| Dr Geofgf Bertram pn83 |
"This looks like a campaign to overwhelm the remaining vestiges of professionalism and specialised departmental ownership of policy areas; to open the way for yet more asset-stripping of the public estate; and to push the public service further into the corporate abyss.
Basically it's a power grab at the top of the system, reducing public servants to pawns to be shifted around the policy chessboard at the whim of all-powerful central planners.
Dr Geoff Bertram is a Senior Research Associate, Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington. Before we give him the floor to speak, we suggest you look at his credentials noted at the end of the article. How confident can we be in his predictions? These are the questions we should ask of all those who seek to express their opinions in the public arena.
OPINION: Yet again, the neoliberal wrecking ball is swinging through New Zealand's public service, fronted, alas, by Chris Hipkins whose laudable attempt (launched last February) to clean up the mess created by the State Sector Act 1988 has been captured by the high-paid top brass of the 1988-model state sector.
The result, released as a "consultation document" (available online at https://www.havemysay.govt.nz/assets/PDFS/Folder-1/SSA-Review-Te-Arotake-i-te-Ture-Tari-Kawanatanga.pdf), boils down to a recipe for making matters worse.
Stripped of the glossy photos and spin-doctored rhetoric, the big central idea is to mount yet another attack on the venerable model of a stable career public service, organised into departments of state which took ownership of vital areas of policy and service to the public, and reported each year on their stewardship of that role to the people in plain-English narratives.
That model, which served New Zealand well for seven decades between the 1912 Public Service Act and the 1988 act, embodied all the ideals that have been degraded to mere PR slogans in the consultation document. Read more.
His recent economic history publications include a chapter titled The New Zealand Economy 1900-2000in the New Oxford History of New Zealand (2009), a 2011 comparative study of settler economies, and a 2003 review of the economics of Rogernomics.
On the New Zealand macroeconomy he has published analyses of the role of the banks historicallyand in the 2008-9 financial crisis, and (with David Tripe) on the 2012 introduction of covered bonds. His work on income distribution and the falling labour share includes a summary and New Zealand application (with revision and update) of Thomas Piketty’s work.
In his writing on regulation, he has been strongly critical of the weakness of industry regulation in New Zealand and especially the failure of section 36 of the Commerce Act 1986 to curb anti-competitive practices, the flawed application of the “total surplus standard” to mergers and excess-profit issues, and the failure of light-handed regulation to restrict excess profits in the electricity sector. He published surveys of electricity industry restructuring in 2006, 2009 and 2013, in addition to regular seminar presentations on the sector.
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