We know that most New Zealanders trust the people who provide community and public services, but unfortunately that hasn’t stopped some political parties from trying to blame our hard-working members for a variety of woes.
In recent months, the National Party has proposed cutting 14,000 jobs in the public sector
When asked to name which jobs would be cut, opposition leader Christopher Luxon said he’d cut 200 communications staff from the Ministry of Health – five times as many as the Ministry actually has.
Public service jobs also bring money right across the country, supporting local business in not only our biggest cities, but also smaller towns and rural areas all over the country. Fourteen thousand jobs would
making redundant every public service worker in Northland, Bay of Plenty, Tairāwhiti, Hawke’s Bay, and
the entire South Island.
Union members in the health sector know all-too-well about what happens when so-called “back office" staff are cut. For many years under the last National government, District Health Boards had a cap on admin and clerical staff numbers. The result of this was that as workloads grew, hospitals were prevented from recruiting admin and clerical workers, and administrative work increasingly had to be done by clinical staff, leaving them less time to see patients.
Threatened job cuts
In the core public service, cutting “back office” staff could mean fewer HR staff to manage recruitment, health and safety and professional development. It could mean fewer policy staff, without the capacity to effectively engage with the public on new policies and legislation. It could mean fewer communications staff, making it harder for the public to know about and access the critical services they are entitled to and need.
It’s up to us to make those numbers real. Every one of those 14,000 jobs the National Party proposes cutting is done by a real person, working hard to deliver for all New Zealanders. Every one of those people has friends and whānau who care about them, and people who rely on them.
As we get closer to the election, imagine if all 85,000 of us talked with our loved ones, explained the importance of what we and our fellow union members do, and built a strong base of support for parties willing to commit not just to keeping the status quo, but to strengthening community and public services further for everyone’s benefit.
If we talk to just three others each, that could be more than 10% of New Zealanders who could be encouraged to vote for a more united society, not for division and blame. That’s a powerful constituency and hard for political parties to ignore.
By the time you are reading this, the election will be less than six months away. Let’s use that time to speak out and create support for community and public services.
