Matisyahu's Blog

I’m always sceptical when I hear politicians talking about ‘cutting back end staff’ and ‘putting more money into front end staff’ because in sounds great in theory as so long as you don’t think about it too deeply for more than 5 minutes. I find it interesting how ‘back end staff’ is being used as some sort of derogatory descriptor while they ignore that someone has to do the paper work to keep things moving – if they get rid of large amounts of backend staff then are they replacing them with new processes along with a larger investment into technology? If that is their focus then I don’t see anything budgeted for such a large investment in technology nor do I see any mention of having to also get a report conducted regarding what risks need to be considered particularly in the area of privacy and security.

The latest announcement (well, it was latest at the time of me writing this blog post) was in regards to National’s plans for Kāinga Ora (link) where they talk about how things can be done better but never any specifics. In the past they gave details of any changes and argue the case of why those changes would make a difference but at this point it is pretty much “trust me bro” with no specifics. As for what I would do, I’ll quote what I posted on Reddit in regards to dealing with affordable housing:

“If the govt were serious they would re-establish the ministry of works, nationalise all those building businesses that are about to hit the wall, employ the builders, plumbers etc. (along with developing a long term apprenticeship scheme) to focus on building thousands of social housing so that HNZ becomes the primary provider of rental accomodation. Long term the goal should be for a house to cost no more than 25% of a single persons after tax income per week (if a couple and both are working) or 12.5% if only one person is working – imagine paying $125 per week for rent vs $500-$600 as many do today – that would have a much bigger impact for those who are struggling than the pittance saved by removing GST on grocery items (I’d love to see how they classify what is a grocery item – expect it to be as entertaining as the debate over whether Jaffa cakes are cakes or biscuits).”

We’ve seen in the past when National/ACT have tried to run the government on a soft drink budget and then the next government having to come in to clean up the mess and make massive investments to address the degraded services. I’m still disappointed that Labour appears to be lumbering along offering nothing in the way of a long term vision and how the policies the announce fit into that vision but rather their constant cycle of incremental tweaks with no coherent narrative to explain how they all tie in together.