The economy is in recession and the government is laying off civil servants. Public-service cuts were a campaign promise from all three coalition partners, and Act has openly salivated at the recent job losses. The Prime Minister’s justification is that households and businesses are doing it tough –why shouldn’t the public service, especially after the money that’s been lavished on it over the past six years to so little effect?
It’s true there’s been a huge increase in the size of the bureaucracy, and this seemed to deliver a marked deterioration in its performance. But that was the fault
