Is it “Trumpian” to dispute the veracity of the botched census statistics? That’s the question currently dominating the political debate following the release of the official report into how the 2018 government census operation went so badly. Leader of the Opposition, Simon Bridges has slammed the handling of the census operation by Statistics New Zealand …
Should we really care about the “Budget hack” that has been consuming a lot of politicians and political commentators over the last week? Is this really, as John Key used to say about scandals involving his own Government, one of “the things that matter”? I made the case yesterday in my column, The Budget ‘hack’ scandal …
Can we trust government departments? Can we trust Treasury not to lie to us? What about the Minister of Finance? Have they lied for political advantage? These are some of the questions that naturally come out of last week’s abysmal Government handling of National’s early release of budget details, in which senior officials and politicians …
There are just so many damning statements and statistics that need to be highlighted from today’s parliamentary bullying report. These all show that Parliamentary staff work in a dangerous and toxic place. But one of the most revealing facts in the report is actually found in the introduction and does not arise directly out of …
Exactly a year ago, on 6 March 2018, the government census was carried out. It was a “digital-first” census, with citizens expected to primarily use the internet to answer the compulsory questions about their lives. And it was soon apparent that huge numbers of New Zealanders had been missed out by the exercise – likely …
The machinery of government generally works quietly behind the scenes of the more visible Beehive politics that we associate with how this country is run. We’re used to the PM and ministers making announcements or explaining what is happening in portfolios, but for every portfolio there’s a group of government employees working behind the scenes, …
There is a lot of dissatisfaction at the moment with the “machinery of government” – the government departments, officials, and general bureaucracy that operates behind the scenes to make public services work and helps govern the country. And the criticism has been coming from all directions. Increasingly there are calls for a shakeup or re-examination …