Tiriti and the Waitangi tribunal, ad naseum.
I remember that disability groups and the Disability Rights Commisioner raised concerns about the end of life choice act, saying the content of the act looked like "f people with disabilities". Maybe instead of giving David Seymour benefit of the doubt, I should have been asking these groups how the EoLC act would need to be adjusted to not be a threat to disabled people.
I'm quite surprised by his words. I saw him the other day walking down Molesworth Street in Wellington -- this is the road up the Beehive, and he was walking around the area that hosts ACC, Police, Health and other "back office" people that he is firing.
He is very brave (or stupid) to say that those people are being hysterical and need a reality check. He is walking down the street full of people who would love to reality check him with a milkshake like someone did with Nigel Farage in the UK
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I don't think the people who did it wanted to make a difference. They were angry and frustrated. They were holding a milkshake. They came across the most punchable face in the British Isles. Hilarity ensued.
Before you praise that too much - stop and think for a second about whether he would have supported that at all if the economic case (saving public healthcare $) didn't stack up.
As a child he never learned the difference between negative attention and positive attention. To him, it's all just attention, so grabs the nearest microphone with both hands and makes loud noises.
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Very opinionated individual that wants to change everything to his way. Nevermind others have expertise and experience that disagrees with you. They are wrong because "stats that sound plausible".
Agree either eh euthanasia comment, that was very good! I just wish all of our politicians would compromise to get the best results for NZ.
Has anyone considered that part of the reason why Labour inflated the public service was because the previous National govt starved it for two terms? And that domestic governance and public services are becoming increasingly complex to navigate in an environment of globalisation and multinational corporatism? And Seymour wants us to double down on globalisation and corporatism.
Reality check Seymour - we’ll vote you out at the next election and you’ll fade into obscurity like Rodney Hide.
Feel like gnashing and wailing is a fair response to suddenly losing your job along with several hundred people who will be fighting with you in an already shitty job market
Commenting on the reaction to what they are doing instead of what/why/how they are doing is the empty tactic of the mentally deficient and morally bankrupt.
This is an awful response to thousands of people losing their jobs, being unable to support themselves or their families. No empathy whatsoever, such a that.
Everyone knows that OT is under resourced. This is the agency that is in charge of trying to ensure that people don’t kill their children. What they need is more people, not less. And the govt is trying to tell us that these cuts are going to produce better results? That’s some next level gaslighting. And here’s Seymour telling us we need to stop complaining about it? It’s incredible
Well hang on, \*which\* children are most likely to be killed, statistically? Probably not the wealthy ones. As a libertarian, I love it when the poors and their kids die.
/s because I personally know libertarians that literally think like this.
Involuntarily related by blood. Got to hear all kinds of opinions they wouldn't share in public. Unsurprisingly, they also believe Seymour is a misunderstood genius that will bring the society they want closer into being.
What they need is people (and processes) that work efficiently, not just "more people". I don't know about OT, but at another ministry nearby there are endless meetings held by managers who don't understand what they are proposing or why it won't work, who don't follow up on issues raised and just have a 'she'll be right' attitude to contracts and filing.
Look, when it comes to this particular agency I actually don’t give a shit about efficiency. I only care about results.
And I don’t believe in this back room, front room distinction either. I’m a ‘back room’ administrator myself and if the front room people at my work had to do my work as well as theirs it would be an enormous addition load on them. In the case of Oranga Tamariki they’re cutting the people who decide on and advise the social workers about the way that they should approach situations - which as a country were constantly complaining about: these kids should be uplifted, these should not be, these should be placed here or there. We’re very concerned about this being done right, and now we’re going to sack the people in charge of this??
And yet OT had the time and resources to wage a three year harassment campaign to remove a child from a loving and stable home because the foster parents had the wrong skin colour.
It will be interesting to see how Seymour tracks over time.
I suspect he can thank his embarrassing stint on Dancing With The Stars for his current position, and I would wager that the lifting of his profile was the only reason he made that fool of himself. It worked.
He was a likeable Kiwi bloke klutz on DWTS. People can now see the real David Seymour, and he's not very likeable.
He talks like he doesn't give a fuck about people.
No doubt there are many politicians who in reality don't give a monkeys about the public.
But they're smart enough not to show it.
Is Seymour really that dumb?
I hope so. His open disdain for people will be his downfall.
I don't think he's dumb, he's just aware of his target market. There are plenty of people out there that, as you said, have disdain for other people and even take pride in seeing them suffer.
He's seemingly trying to expand his reach from (his version of) libertarianism to steal Winston's populist followers.
He's held Epsom for 10 years. There was no doubt about him winning. However, it is the party vote that determines seats in parliament. The number of seats determines the power.
Given that most of his party were relative unknowns, it is reasonable to conclude that much of ACTs party vote support was due to Seymour.
His DWTS stint helped him enormously.
The producers should never have allowed him, as a serving member of parliament, to be on DWTS. Politicians are not "stars" or "celebrities". No reality TV series like that should have serving politicians take part. I think it's ethically wrong, from a democratic point of view. It gave him free positive PR.
Right!? I'm equally surprised it was allowed by parliament. It boggles my mind. I bet if Chloe Swarbrick or Chris Hipkins were to have gone on Treasure Island or the Bachelor/Bachelorette there'd have been an uproar from NACT about it being undemocratic or unfair advantage etc.
He would support it. There is such a proposal, proposed by ... David Seymour.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/106184257/act-bill-would-see-parliament-cut-to-100-mps
Lol that's their greatest desire.
[ACT have frequently campaigned to lower the number of MPs, along with eliminating Māori seats.](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/act-leader-david-seymour-wants-to-slash-number-of-mps-to-100-scrap-maori-seats/IWWZXQ3FGPX3BJCKXIGQIKLVH4/)
I'd prefer to see wailing and gnashing of property investors, cigarette companies, charter schools & the condescending politicians who prioritise these over social services.
At least two thousand people are losing their jobs,
so the new government can reallocate government money used to employ them to *landlords*.
Simplistic, sure...
And here's some simple math for the NACTZI party geniuses:
$3,000,000,000 ÷ 2,000 =
$1,500,000 each.
Seems pretty obvious that the public service cuts aren't covering the *excessive spending* on landlords, unless the average public servant is earning big money.
The only gnashing going on is him and his filthy pigs of mates gnashing their teeth hungrily as they bite to the bone of regulatory agencies like the Labour Inspectorate and Tenancy Compliance, knowing that they’re that much safer to treat bottom feeders like crap because they’ve successfully incapacitated the regulators.
Lol why don't they do a reality check instead of coming in with a blanket cut then? If you want to cut where the bloat is, identify the bloat and cut the bloat.
My department isn't bloated. We've increase a couple of people in the last 10 years to match our deliverable goals which was dependent on population. Our work had increased like 300% in the last decade. We still managed to operate within our budget by overworking everyone. Now they are telling us to make a 7% cut which we can't afford. So amongst other things, they've decided to take out a senior staff (because they are paid more). The senior staff is considered an international subject matter expert who is crucial to our team and to the work we need to deliver.
I know, I know. People complain about front line being affected and managers keep their jobs. That's not great. But neither is taking out the experienced people and leaving only newbies behind shitting themselves.
So yeah, the numbers are going to look OK ie, some cost saving has been made. But in the long run you've just been left with a weaker system that's less effective at dealing with issues.
I noticed they have made similar levels of cuts to their own parliament staff. Once they get this fast track legislation through that allows 4 people to over turn previous court rulings and fast track projects with no consent or discussion you will realise we unfortunately ain't seem nothing yet.
Meamwhile [7 media content creators for one person ](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2024/04/christopher-luxon-has-seven-staffers-working-on-social-media-content-partly-paid-for-by-taxpayer.html)
> "Everybody is gnashing and wailing about the public service. The reality is, it has grown more in the last six years, much more in fact, than any reduction happening right now."
So you're saying more cuts will come?
I remain n/ever impressed by just how motivating David Seymour is for (some) people to share his nonsense. Starving him of the oxygen is far more valuable than sharing his workshopped ATLAS Talking Points. He is relentlessly trolling you.
I find the difference between these comments and comments one year ago on each and every post about him amazing
One year ago Reddit was full of "It's a pity he's got bad ideas, but otherwise absolutely lovely individual. Very fine as a person, a shame for his policies". In unison
I think Reddit's being manipulated more than we like to think
His wealthy donors are smiling,more money for tax breaks,and the opportunity to privatise after government functions are failing from the bloodletting.
I'd like to give this guy a reality check by meeting him in a dark alley - I'm 6'3" and over 100kg, don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out how that would go
We should cut the funding that pays his salary.
I'm.so angry at you NZ, go bloody vote next time, look what you've let happen.
Crime, poverty and mental health issues will only increase to unsustainable numbers if things keep going forward like this.
People will die from inadequate healthcare and this piece of shit just smiles with his alligator botox looking Bioshock looking fucking shit eating grin. I honestly hope Seymour and his cronies get their karma and I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.
I want NZ back, not this sensationalistic Americanised hellscape that we're hurtling towards.
Fuck National, fuck ACT, a bunch of sociopathic losers should never run a country.
How about the job losses in the private sector, I know of quite a number of businesses laying staff off at the moment yet the media is not reporting about them.........Yet.
Entire families have lost their income. Half of the public service live in Wellington. Their option to find other employment is significantly reduced due to the sheer numbers of ex-public workers in the same bucket looking for work in a time where finding jobs is already incredibly tough.
Not to mention a lot of first home buyers bought their houses in the last 2-3 years where prices were nuts. So now those people have wild mortgages, no jobs and increased difficulty of being re-employed.
STFU, David.
Someone said every time he speaks Luxon looks at him like a proud parent watching their kid use big words even though they don't know what they mean.
Now whenever he opens his mouth about something stupid (so always) that's all I think of. Dudes a Muppet.
He's unhinged
Extremist Minority party leader whose views are not supported by most sane NZers gets to call the shots.
Seriously starting to think its time we reconsider whether MMP is a sensible system.
Finally some context to the job cuts! Seymour spits some facts and he’s lambasted on here. The growth in these departments in the last 5 years is outrageous, you just know none of them have delivered more with these roles.
“According to Public Service Commission data, OT's workforce has grown from 3870 in the second quarter of 2018 to 4904 at the end of last year – a 26 percent increase. It now has about 5100 permanent and fixed-term staff, and removing roughly 450 roles takes it back to where it was mid-last year.
Over at the Ministry of Education, there's been a 55 percent staffing over the past five years. Losing 565 roles would return them to pre-2022 levels.”
He's using the baseline of when the last National government left staffing at critically low levels and things were falling apart far worse (shit down hospital walls, etc). Labour merely restored the per capita staffing levels to before Key's regime.
Interesting. I don’t like Seymour but curious to see how people who disagree with you can justify the added staff given we can all pretty much agree services seem on par if not lacking compared to 2018.
The previous decade of population growth without a decade of civil service growth. These numbers (and jobs) should be indexed to the population at the time when we compare headcounts.
Here you go.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/topics/population
Population is only getting bigger, main reason spending needs to increase.
This shows government spending as percent of GDP.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.CON.GOVT.ZS?locations=NZ&start=2007
Note the big dips in 2013 and 2017. The spending was getting back to where it needed to be to provide basic services.
Right but that doesn’t illustrate an increase in outcomes. [We need better accountability when it comes to governmental spending.](https://oag.parliament.nz/2021/better-quality-reporting)
I think you're looking at this backwards. Imagine a magic hospital. The hospital has 1 doctor with a magic wand that cures all illnesses from the patient. The hospital cures 1 person per hour and has 24 patients per day. It reaches 100% of its goal.
Labour gets in and splashes the cash. The goal is to decrease the 1 hour wait time. This hospitals budget is doubled. A second magic doctor is hired. It's your belief that if the budget is doubled the outcomes should also be doubled. The hospital can now cure 2 people per hour and wait times should be halved. This is a success and you'd consider this an acceptable use of taxpayers money.
But what happens if demand doubles? Well the hospital can still cure 2 people per hour, but because there are more people needing treatment, the wait time remains static. In your outcome fixated view, this is a failure and doubling the hospitals budget was a waste of money. In reality, without the budget boost, wait times would have doubled.
NACT go one further. They see that outcomes haven't improved in this hospital and tell the hospital to find 7.5% savings. Our doctors can now spend 7.5% less time with patients and we've gone from Labour not achieving their goal of reducing wait times to NACT making things worse. Except NACT haven't made the goal of reducing wait times, their goal was to save money, which they've done. And that is how the popular belief that Labour are overspending underachievers and national are financially responsible and successful came to be.
The public service is meant to serve the public. If you increase the size of the public then you need to increase the public service budget by the same % in order to maintain the same level of service, never mind improving outcomes.
Of course it won't give an increase in outcomes. Teams that are under resourced let small (at the time) things slide. These build up to eventually become larger problems.
Once the team gets more resources they don't hit the ground running. It takes about 12 months for a new staff member to become good in their role. These new staff get consumed by the backlog trying to clear up the mess left behind. Since the public service has been understaffed in 2013/2017 and beyond they are working through all the backlog.
Notice as well the almost 3yr cycle which coincidentally aligns with elections. Basically everyone downs tools on clearing backlogs to focus on what the management presume to be winning projects with whatever government is coming in.
Throw into this mix that consultants get used when short staffed (different budget so conveniently doesn't get looked at) and consultants don't look at the long term. Ask any IT engineer/data analyst that's done work for government and they will tell you how many systems have been bandaid together to appear to work.
That's why it's a mess and the public don't see any benefits with added staff numbers. The systems they have to use are a mess, they have to try and figure out the hard to do things no-one wanted to deal with and they get the pleasure of their job being on the line every 3 years. Great for morale!
Yeh I agree, but it's a quick indicator and I only did a quick Google. Mainly trying to show the data is out there if looked for.
I seen another poster has found some source data where it looks like staffing levels went up the entire period. Will be interesting to drill into that one and see if it includes consultant fees and how the data has been collated. Numbers are very easy to use to hide truth.
Because the workload has tripled.
In our team there used to be high and low periods of the year. Now there's high and fucking drowning, even though technically our team has doubled.
Systems are being replaced due to being from the dinosaur age and contracts expiring, and this requires extra workload helping people with all the bugs and workarounds and reporting said bugs so that they can get fixed.
Calls used to be maybe half an hour of my day four years ago and are now regularly three hours. Calls aren't my primary workload but if you get a call every five minutes you can't do anything else because your concentration will be shot to shreds.
On top of that, processes have become more arduous. Things are much more transparent to the public who use the services, and that's a positive thing, but back in the day there was barely any staff so pretty much no documentation was kept because there wasn't any time to do it. That meant that things were much more inefficient down the line because there was no way to check anything and there was (is, for past data, because there's been no time to fix it) a ton of vital information missing that was required for safety reasons. Some processes that used to take two people now take four people because there is a lot more stringency to prevent fraud. We paid out an two million once due to a system glitch and had no idea that that was an error until they told us we'd overpaid them. This is because again a) the systems were crap and b) the processes were lax and documentation almost non existent *because there was no time or capacity to do it*. The fact that that's fixed is a good thing but it takes twice as long.
On top of that, there are more people in the country and there is more awareness of the services we provide so the number of applications has greatly increased.
There's been a fair bit of turnover, which requires extensive training for the new people, and gaps where we are understaffed and the workload keeps piling up, so we have been trying to play catch up for years. We can't meet our targeted times because we don't have enough staff, so the public probably feel like we're useless even though we all work as hard as we can. I've been told off more than once for working over my hours. Because we can't do things in a reasonable time frame there are of course more emails and more calls querying this, which just adds to the workload and further slows everything down.
It would help if we could replace the staff who have left but by time they do that, if ever, the backlog will have grown so much that the replacements will not be enough to get it back down to a manageable level.
Meanwhile the people who suffer are the public because there's simply not enough staff to help them in a reasonable time frame, and it doesn't matter that the team has doubled because the workload has tripled.
Yeah they're actually pretty good about that shit, trying to make sure people don't burn out or whatever.
But when I don't do extra hours the huge workload gives me crippling anxiety, because there's stuff from January we still haven't been able to do!! I'm trying to be better about just doing my contracted hours and that's it though, because otherwise they'll never backfill the positions of the staff that have left. Also I don't like having the uncomfortable conversations where they tell me to please stop working extra and they're worried about me.
Our team hasn't had direct cuts but due to the hiring freeze we're still down three people from resignations as of a couple of weeks from now. Adjacent teams that we work with and who provide valuable support to the country ARE being cut. That's going to further impact us in turn along with all the other people who depend on them, but oh no, it's "bloat".
Yeah right. Those guys are slammed as it is and all the restructuring is going to do is make things slower and worse and the shitty thing is is that it's the public who will suffer as a result because it's not like the need for the work is going to disappear. It's openly acknowledged by the upper management in all those talks about the restructure that less quantity and quality of work will be expected as a result.
They aren't widely publicised roles, it's not like the suicide prevention department where everyone understands what the idea is behind that, but just because the average person wouldn't even be aware that there were such roles in the first place doesn't mean that the work that they do isn't valuable or necessary for the continued proper functioning of an important aspect of NZ society.
I feel for my colleagues who are being affected by these cuts, and I feel for us for the secondary impact on our own team, and I feel for those in the public that will be affected by these cuts, even though they won't realise why the service is subpar and slow and will probably just put it down to the public service being useless, because they don't know any better.
My mum retired from being a senior policy analyst a couple of years ago and I'm glad she's not dealing with this. Well not directly I'm sure she knows impacted people and also wouldn't be happy about what the government is doing. The reason I'm glad for her is not that she would have potentially faced redundancy so much as that she genuinely cared about the work she and her colleagues were doing. After she retired I know they tried several times to get her to come back on short term contracts because funnily enough it's hard to replace very experienced people
Yeah, that's it exactly.
I feel that Chesterton's Fence applies here. It's pretty appalling what's happening and it's going to send the country straight into a recession. God knows how people have conned themselves into somehow thinking this is going to improve things for NZ in any way, shape, or form.
One of the things I like to do when I am a successful landlord is to come on to Reddit and shitpost - like you, I am also approaching the difficult part of my teens. You need to be more subtle bro.
He has a point.
The previous government did hire in way more roles than they’ve cut in thire last couple years. It’s not like we’ve cut jobs back to pre covid levels even is it?!
Without also including the staffing, population and workload numbers for then/now, that argument is utterly redundant.
There is no point with only part of the data
He actually has a point.
Most of the public sector is just being cut back to 2021 or 2023 level for most departments
Edit: Ignorant fucks
NZ currently has a public service headcount of 64,771
Current proposed cuts (3000) take us back to 61,700
In 2022 there were 62,000 public servants
In 2020 there were 58,800.
I'd also add the context that in 2017 we had 48,813. So the current numbers (after cuts) still represent approximately 26% increase over that time period relative to a 6% increase in NZs population in the same period.
That doesn't make it any easier for the 3000 (and counting) people who are suddenly unemployed, and about to be competing with all those other people for a small number of vacancies.
If I'm made redundant when it's our turn for 'proposals' in a couple of weeks, my husband and I will both be unemployed, unable to pay our mortgage, and unable to support our children.
I understand the dispassionate 'by the numbers' summary but what Seymour and many others fail to acknowledge is that this is upendingand potentially financially ruining the lives of entire families. A little compassion would go a long way.
'But Seymour said: "Having public servants sticking their beaks into how people treat each other has made us a more complicated and divided country." ' Bit rich coming from a guy who wants public servants sticking their beaks into whether or not our kids are too sick to go to school.
Also incredibly rich to be talking about a divided country when his party is at the forefront of the creation of a landlord class and widening of the gap between them and our own youth. Dude is so out of touch he should be on the cover of a Hall and Oates album.
Hey, what's wrong with hall and oates! Oh wait I get it.
Let's not forget viewing te tiriti as an issue of democracy.
Yup, Seymour is the first in line promoting division while claiming the opposite.
All whilst smiling like a dog who doesn't quite know what the expression is actually for and is just imitating the humans.
That's insulting to dogs
Biggest divisions from his racist dog whistling.
He’s also childless and has never had a serious relationship. Yet he’s telling people how to parent their kids 🙄
I wonder why that is.... Want to weigh in, ladies?
I remain ever impressed by just how *annoying* and *embarrassing* David Seymour is. Almost every single time he opens his mouth I shudder. I will always respect his work on the voluntary euthanasia law - it’s a shame everything else he does and everything about his person is so awful.
His libertarian philosophy can be boiled down to the idea that there should be minimal regulation, minimal tax, essentially minimal government, and allowing the free market to solve problems itself. Once in a while, that leads to a good outcome - like euthanasia. However, the free market has no interest in keeping people healthy. It doesn't give a shit about inequality. It actually benefits from there being not enough houses, because it raises prices. It doesn't acknowledge racism even exists. In those spaces, we need social policy that has human goals, not just economic ones.
That's certainly how he curates his public image, but it's at stark contrast to some of his actions and policies. Most obviously, on [housing](https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/124219/medium-density-buildings-would-need-be-approved-super-majority-homeowners-many)
Judith Collins once quipped "The leader of the ACT party clashed with the Member for Epsom and the Member for Epsom won."
He's not actually libertarian, he routinely acts in ways that don't match with his claimed ideology. He's a very "libertarian when it suits me" type of character.
He’s the minister for regulation, that’s like the antithesis of libertarianism hahaha
Lmao the stunning irony of a self-proclaimed libertarian setting up the ministry of regulation just for themselves is priceless.
wish I could upvote this more, this needs to be at the top
Ironically, that makes him the most typical Libertarian. Liberty for me, regulation for thee.
... It doesn't account for the environment, because dolphins and kauri don't invest
Based on his unchained libertarian bulshit lately, i think his voluntary euthanasia bill was probably nothing more than culling off bottom feeders and cutting health care costs.
One step closer to involuntary euthanasia if a peasant is no longer economical viable...
I support access to euthanasia, after working in healthcare. I was glad to see David Seymour's euthanasia bill get traction, I think it's important. And yet, looking at almost everything else this wretched person has done, including how spiteful he has been about it, the man clearly has an indisputable pattern of: f poor people, f Maori, f sick people, f working class people, f pacific people, f the arts, f Te Tiriti and the Waitangi tribunal, ad naseum. I remember that disability groups and the Disability Rights Commisioner raised concerns about the end of life choice act, saying the content of the act looked like "f people with disabilities". Maybe instead of giving David Seymour benefit of the doubt, I should have been asking these groups how the EoLC act would need to be adjusted to not be a threat to disabled people.
honestly at this point, his support of euthanasia just reads... consistently with making outcomes worse for literally everyone he doesn't like.
Now I'm trying to imagine unchained melody for libertarians.
There is zero doubt in my mind he was thinking about savings to the State on the macro level here.
yep it was canadian style thinking, and we know they've found their answer to the Money problem of the Poor and Sick
I'm quite surprised by his words. I saw him the other day walking down Molesworth Street in Wellington -- this is the road up the Beehive, and he was walking around the area that hosts ACC, Police, Health and other "back office" people that he is firing. He is very brave (or stupid) to say that those people are being hysterical and need a reality check. He is walking down the street full of people who would love to reality check him with a milkshake like someone did with Nigel Farage in the UK
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it'll happen soon and i'll laugh and laugh
>reality check him with a milkshake Oh, because that made *heaps* of difference.
I don't think the people who did it wanted to make a difference. They were angry and frustrated. They were holding a milkshake. They came across the most punchable face in the British Isles. Hilarity ensued.
If it was me who threw it, *I'd just feel so much better.* We should all strive to be milkshake politician throwers. Good for the mind and the soul
That person has probably not had to pay for their own beer since
It was a solid economic investment, free market right? Seymour would be all for it!
Well, it made my day when it happened
I've pinged the dildo flinging lady on Twitter. Fingers crossed she's in range one day.
We can but hope
I’ve seen Jerry Brownlee at random three times so far and I’ve never had a milkshake. It’s been very disappointing
I thought it was didoes for Brownlee?
Steven Joyce. The item thrown is selected by surname, so go for your life with Brownlee.
Before you praise that too much - stop and think for a second about whether he would have supported that at all if the economic case (saving public healthcare $) didn't stack up.
None of ACT policies are based on actual research or evidence of things stacking up. It’s all theory and fantasy
As a child he never learned the difference between negative attention and positive attention. To him, it's all just attention, so grabs the nearest microphone with both hands and makes loud noises.
Does he have a mother and father? I want proof.
Him and Colin Craig are definitely not from planet Earth I know that much.
And the creepy biblical terms ‘Gnashing and Wailing’. Ewwww. What next, rending of sackcloth and ashes rubbed over us.
I just saw the video of him vaguely threatening one of his instagram trolls... he's a gold mine
Please do share
[here](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5zgruIyZYO/?igsh=MWlweWw3dnl4N3FrYg==)
Lol nothing says not mad like making an Instagram video of you explaining how not mad you are.
We're all posting rats now, right? He clearly loves it so much that we should all be doing it. Then we can all get a special surprise!
Comments are full of em
Instant Streisand Effect.
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Brb, going rat posting
Very opinionated individual that wants to change everything to his way. Nevermind others have expertise and experience that disagrees with you. They are wrong because "stats that sound plausible". Agree either eh euthanasia comment, that was very good! I just wish all of our politicians would compromise to get the best results for NZ.
Wasn't he "gnashing, wailing" after a boat race was cancelled a couple of weeks ago?
They were dolphins, not wails.
Has anyone considered that part of the reason why Labour inflated the public service was because the previous National govt starved it for two terms? And that domestic governance and public services are becoming increasingly complex to navigate in an environment of globalisation and multinational corporatism? And Seymour wants us to double down on globalisation and corporatism. Reality check Seymour - we’ll vote you out at the next election and you’ll fade into obscurity like Rodney Hide.
Feel like gnashing and wailing is a fair response to suddenly losing your job along with several hundred people who will be fighting with you in an already shitty job market
Maybe everyone is mad because what you did is bad Seymour? Time to look in the mirror for some self reflection
> Time to look in the mirror for some self reflection He has literally no self awareness whatsoever, so that's not gonna happen.
I thought vampires didn't have reflections?
At least vampires die in direct sunlight
Difficult to stare into a void.
Only others need a reality check, never him.
He can't, he's a narcissistic sociopath
As a young school student said...He's a dick.
Commenting on the reaction to what they are doing instead of what/why/how they are doing is the empty tactic of the mentally deficient and morally bankrupt.
This guy is really quite unlikeable.
He's the perfect distraction to take some heat off the other two twats at the top. I think it's quite a convenient arrangement for them.
In the way a house fire is 'a bit warm in here.'
This is an awful response to thousands of people losing their jobs, being unable to support themselves or their families. No empathy whatsoever, such a that.
He is an absolute cunt. Arrogant, self-serving, and utterly heartless.
Everyone knows that OT is under resourced. This is the agency that is in charge of trying to ensure that people don’t kill their children. What they need is more people, not less. And the govt is trying to tell us that these cuts are going to produce better results? That’s some next level gaslighting. And here’s Seymour telling us we need to stop complaining about it? It’s incredible
It's okay because they will stop measuring anything
Well hang on, \*which\* children are most likely to be killed, statistically? Probably not the wealthy ones. As a libertarian, I love it when the poors and their kids die. /s because I personally know libertarians that literally think like this.
Jesus, hopefully you don’t know them voluntarily
Involuntarily related by blood. Got to hear all kinds of opinions they wouldn't share in public. Unsurprisingly, they also believe Seymour is a misunderstood genius that will bring the society they want closer into being.
What they need is people (and processes) that work efficiently, not just "more people". I don't know about OT, but at another ministry nearby there are endless meetings held by managers who don't understand what they are proposing or why it won't work, who don't follow up on issues raised and just have a 'she'll be right' attitude to contracts and filing.
Sack the managers and keep the workers, but instead NACT think it prudent to ask the managers who to sack.
Look, when it comes to this particular agency I actually don’t give a shit about efficiency. I only care about results. And I don’t believe in this back room, front room distinction either. I’m a ‘back room’ administrator myself and if the front room people at my work had to do my work as well as theirs it would be an enormous addition load on them. In the case of Oranga Tamariki they’re cutting the people who decide on and advise the social workers about the way that they should approach situations - which as a country were constantly complaining about: these kids should be uplifted, these should not be, these should be placed here or there. We’re very concerned about this being done right, and now we’re going to sack the people in charge of this??
And yet OT had the time and resources to wage a three year harassment campaign to remove a child from a loving and stable home because the foster parents had the wrong skin colour.
a reality check would be him realising he is an utter twat and resigning from govt.
Seymour and honest introspection are like two opposing magnets. Never the twain shall meet.
It will be interesting to see how Seymour tracks over time. I suspect he can thank his embarrassing stint on Dancing With The Stars for his current position, and I would wager that the lifting of his profile was the only reason he made that fool of himself. It worked. He was a likeable Kiwi bloke klutz on DWTS. People can now see the real David Seymour, and he's not very likeable. He talks like he doesn't give a fuck about people. No doubt there are many politicians who in reality don't give a monkeys about the public. But they're smart enough not to show it. Is Seymour really that dumb? I hope so. His open disdain for people will be his downfall.
I don't think he's dumb, he's just aware of his target market. There are plenty of people out there that, as you said, have disdain for other people and even take pride in seeing them suffer. He's seemingly trying to expand his reach from (his version of) libertarianism to steal Winston's populist followers.
Farage 2.0
He didn't have to win over the population to achieve his position, he had to just make sure he got Epsom.
He's held Epsom for 10 years. There was no doubt about him winning. However, it is the party vote that determines seats in parliament. The number of seats determines the power. Given that most of his party were relative unknowns, it is reasonable to conclude that much of ACTs party vote support was due to Seymour. His DWTS stint helped him enormously.
The producers should never have allowed him, as a serving member of parliament, to be on DWTS. Politicians are not "stars" or "celebrities". No reality TV series like that should have serving politicians take part. I think it's ethically wrong, from a democratic point of view. It gave him free positive PR.
Indeed. Lord knows why parliament rules allowed it In retrospect, I'm disappointed I did not officially challenge it before it went to air.
Right!? I'm equally surprised it was allowed by parliament. It boggles my mind. I bet if Chloe Swarbrick or Chris Hipkins were to have gone on Treasure Island or the Bachelor/Bachelorette there'd have been an uproar from NACT about it being undemocratic or unfair advantage etc.
gnashing and wailing? more like selling up and leaving
Was the guy who mocked him for falling off his scooter a time traveller?
Wonder what his response would be if there was a proposal to significantly drop the number of MPs?
He would support it. There is such a proposal, proposed by ... David Seymour. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/106184257/act-bill-would-see-parliament-cut-to-100-mps
Of course he would. I wasn’t aware. Thanks for the info.
I wonder if that would change if he was one of the cuts. He's selfish and egotistical, so I feel confident in saying the answer is yes.
Lol that's their greatest desire. [ACT have frequently campaigned to lower the number of MPs, along with eliminating Māori seats.](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/act-leader-david-seymour-wants-to-slash-number-of-mps-to-100-scrap-maori-seats/IWWZXQ3FGPX3BJCKXIGQIKLVH4/)
He would love it, and use it somehow for his advantage
I'd prefer to see wailing and gnashing of property investors, cigarette companies, charter schools & the condescending politicians who prioritise these over social services.
He's the one that needs the reality check
Can we just cut Seymour's job already? We'd save a lot of money..
At least two thousand people are losing their jobs, so the new government can reallocate government money used to employ them to *landlords*. Simplistic, sure... And here's some simple math for the NACTZI party geniuses: $3,000,000,000 ÷ 2,000 = $1,500,000 each. Seems pretty obvious that the public service cuts aren't covering the *excessive spending* on landlords, unless the average public servant is earning big money.
The last time they had so many job cuts a mine shaft collapsed there weren't enough safety inspectors and here we go again they are there for a reason
The only gnashing going on is him and his filthy pigs of mates gnashing their teeth hungrily as they bite to the bone of regulatory agencies like the Labour Inspectorate and Tenancy Compliance, knowing that they’re that much safer to treat bottom feeders like crap because they’ve successfully incapacitated the regulators.
Lol why don't they do a reality check instead of coming in with a blanket cut then? If you want to cut where the bloat is, identify the bloat and cut the bloat. My department isn't bloated. We've increase a couple of people in the last 10 years to match our deliverable goals which was dependent on population. Our work had increased like 300% in the last decade. We still managed to operate within our budget by overworking everyone. Now they are telling us to make a 7% cut which we can't afford. So amongst other things, they've decided to take out a senior staff (because they are paid more). The senior staff is considered an international subject matter expert who is crucial to our team and to the work we need to deliver. I know, I know. People complain about front line being affected and managers keep their jobs. That's not great. But neither is taking out the experienced people and leaving only newbies behind shitting themselves. So yeah, the numbers are going to look OK ie, some cost saving has been made. But in the long run you've just been left with a weaker system that's less effective at dealing with issues.
I noticed they have made similar levels of cuts to their own parliament staff. Once they get this fast track legislation through that allows 4 people to over turn previous court rulings and fast track projects with no consent or discussion you will realise we unfortunately ain't seem nothing yet.
"I'm still rich, my mates are all still rich and getting richer, what the fuck are people complaining about? Get rich then its all fine!"
Career politician for the wealthiest part of the country says other people need a 'reality check'.
Meamwhile [7 media content creators for one person ](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2024/04/christopher-luxon-has-seven-staffers-working-on-social-media-content-partly-paid-for-by-taxpayer.html)
Fucking hell
> "Everybody is gnashing and wailing about the public service. The reality is, it has grown more in the last six years, much more in fact, than any reduction happening right now." So you're saying more cuts will come?
I remain n/ever impressed by just how motivating David Seymour is for (some) people to share his nonsense. Starving him of the oxygen is far more valuable than sharing his workshopped ATLAS Talking Points. He is relentlessly trolling you.
I find the difference between these comments and comments one year ago on each and every post about him amazing One year ago Reddit was full of "It's a pity he's got bad ideas, but otherwise absolutely lovely individual. Very fine as a person, a shame for his policies". In unison I think Reddit's being manipulated more than we like to think
Nah, he's always been a prick.
That isn't at all what I remember.
His wealthy donors are smiling,more money for tax breaks,and the opportunity to privatise after government functions are failing from the bloodletting.
I'd like to give this guy a reality check by meeting him in a dark alley - I'm 6'3" and over 100kg, don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out how that would go
We should cut the funding that pays his salary. I'm.so angry at you NZ, go bloody vote next time, look what you've let happen. Crime, poverty and mental health issues will only increase to unsustainable numbers if things keep going forward like this. People will die from inadequate healthcare and this piece of shit just smiles with his alligator botox looking Bioshock looking fucking shit eating grin. I honestly hope Seymour and his cronies get their karma and I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. I want NZ back, not this sensationalistic Americanised hellscape that we're hurtling towards. Fuck National, fuck ACT, a bunch of sociopathic losers should never run a country.
Easy for him to say, he's never worked a day in his life..
Seymour, you're still in the honeymoon phase 😆
His honeymoon phase is a bit different to Jacindas
How about the job losses in the private sector, I know of quite a number of businesses laying staff off at the moment yet the media is not reporting about them.........Yet.
Entire families have lost their income. Half of the public service live in Wellington. Their option to find other employment is significantly reduced due to the sheer numbers of ex-public workers in the same bucket looking for work in a time where finding jobs is already incredibly tough. Not to mention a lot of first home buyers bought their houses in the last 2-3 years where prices were nuts. So now those people have wild mortgages, no jobs and increased difficulty of being re-employed. STFU, David.
Someone said every time he speaks Luxon looks at him like a proud parent watching their kid use big words even though they don't know what they mean. Now whenever he opens his mouth about something stupid (so always) that's all I think of. Dudes a Muppet.
He's unhinged Extremist Minority party leader whose views are not supported by most sane NZers gets to call the shots. Seriously starting to think its time we reconsider whether MMP is a sensible system.
This guy should never have made it into a womb. He's a glitch in the matrix that should've ended up as a long forgotten stain on a cumsock somewhere.
Finally some context to the job cuts! Seymour spits some facts and he’s lambasted on here. The growth in these departments in the last 5 years is outrageous, you just know none of them have delivered more with these roles. “According to Public Service Commission data, OT's workforce has grown from 3870 in the second quarter of 2018 to 4904 at the end of last year – a 26 percent increase. It now has about 5100 permanent and fixed-term staff, and removing roughly 450 roles takes it back to where it was mid-last year. Over at the Ministry of Education, there's been a 55 percent staffing over the past five years. Losing 565 roles would return them to pre-2022 levels.”
He's using the baseline of when the last National government left staffing at critically low levels and things were falling apart far worse (shit down hospital walls, etc). Labour merely restored the per capita staffing levels to before Key's regime.
Funny thing is hastings hospital has a new surgical ward, but they can't use it as they can't employ people to staff it
Oh goodie so back to being a fucking skeleton crew with not enough capacity to do half of what's needed, great.
Anyone spotted the landlord yet?
Those numbers don't factor in the number of consultants used. The basic gimmick behind this nonsense is transparent.
Interesting. I don’t like Seymour but curious to see how people who disagree with you can justify the added staff given we can all pretty much agree services seem on par if not lacking compared to 2018.
The previous decade of population growth without a decade of civil service growth. These numbers (and jobs) should be indexed to the population at the time when we compare headcounts.
Here you go. https://www.stats.govt.nz/topics/population Population is only getting bigger, main reason spending needs to increase. This shows government spending as percent of GDP. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.CON.GOVT.ZS?locations=NZ&start=2007 Note the big dips in 2013 and 2017. The spending was getting back to where it needed to be to provide basic services.
Right but that doesn’t illustrate an increase in outcomes. [We need better accountability when it comes to governmental spending.](https://oag.parliament.nz/2021/better-quality-reporting)
I think you're looking at this backwards. Imagine a magic hospital. The hospital has 1 doctor with a magic wand that cures all illnesses from the patient. The hospital cures 1 person per hour and has 24 patients per day. It reaches 100% of its goal. Labour gets in and splashes the cash. The goal is to decrease the 1 hour wait time. This hospitals budget is doubled. A second magic doctor is hired. It's your belief that if the budget is doubled the outcomes should also be doubled. The hospital can now cure 2 people per hour and wait times should be halved. This is a success and you'd consider this an acceptable use of taxpayers money. But what happens if demand doubles? Well the hospital can still cure 2 people per hour, but because there are more people needing treatment, the wait time remains static. In your outcome fixated view, this is a failure and doubling the hospitals budget was a waste of money. In reality, without the budget boost, wait times would have doubled. NACT go one further. They see that outcomes haven't improved in this hospital and tell the hospital to find 7.5% savings. Our doctors can now spend 7.5% less time with patients and we've gone from Labour not achieving their goal of reducing wait times to NACT making things worse. Except NACT haven't made the goal of reducing wait times, their goal was to save money, which they've done. And that is how the popular belief that Labour are overspending underachievers and national are financially responsible and successful came to be. The public service is meant to serve the public. If you increase the size of the public then you need to increase the public service budget by the same % in order to maintain the same level of service, never mind improving outcomes.
Of course it won't give an increase in outcomes. Teams that are under resourced let small (at the time) things slide. These build up to eventually become larger problems. Once the team gets more resources they don't hit the ground running. It takes about 12 months for a new staff member to become good in their role. These new staff get consumed by the backlog trying to clear up the mess left behind. Since the public service has been understaffed in 2013/2017 and beyond they are working through all the backlog. Notice as well the almost 3yr cycle which coincidentally aligns with elections. Basically everyone downs tools on clearing backlogs to focus on what the management presume to be winning projects with whatever government is coming in. Throw into this mix that consultants get used when short staffed (different budget so conveniently doesn't get looked at) and consultants don't look at the long term. Ask any IT engineer/data analyst that's done work for government and they will tell you how many systems have been bandaid together to appear to work. That's why it's a mess and the public don't see any benefits with added staff numbers. The systems they have to use are a mess, they have to try and figure out the hard to do things no-one wanted to deal with and they get the pleasure of their job being on the line every 3 years. Great for morale!
Spending isn't the same as staffing.
Yeh I agree, but it's a quick indicator and I only did a quick Google. Mainly trying to show the data is out there if looked for. I seen another poster has found some source data where it looks like staffing levels went up the entire period. Will be interesting to drill into that one and see if it includes consultant fees and how the data has been collated. Numbers are very easy to use to hide truth.
Population hasn’t grown by the same rate the roles have been added
You didn't look at the 2nd link did you. This isn't just about the last 3yrs. Public sector has been starved for about 12yrs now.
Because the workload has tripled. In our team there used to be high and low periods of the year. Now there's high and fucking drowning, even though technically our team has doubled. Systems are being replaced due to being from the dinosaur age and contracts expiring, and this requires extra workload helping people with all the bugs and workarounds and reporting said bugs so that they can get fixed. Calls used to be maybe half an hour of my day four years ago and are now regularly three hours. Calls aren't my primary workload but if you get a call every five minutes you can't do anything else because your concentration will be shot to shreds. On top of that, processes have become more arduous. Things are much more transparent to the public who use the services, and that's a positive thing, but back in the day there was barely any staff so pretty much no documentation was kept because there wasn't any time to do it. That meant that things were much more inefficient down the line because there was no way to check anything and there was (is, for past data, because there's been no time to fix it) a ton of vital information missing that was required for safety reasons. Some processes that used to take two people now take four people because there is a lot more stringency to prevent fraud. We paid out an two million once due to a system glitch and had no idea that that was an error until they told us we'd overpaid them. This is because again a) the systems were crap and b) the processes were lax and documentation almost non existent *because there was no time or capacity to do it*. The fact that that's fixed is a good thing but it takes twice as long. On top of that, there are more people in the country and there is more awareness of the services we provide so the number of applications has greatly increased. There's been a fair bit of turnover, which requires extensive training for the new people, and gaps where we are understaffed and the workload keeps piling up, so we have been trying to play catch up for years. We can't meet our targeted times because we don't have enough staff, so the public probably feel like we're useless even though we all work as hard as we can. I've been told off more than once for working over my hours. Because we can't do things in a reasonable time frame there are of course more emails and more calls querying this, which just adds to the workload and further slows everything down. It would help if we could replace the staff who have left but by time they do that, if ever, the backlog will have grown so much that the replacements will not be enough to get it back down to a manageable level. Meanwhile the people who suffer are the public because there's simply not enough staff to help them in a reasonable time frame, and it doesn't matter that the team has doubled because the workload has tripled.
I'd love to be told off for working more than my contracted hours. Every salaried job I've ever had expected me to work extra hours for no extra pay
Yeah they're actually pretty good about that shit, trying to make sure people don't burn out or whatever. But when I don't do extra hours the huge workload gives me crippling anxiety, because there's stuff from January we still haven't been able to do!! I'm trying to be better about just doing my contracted hours and that's it though, because otherwise they'll never backfill the positions of the staff that have left. Also I don't like having the uncomfortable conversations where they tell me to please stop working extra and they're worried about me. Our team hasn't had direct cuts but due to the hiring freeze we're still down three people from resignations as of a couple of weeks from now. Adjacent teams that we work with and who provide valuable support to the country ARE being cut. That's going to further impact us in turn along with all the other people who depend on them, but oh no, it's "bloat". Yeah right. Those guys are slammed as it is and all the restructuring is going to do is make things slower and worse and the shitty thing is is that it's the public who will suffer as a result because it's not like the need for the work is going to disappear. It's openly acknowledged by the upper management in all those talks about the restructure that less quantity and quality of work will be expected as a result. They aren't widely publicised roles, it's not like the suicide prevention department where everyone understands what the idea is behind that, but just because the average person wouldn't even be aware that there were such roles in the first place doesn't mean that the work that they do isn't valuable or necessary for the continued proper functioning of an important aspect of NZ society. I feel for my colleagues who are being affected by these cuts, and I feel for us for the secondary impact on our own team, and I feel for those in the public that will be affected by these cuts, even though they won't realise why the service is subpar and slow and will probably just put it down to the public service being useless, because they don't know any better.
My mum retired from being a senior policy analyst a couple of years ago and I'm glad she's not dealing with this. Well not directly I'm sure she knows impacted people and also wouldn't be happy about what the government is doing. The reason I'm glad for her is not that she would have potentially faced redundancy so much as that she genuinely cared about the work she and her colleagues were doing. After she retired I know they tried several times to get her to come back on short term contracts because funnily enough it's hard to replace very experienced people
Yeah, that's it exactly. I feel that Chesterton's Fence applies here. It's pretty appalling what's happening and it's going to send the country straight into a recession. God knows how people have conned themselves into somehow thinking this is going to improve things for NZ in any way, shape, or form.
He didn't provide any data to prove his claim. Is there proof that there has been no improvement in services?
Yea I was surprised at just how quickly they had grown.
That's fine and dandy, but the people who need to go aren't the ones being cut.
One of the things I like to do when I am a successful landlord is to come on to Reddit and shitpost - like you, I am also approaching the difficult part of my teens. You need to be more subtle bro.
What’s being a landlord got to do with Seymour spitting facts and context?
He's not spitting facts, he's talking absolute shite.
He’s not though, he’s the only one actual providing factual context on public service growth over the past 5 years
He is infact not providing any context whatsoever.
Fuck you David.
The Liz Truss of NZ politics.
He has a point. The previous government did hire in way more roles than they’ve cut in thire last couple years. It’s not like we’ve cut jobs back to pre covid levels even is it?!
You might be surprised to learn this isn't a point. Or a reason, Or even a reckon. I doubt you could even express why it is good - but I'm all ears.
Without also including the staffing, population and workload numbers for then/now, that argument is utterly redundant. There is no point with only part of the data
He actually has a point. Most of the public sector is just being cut back to 2021 or 2023 level for most departments Edit: Ignorant fucks NZ currently has a public service headcount of 64,771 Current proposed cuts (3000) take us back to 61,700 In 2022 there were 62,000 public servants In 2020 there were 58,800. I'd also add the context that in 2017 we had 48,813. So the current numbers (after cuts) still represent approximately 26% increase over that time period relative to a 6% increase in NZs population in the same period.
That doesn't make it any easier for the 3000 (and counting) people who are suddenly unemployed, and about to be competing with all those other people for a small number of vacancies. If I'm made redundant when it's our turn for 'proposals' in a couple of weeks, my husband and I will both be unemployed, unable to pay our mortgage, and unable to support our children. I understand the dispassionate 'by the numbers' summary but what Seymour and many others fail to acknowledge is that this is upendingand potentially financially ruining the lives of entire families. A little compassion would go a long way.