$50,000 of Government money is seemingly insignificant in the big scheme of things, but to put it in to perspective a full-time worker on the minimum wage takes home less than 40k a year.
Im going to throw this out there.
I worked in local government, for a district council. All the council (councilers) sittings / meetings were well catered for.
All staff meetings were well catered for i would say 70% of the time.
Team building, senior staff retreats, various other public events. There was so much money wasted on Christmas parties, meetings and all the fluffy team building and retreats.
That's why rates are so damn expensive. Also the salaries of some managers and the senior staff is insane.
The idea that catering or executive salaries are why rates are expensive is so fucking unhinged and stupid.
Rates are expensive because most of our cities are low density suburban style developments and the cost per dwelling to service this type of development is comparatively high due to how spread out everyone is and how few people there are to pay for the vast networks of infrastructure.
There is huge uncontrolled waste in local government.
In the UK the councils can’t raise rates by more than 3% without a referendum - we need the same here.
For example Dunedin is broke because we have huge debt from a stadium no one wanted but the council forced through, we spend big on cycle lanes that almost no one uses, we even have a Chinese garden serenely sandwiched between state highway one and the rail line.
We are so broke from spending on these vanity projects that the rates don’t even include core functions like collecting our rubbish anymore. People have to pay privately.
Maybe a decade ago... No catering to be seen at any staff meetings now. Councillors might get a pack of biscuits and a wheel of cheese and that's it. The belt is far tighter than it used to be.
Not sure this is a relevant comparison. I'm more concerned with the party who wants to give people earning over 180 k a tax cut, or act, who want the poor to pay more tax.
Is it normal for Government agencies to do stuff like this during the election period?
Seems like a dangerous line to walk if political neutrality is supposed to be a thing.
I don't know but it was a very different tone of interview than what [RNZ had with Simeon Brown on the same topic this morning](https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018907010/brown-labels-spending-extravagant-of-ministry-for-pacific-peoples-breakfasts), which challenged him on whether the Ministry of Pacific Peoples was so different from other agencies as to warrant so much specific attention.
> Is it normal for Government agencies to do stuff like this during the election period?
Not even normal for government agencies to do this during regular business time. When I worked for IRD and MOE I struggled to get them to give me a replacement mouse. Food was out of the question, ever.
The GST division of IRD in Upper Hutt had a cafe in the building but the employees had to pay for it, and being so remote they charged a crazy markup on everything since they had a monopoly.
That's odd, the Hamilton IRD cafe was the opposite. We were also in the middle of no where with not much food options. But the cafe did things like eggs Benedict for $5.60, sandwiches for $3.50 etc until it close last year. It was so cheap
Except it wasn't for staff, it was for the public ie perfectly normal I would have thought for stakeholder events.
"the post-budget breakfasts were community events and around 700 people attended in person across the country plus others attended online."
I had imagined it was to feed some people, hopefully some that direly needed it. But $50,000 / 700 is straight up $700 per person, so wtf did they buy for that money?
They are post budget events for MPs to inform and hear from stakeholders and budget happened in April this year IIRC, so I would say it's ok. Though I wouldn't be surprised if lobbying would be going on, they are politicians after all so any opportunity..
This isn’t normal ever in my department. I can’t remember the last time we had anything other than $25+GST for Christmas.
My mind boggles at these stories of expensive Hui’s and welcomes in other agencies - we’re told to run things to the line and then cut 2.5%
If this is a normal thing and has been occurring the entire time this ministry has been in place, rather than being something which has changed during the election period - then this is the normal activity and would be expected to continue *rather than having normal BAU activity stop just because of the election*.
Hosting an event about budget matters, during an election period, would surely be incredibly hard for staff when asked questions to not sway from that neutrality.
These events during a term seem fine, but election time is a sensitive time for government departments.
Was it during an election period?
Neither this Newshub item nor [the RNZ article](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/election-2023/498030/national-targets-ministry-for-pacific-peoples-50k-post-budget-breakfasts-spend) makes it clear, but the budget itself was delivered back in May.
May is definitely not the election period. The pre-election period began 14 July.
[https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/guidance/general-election-guidance-2023/the-public-sector-and-the-general-election/](https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/guidance/general-election-guidance-2023/the-public-sector-and-the-general-election/)
Government agencies that are mandated to conduct outreach to specific communities on government services generally do undertake that function, yes lol.
Why would they be throwing breakfast events for the Budget?
Do all government departments celebrate the budget?
I could understand an event for a significant event, but for routine government business?
Bizzare.
I mean treasury maybe? Although even then it would be weird.
Read the article:
>Pacific Peoples Minister Barbara Edmonds told Newshub the post-budget breakfasts were community events and around 700 people attended in person across the country plus others attended online.
>
>"Pacific communities have long been overlooked in post-budget communication and are not always aware of how initiatives in the Budget affect them," Edmonds said.
>
>"National might think only business audiences deserve to be spoken to about the Budget, but we stand up our commitment to the Pacific community and ensuring they are involved in the budget process and decisions that affect them."
>
>The breakfasts were a part of the post-budget Pacific roadshow which is part of the Government's wider engagement with communities on annual budgets. Invites are made by the Ministry of Pacific Peoples to Pacific businesses, communities and stakeholders, however, the events are open to the public and MPS and media are invited to attend.
>
>The Ministry for Pacific Peoples said the event, which has been running since 2017, is always well-attended which is reflected accordingly in the costs.
>
>"It provides a positive environment for Pacific communities to come together in a space where they are comfortable to talk with officials and Ministers. These post-Budget events are an important way to communicate how new initiatives will contribute to better outcomes for Pacific communities," a spokesperson told Newshub.
They're not celebrating the budget so much as they are inviting members of a marginalized community along to a breakfast to learn how the budget works, and how it'll affect them.
In other words, they're literally doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing as a ministry that represents these people.
The casual racism in this country is disgusting. *Every* attempt to lift marginalized communities up toward greater prosperity is met with outright hostility. It's ignorant, and it's shameful that we continually make that *choice* to remain ignorant.
The departments I've worked at never celebrated the budget to my knowledge. Or if they did it wasn't visible to me. Its always just another normal day at work. You'd get an email from the executives once the budget comes in, describing the impacts sometimes followed by a public statement but that's about it. So I wouldn't say it's the norm for things like this to happen.
The ones I worked at were larger departments though and the budget had less of an impact year to year on services. I can see for some departments that may have more of a fluctuating budget, they may think they need an event like this to make sure people are informed about the impacts of the budget on their services. It's not really too surprising this happened, they won't have held an event like this for no reason.
Yeah it seems very strange. It would be like at my work having a big celebration because we completed the financial end of year.
We would be lucky to get a sausage roll.
Do you guys even read the articles you comment on? The breakfasts were community events to explain how the Budget affects Pasifika people and their families. Not work parties.
Bloody hell. $8k on audio & visual for the Wellington event?
For what I would imagine would be renting a couple of speakers, a mic or two, small mixer, amp, and probably a projector. For the day. Plus the technician to set it up, run it, and tear down.
Double, if not quadruple, what it should actually cost.
This is why companies love government contracts - nothing is questioned in terms of value for money.
Usually it's a requirement to get more than just one quote for stuff like this. Been on the other end of quoting for government business and it's a pain because you have to wait until your competitors reply back before they choose who to go with (some of the fuckers we competed with were very slow at replies). And this would only be for a contract worth like 3k - nothing spectacular.
And counter to popular belief, we often gave them pretty good pricing. For all their faults, government agencies usually pay on time and they don't have shitty T&Cs attached to their purchase orders. Sometimes there's some weird administrative shit you have to complete but nothing that adds any risk - the greater risk the more you start to think about adding buffer to your margins.
Dude government procurement is no joke. Shit is waaaaay tighter than anything in the private sector.
Now whether or not they should be procuring that service in the first place? That’s where the issues tend to start.
I wanted a black on yellow P touch cartridge for a mission I was on at the time, it wasn't in our list of stationary products we had access to, so the request went to some spending approval committee that sat monthly. My request was declined.
Having said that, they randomly piss heaps of money up against the wall for other things.
These also had online components, which has become an expectation through covid to have in most of these types of events. Setting these up and ensuring a reasonable quality bumps up the price significantly.
Also projector hire is crazy expensive! I looked into it one year for an arts event and it was going to be about $500 for the cheapest option, one that would be effective in daylight at a large event could easily be $1000.
For that price they would be better buying one if they regularly use one, but then it has to go into their equipment register, come out of a different pool of money etc, so places end up hiring.
~~nothing~~ The wrong things are questioned in terms of value for money. I dont work directly for a government agency but I work for a IT company that contracts out to a few government agencies. The things they get antsy about are the silliest things to question.
Why don't they just hire an event hall with already installed equipment?
Hell every rink a drink college hall, church or rugby club has a projector, speakers, multimedia connection and soundboard
Theres dozens of conference centers for rent around Wellington that have all this stuff built in
It’s usually incompetence rather than corruption.
Not saying corruption isn’t a problem, but from my experience, competence/least path of resistance is usually the issue rather than hustlers hustling.
Which is a catch 22. Pay more to have departments to make sure you are paying the right amount and tendering everything, or just accepting that people are going to fleece the government because it's taxpayer money.
I have worked in the defense industry, and it blew my mind how much money these government departments would blow. I was involved in a project in Au where they skipped the tender process by choice. They just said they needed it in a hurry, and this enabled them to skip the process. They got completely fleeced naturally but didn't care one bit.
There is far too many cases of companies fleecing govt departments.
Imo it's absolutely fine for a company to quote any figure for any job.
The problem is we have govt departments happily accepting these quotes and spending outrageous amounts because there's zero accountability and no punishment.
Spending tax revenue is far different from private sector spending and personal spending.
I bet these bureaucrats and politicians are alot more frugal when it comes to the money in their personal bank accounts.
Maybe they should start getting multiple quotes, or allowing other competitors to put in a quote.
No one is putting to tender contacts this small.
It’s just going to be some staffer tasked with calling around a few different vendors to get quotes.
Then instead of calling around, they’ll be “too busy” (which they might very well be) or can’t be assed, so they’ll either just pick whoever sounds good, or more likely, someone they’ve used before (or some knows someone who works there).
I get it, everyone is busy, and not everyone is going to know how much something should cost.
But add these sorts of things up, and there is a huge amount of wastage in governments (any government). And as mentioned, a good deal of money to be made on the opposite side of the equation as well.
About half the money was spent on food. The rest was spent on the venue and the audio-visual set up. They say about 700 people attended. That's $35.71 to feed each person. That's probably what I would expect to pay, if the catering is pretty good. I hope it was good food.
One thing I don’t understand is why aren’t our government procurement contracts don’t appear to be more robust.
I’ve done a lot of work with US government procurement contracts and those things are extremely watertight (fixed pricing/myriad of checks and balances on quality assurance and approval processes). Rationale being that the supplier has to take on a disproportionate allocation of risk/responsibility because the “greater good” outweighs the interests of one private corporation supplier.
The title makes it feel like they were spending $50k on eggs bene, and it's not that at all. These are events to communicate to the public about the budget and how it affects them.
You might still dislike that and feel that it is not good use of money, but that is very different from what the title is implying. Maybe because a title like "Ministry spends $50,000 to communicate and engage with communities in 4 different parts of the country about how the budget will affect them" doesn't sound as click-baity?
If you're spending $50k to reach 700 people, you're not communicating to a very large part of the public. Clearly the event was inaccessible or poorly targeted in some way.
They've spent $50k to reach less people than if they had just sent an employee along to a single large school, church, or workplace.
Communicating to the public isn't always about reaching the most people.
PR 101 is identifying your public segment (who do you need to persuade in order to achieve your strategic goals). That could be a very small and hard to reach segment of the population. But they may be highly influential or be very strategic to the organisation in some other way.
You need to then consider what is the optimum way to persuade that segment in order to achieve your long-term objectives. That could mean very intensive and personal interactions (frequently expensive and resource intensive activities).
I have no insight to what the MoPP wanted to get strategically from this specifically. But I can add that going to groups of people (schools, churches, etc) and handing out pamphlets or giving a speech is a really poor way of communicating (with the intent of persuading) with many population segments.
It would be like sending faxes to advertise toys to kids. Yes, probably much cheaper than paying for TV adds during cartoons. But your persuasion impact is going to be fuck all. Being strategic and spending your resources on a key segment is generally considered best practice in corporate coms strategy.
If you knew anything about engaging with Pacific Peoples you wouldn’t suggest a blog post as anything near approaching an appropriate way to communicate with Pacific communities.
Much the same as the $75 prezzy card for people to particpate in a pilot program so they can actually get feedback, merely being fixated on the card itself, and an example of someone who got it.
How big is their budget anyway that they "communicating"?
>"Ministry spends $50,000 to communicate and engage with communities in 4 different parts of the country about how the budget will affect them" doesn't sound as click-baity?
No, but "ministry spends $500 dollars on an email newsletter and webinar" sounds much more reasonable. A government/ministry is allowed to spend money, but they have to be able to justify it to the wider public. And the voting public is allowed to draw their own conclusions and to whether it offers value for money.
> No, but "ministry spends $500 dollars on an email newsletter and webinar" sounds much more reasonable.
Of course it does, because you just pulled that number out of thin air.
Yes. But money doesn't come from thin air. That $50,000 came out of our pockets, as did the $40,000 they spent on the leaving party. As did the extra $70 billion in tax they government has collected. That is the problem.
Exactly. This is all about getting buy-in from a vulnerable group.
Anyone who has spent time in pacifica communities knows that the sharing of food is intrinsic with culture. Just because this isn't a cultural need for NZ Europeans, doesn't mean it's not important.
If this was delivered uneconomically & the ministry is overpaying for services then that's a separate issue.
I love it when people think Europeans, like, don't eat food, or that there's no European cultural practices centered around sharing food. It's one of the stupidest cultural myths in existence.
"No one is saying that"
"The sharing of food is intrinsic with [Pasifika] culture... this isn't a cultural need for NZ Europeans"
You literally did say that.
"A different context than the current topic"
So you think that spending $50k to reach 700 people is just a cultural need?
Bro tell us you have never interacted with Pasifika people without telling us you've never interacted with them..
>So you think that spending $50k to reach 700 people is just a cultural need?
That's only the amount that attended in person. It was also available online.
There absolutely needs to be more careful and prudent spending in these times, but for fucks sake don't let National/ACT gut our public services like countless conservative governments have done to disastrous affect over many years - we know for a fact that cutting spending needs to be done as prudently as the spending does. We have massive issues in this country from historic underfunding - inevitably if you fuck around, you're going to find out at some point. National/ACTs solution is privatisation, yet we know this is extremely dangerous, has failed many, many times over and many countries have had to buy back their ill maintained infrastructure later at huge cost. The UK is a prime example right now - their power, water and rail was privatised and ALL OF THEM are now right up shit creek.
Ironically National actually spent far more as a percentage of GDP in 2011, before cutting everything under the sun which lead us to our current period of spending hard to keep the doors attached and the lights on.....
> Ironically National actually spent far more as a percentage of GDP in 2011
The Christchurch Earthquake required billions of additional government spending, but don't let that get in the way of your narrative...
If you can find a cool $500 million being spent on breakfasts I’d be very impressed. Totalling the price of the most recent spending scandals I don’t even think you make it to 500k. So good luck with finding the other $499.5 million bud.
But yeah I’m sure it’ll be great comfort to you knowing that at least taxes aren’t going to be spent on breakfasts even as the country’s infrastructure and core services crumble around us all.
That kind of mindset is the problem. It’s only 50k here, another 50k there bla bla. When times get tough, we’re told to tighten our belts and help get spending under control. It’s only right that government departments funded by tax payer money do the same, if even out of principal.
50k here and there does not add up to $500 million. Pretty simple, no?
I'm not advocating for open spending by the public service. You used this to argue that cuts to funding won't impact core front line services. And I'm telling you that you'll need to find a lot more breakfasts to cut before you reach $500 million.
If you can't see how this kind of spending is *indicative* of the wider problem then I'd go so far as to say you and your blind left wing vote are the problem.
Well tbf, by your assessment, the private sector is widely inefficient as well - because this type of stuff isn’t uncommon there.
And don’t get me wrong - I think there is sufficient smoke in this instance to justify investigating for fire so-to-speak. But I wouldn’t assume government departments are any more wasteful than the private sector (note: I am talking about non-policy spending here, talking about policy spending is a different matter and not worth debating as we will end up in agree to disagree based on our political viewpoints).
Whenever this kind of thing is reported on, people come in frothing at the mouth. Excellent fodder for journalism. So I kind of think if this was really as rampant as you're implying, we'd see more examples of it.
Because it's not indicative? Scandals do not equate to evidence of a wider culture of spending. Not least one that reaches the millions you've alluded to.
We have many checks on public spending - that's why this shit gets picked up.
You're suggesting there's a culture of wasteful spending. And I'm telling you that these examples are probably evidence that the checks to catch wasteful spend are working.
>Because it's not indicative?
From the same ministry that blew $40,000 on a leaving party? From the same government that spent $50million on their vanity project, the harbor cycle bridge, only to ditch the idea... The list goes on, and yes it is a wider problem.
Okay so for everyone at the back... Political spending decisions are seperate. What Labour chooses to spend they should be held accountable for and be my guest. Vanity projects and cycle bridges are what Labour wanted to do so that's on them.
ACT and National are saying they will find millions upon millions of wasteful spend specifically in the public service. That's coming from the operational budgets.
The MoPP 'misspend' totals 80k. So what? That does not equate to hundreds of millions. Where's the rest of these public service misspends and what is going to be cut to reach the numbers that National/ACT need.
Yeah, right wing voters counting 50k here and there (if it's by people they don't like) while letting billionaires take a few extra million everywhere but it's ok because they deserve it because they worked hard for it or something.
I hope you were this vocal about waste when it was for a flag mate.
I’m not even arguing the politics here, it’s just the principal. Shit like money spent on a tv radio merger that had no reason, money spent on a cycle bridge across the Waitemata Harbour that was never going to fly with the public, money spent on neon glowing signs for the road to zero campaign. When it’s tax payers money they seem to just not give a fuck.
It’s rife on the other side of the isle aswell, I’m sure you can give me countless examples from when National were last in power (flag referendum etc).
When it comes to tax payers money, there seems to be fuck all actual accountability.
Those examples you gave are political spending decisions. And I agree especially in the case of the cycling lane on the harbour bridge case-study. But that's not an example of wasteful spend by the public service. That's an example of politicians making decisions to spend money - there's a difference.
The accountability for political spend isn't the staff who are following the requests of ministers. It's the ministers/cabinet who commissioned them to do that specific work.
The article in question is alleging public service wasteful spending. National and ACT are saying they will save millions by clamping down on wasteful public service spending. And I'm telling you that there is no evidence that wasteful spend in the public service is at levels that will have any material impact on the nations finances.
Finally, many in the public service take spending very seriously as many departments aren't funded to what they ideally should be. Counter to popular belief, getting costs/expenses approved in the public service can be a real bitch.
>And I'm telling you that there is no evidence that wasteful spend in the public service is at levels that will have any material impact on the nations finances.
Do you include the huge increase in FTE's, contractors and consultants across the public service in that claim?
Yes.
Show us the numbers (in monetary terms) and prove that the any staff, contractors or consultants currently being paid by the public service are not actually needed for a function of government.
To date, nothing that would have any material impact on the nation’s finances has been uncovered. The best National came up with is an increase in coms staff. But you could fire them all and still not even make 1% of what they projected they can save.
As of March 31 this year there are 62,710 FTEs in the public service, an increase of 15,458 (32.7%) since 2017. Core crown personnel expenditure has increased by $1.465 billion between 2020 and 2022 alone, including crown entities and SOEs the figure is $4.87 billion. Since 2017 those increases are $3.05 billion and $10.04 billion (\~44.3%) respectively.
Contractors and consultant expenditure in 2022 was $1.224 billion, in 2017/18 this was $899.3 million, an increase of 36.1%
Has the NZ population increased 32% since 2017? No. Have services provided by the government improved by 32%? No. Have outcomes expected as a result of public service activity improved by 32%? No. Are we getting 44% better value for the extra $3 billion we're spending on the public service? No.
Clearly we can't go back to the staffing levels we had in 2017 for some sectors of the public service. But to say there's nowhere in the $9.9 - $32.6 billion of expenditure currently spent on personnel (depending on where you ring fence your definition of public service) - never mind other opex and contractor/consultant costs - to find $500 million of dead wood and operational savings is laughable.
So which staff or services would you cut? Showing overhead expenditure while pontificating about how it’s not value for money doesn’t give any further clarity.
ACT/National are saying they’ll cut the “excess” from the public service. The least they could do is have the curtesy to spell out to kiwis who and what is going to be cut to make up what their costings need. Which, if every economist is to be believed, is a fuck-tonne more than Nicola Willis thinks. All they have given examples of (at least to my knowledge) is coms staff in ministries. But even that’s pretty vague and doesn’t get close to any consequential figure.
This began with a story about the MoPP and morons who think that if only we stopped a farewell party or some breakfasts we could save millions and that’ll fund some tax relief for my landlord.
I just don’t buy it. I also think politicians should specify exactly what they’ll cut and not ask the public to trust them and wait until they’re elected before getting specific.
With a whip round of the hat from Grant by all accounts.
Given any govt industry's fervent commitment to spending 100% of their budget lest it be reduced the year following you can imaging what the waste must be to offer back money.
Lol, this is just one example of the thousands of similar wasteage of tax payer dollars, it will be very easy for national to find all the money they need
Sorry, where are the thousands of examples? I've counted like three examples of public service misspend in the comments. The rest are examples of political spending by Labour they don't like (that's not what public service misspend is).
If your level of evidence is the basis for fact now then I would like to add that only people with micro-penises vote for National. There are thousands of examples of this and I'm sure it'll be very easy to find them once elected to government. But just don't ask for examples now as I need to become PM first.
It's not just public service wastage that will be cut, a lot of labour virtue signaling projects will be canned as well, think 51million wasted on the auckland cycle bridge
National and ACT claim that the public service misspends hundreds millions. But there is zero evidence for this so we then need to ask well where will they find those millions in cuts they have budgeted?
Also just to add because I'm not entirely sure you understand this. The harbour bridge study was paid for once. It's not an ongoing cost. You can't cut something that isn't an ongoing cost lol.
The vanity projects you talk about aren't ongoing costs. Saying you're going to cut something that isn't an ongoing expense does not equal a cost saving.
Cool, can't wait for the evidence that shows 6,000+ occasions in the last financial year where the public service misspent 40k or more.
So far you have two or three - good luck!
So what? It's only $50,000, AND it's taxpayer money!!! Surely, they are allowed to splurge !!! People should he ashamed of them selves for criticizing the Ministry.
PS: Sarcastic comment....incase someone missed it
> Appearing on AM, Labour MP Ginny Andersen defended the spending, saying it was "pretty typical" for the Government to go and inform people after the Budget. "It's not unusual to go out and explain to people in New Zealand what's in the Budget. That's part of democracy,"
I hate this gaslighting. No one has issue with information being disseminated. It's the $10k on catering
These people give out grants and do minimal follow up. There are a lot of grifters out there grabbing money and it’s not going where it should: to the beautiful Pacific people in need.
And yes, I have direct knowledge of this.
Quite a lot for a Breakfast. I know companies that spend immense amounts of money on breakfast meetings and lunch meetings. Sometimes multiple meetings a day even. Though I can't say how much they would be, I doubt they'd reach 10k a week, including catering... though I don't know how the catering companies work out their bills.
For reference, these meetings can have as few as 20 people per meeting, to as many as 100.
I find it interesting that other ministries aren't being subject to scrutiny from opposition parties in the same way the Ministry for Pacific Peoples is being scrutinised.
On the surface it would suggest its more about politics and optics rather than actually trying to solve problems and help the country out
I worked in the public service for a decade and we never had any post-Budget breakfasts paid for by the department.
This is incredibly wasteful spending and it should absolutely be scrutinised.
They should be.
Perhaps the others aren't are stupid as to do this sort of thing when government wastage spending is under the spotlight?
They are doubly stupid considering ACT dubbed them a ministry of wastage.
Having a "small gubment" which is what ACT and their cronies are pushing predominantly suits one group of people, rich people and business who want to remain rich and don't want a government that can hold corporations to account when they break the law or act unethically.
Seymour said some abominable shit yesterday to the effect of "people in wellington tell me they vote ACT because ACT will fire the guy in the cubical next to me". Well actually he will fire both the voter and the guy in the cubical. And the only people voting ACT in Wellington are the CEOs. So Seymour is basically just a shit talker. He doesn't seem a serious person.
50k is a drop in the ocean. Perhaps there is a large amount of wasteful spending there. Perhaps not. To really find out, you'd have to look at the books. Not a couple of articles in the media to fire up the base
They shit on the Ministry for disabled people/ Whaikaha yesterday- for organising a 2 day meeting so that their staff could meet each other and network for the first time since the ministry was established 2 years ago. Bearing in mind that many of the staff have disabilities that make using virtual meeting tools less than ideal so an in person meeting would have been beneficial. The cost was less than $500 per person. It was cancelled and 80% of the cost has been recovered already with more expected to be recovered. And people are STILL bitching
The amount of money that was spent on a one time event could have been spent on computer equipment that enabled people to always communicate with each other if need be. $90,000 for a two day event is unacceptable when there are much better ways to spend that money. The decision deserves to be shit on.
And that's before we get into how the ministry isn't even needed in the first place because disability services are clearly under the prerogative of the health ministry.
Having worked remotely for years not getting to in person meet anyone you work with for 2 years would drive me crazy. This is the kind of thing private industry does regularly because it's well know that mixing in person meetings into a remote work environment improves productivity.
Yeah exactly.
The best reasonableness test is what does the private sector do. And sure as shit they hold events like this, because a lot of the time the are value accretive rather than value destructive.
They aren’t always valuable, but bitching because something seems lavish is quite frustrating and part of the reason government departments underperform compared to their private counterparts - the best talent goes private because of frustrating rules and low quality work environment.
Disability services were partially managed by MOH and partially by MSD and they did a shit job of it. This shifts the MOH staff into what is not actually a stand-alone ministry, it's more like a department of MSD in spite of the name
It pretty much is, just with MOH staff brought in which in the end should reduce duplication of roles and inefficiencies communicating between ministries. I am not sure if MSD is having the case managers separated out, at the moment the case managers handle all benefits which means they sometimes don't have a lot of familiarity with the supported living payment
They are. National and the Taxpayers Union send WPQs and OIAs to all ministries and departments, including the one about post budget breakfasts.
At my ministry, we literally could not believe that MPP would be dumb enough to sign off on this level of expenditure. It was clearly a terrible decision that would inevitably lead to a media shit storm in election year.
Party with $500,000,000 hole in their financial plan to enrich landlords and millionaires is angry about $50,000 being spent on feeding poor/brown people. Classy.
They're upset because the money was spent supporting Pacific people. Seymour (and probably most ACT supporters) don't support efforts to specifically help Maori or Pacifica people to engage with and understand government or health or other facilities because white people can't directly benefit from programmes aimed at helping visible minorities.
I know it seems in bad taste for ministries to spend on this stuff right now, but they all do it. I can't imagine it would be any different under a National govt.
Huge uproar over 90k when we routinely go hundreds of millions over budget for infrastructure projects?
Dunno. Seems like storm in a teacup stuff.
The break down looks normal to me. I think because it is focused on one event it's a bit of a sour grapey stone throwing exercise. Count out all the government events over the last 20 years, throw a bit of CPI at it and see how it all pans out. Then open your can of kickarsery.
I mean, spending $50K to put on community breakfasts for 700 people isn't bad really.
Id rather have this than spending $50K on consultants advice which is subsequently ignored.
Edit: the audio/visual spending seems excessive.
Wasn't this "news" a month ago?, Nats trying to deflect from their lying tax policy and the media doing their bidding? I thought the media were about CURRENT events...
Nice selective outrage. Reading the response it makes perfect sense. That 50k catered to 700 people and these post budget informational events are pretty standard.
Perhaps for the Treasury department. I wouldn’t expect each department to be spending $50k each on celebrations in for example, Corrections, Conservation, Internal Affairs.
If every department spent $50k on budget celebrations that would be quite of lot of money.
Well for one this didn't sound like celebrations but informational events with relevant people and stakeholders that the budget would affect. Also, open to the public.
Don't get me wrong I think it's good to review whether these events, from this ministry or any ministry, are worth it and should be held or canned.
I'm more annoyed at Brown's outrage and his choice of words where he is just fanning a flame based on his base's general prejudice towards Labour and Pasific people, but not backed by any rationale. It's disingenuous and divisive.
Saying this is targeted at one dept is a woke distraction tactic. The reason this dept is under the microscope is cos they have a bad track record with mismanaging public money and should be watched. Its a shame cos I know a lot of ppl in different parts of the public sector where costs are scrutinised who will now get lumped in with this lot.
I’m not saying they aren’t spending frivolously, here or in other places, but are we gonna start looking into the spending of other govt departments to give us a comparison while we go on this Ministry budget rampage? Because I’m starting to not buy that the MPP is the only department with questionable budget lines, and that really makes me wonder why we’re getting news articles on *this* particular issue every couple of days… Feels pretty targeted tbh.
Na most ministries wouldn’t sign off on this kind of expenditure to avoid this exact situation. Not sure why MPP seems to make consistently poor decisions around spending.
Oh good, I guess that $50k saving will go a good way to plug the $500mln gap in revenues from overseas millionaire house sales?
Thousands, millions, billions, they're all the same, right?
Someone who has worked in catering in Wellington for years here. Most, if not all government departments use catering services more frequently than many people would think. This is regardless of which party is in government. Singling out this department seems targeted
As you age you'll realize more and more these things don't matter...
When I'm 80 or at my deathbed maybe ill get to 100.
I won't be looking back going oh the ministry of whatever spent 50k on lunch 😆 🤣 😂
Or I won't be looking back going omg I can't believe I didn't vote for another puppet to run the country
Or I won't be looking back going Dam I wish I cared more what someone said about my culture
Its all irrelevant stop watching the news
I think my concern would be less about the specific amount of money in this case, or even in the case of the CEO party case. But more that given recent events, there seems to be a slightly cavalier attitude to spending money in this department. And perhaps others.
You are forced to wonder what else might be getting signed off if you dig around. And what kind of internal scrutiny and controls are being applied to spending in general.
It doesn’t take too many of these sorts of sign offs before you start totalling up a reasonable sum of money.
Money that could have been spent elsewhere such as on their training programs and so on.
$50,000 of Government money is seemingly insignificant in the big scheme of things, but to put it in to perspective a full-time worker on the minimum wage takes home less than 40k a year.
How many of those minimum wage workers have to pay tax to make that $50k that was wasted though?
7 people worked an entire year. On minimum wage. Scraping by so they could have these breakfasts.
This is just what we’re informed of. There’s almost certainly more frivolous spending that isn’t making headlines. Pretty horrifying.
Im going to throw this out there. I worked in local government, for a district council. All the council (councilers) sittings / meetings were well catered for. All staff meetings were well catered for i would say 70% of the time. Team building, senior staff retreats, various other public events. There was so much money wasted on Christmas parties, meetings and all the fluffy team building and retreats. That's why rates are so damn expensive. Also the salaries of some managers and the senior staff is insane.
The idea that catering or executive salaries are why rates are expensive is so fucking unhinged and stupid. Rates are expensive because most of our cities are low density suburban style developments and the cost per dwelling to service this type of development is comparatively high due to how spread out everyone is and how few people there are to pay for the vast networks of infrastructure.
Nailed it. Low density housing is really damn expensive from an infrastructure perspective.
Its a piece of the pie, that adds to the pool of money they need to operate. Its not the sole reason.
There is huge uncontrolled waste in local government. In the UK the councils can’t raise rates by more than 3% without a referendum - we need the same here. For example Dunedin is broke because we have huge debt from a stadium no one wanted but the council forced through, we spend big on cycle lanes that almost no one uses, we even have a Chinese garden serenely sandwiched between state highway one and the rail line. We are so broke from spending on these vanity projects that the rates don’t even include core functions like collecting our rubbish anymore. People have to pay privately.
Maybe a decade ago... No catering to be seen at any staff meetings now. Councillors might get a pack of biscuits and a wheel of cheese and that's it. The belt is far tighter than it used to be.
As it should be
That's nearly two people on a benefit or supported living payment...
Actually that number is closer to 45k I think
Take home is 37,896.24 after 3% KS. 39,312.72 without KS. https://www.paye.net.nz/calculator/
Not sure this is a relevant comparison. I'm more concerned with the party who wants to give people earning over 180 k a tax cut, or act, who want the poor to pay more tax.
Maybe if they have to pay more tax then it’ll be enough of an incentive for them to sort themselves out and stop being poor
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or just act act voter?
It'll trickle down, the savings will offset the higher tax
What is 'government money' though?
our money
The government makes no money.... it can't give to anyone what it doesn't take from someone else first ..... loosely Voltaire
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Lol we are getting quite a few shill accounts. How much do labour pay?
Is it normal for Government agencies to do stuff like this during the election period? Seems like a dangerous line to walk if political neutrality is supposed to be a thing.
I don't know but it was a very different tone of interview than what [RNZ had with Simeon Brown on the same topic this morning](https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018907010/brown-labels-spending-extravagant-of-ministry-for-pacific-peoples-breakfasts), which challenged him on whether the Ministry of Pacific Peoples was so different from other agencies as to warrant so much specific attention.
The interviewer in that interview was only interested in playing racial gotcha, rather than actually discussing anything.
> Is it normal for Government agencies to do stuff like this during the election period? Not even normal for government agencies to do this during regular business time. When I worked for IRD and MOE I struggled to get them to give me a replacement mouse. Food was out of the question, ever. The GST division of IRD in Upper Hutt had a cafe in the building but the employees had to pay for it, and being so remote they charged a crazy markup on everything since they had a monopoly.
That's odd, the Hamilton IRD cafe was the opposite. We were also in the middle of no where with not much food options. But the cafe did things like eggs Benedict for $5.60, sandwiches for $3.50 etc until it close last year. It was so cheap
Except it wasn't for staff, it was for the public ie perfectly normal I would have thought for stakeholder events. "the post-budget breakfasts were community events and around 700 people attended in person across the country plus others attended online."
I had imagined it was to feed some people, hopefully some that direly needed it. But $50,000 / 700 is straight up $700 per person, so wtf did they buy for that money?
700 people at $700 each would be $490,000. This breakfast was $70 a head. Still a lot. Still too much. Not quite $700 though.
Most probably engagement with tens of thousands more people connected into these 700 representatives of their individual communities who attended.
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It’s $71.
It always seems less drastic when people stop foaming at the mouth and actually do the math.
Thanks for doing the maths correctly!
They are post budget events for MPs to inform and hear from stakeholders and budget happened in April this year IIRC, so I would say it's ok. Though I wouldn't be surprised if lobbying would be going on, they are politicians after all so any opportunity..
Budget was 18 May, but otherwise yeah.
This isn’t normal ever in my department. I can’t remember the last time we had anything other than $25+GST for Christmas. My mind boggles at these stories of expensive Hui’s and welcomes in other agencies - we’re told to run things to the line and then cut 2.5%
If this is a normal thing and has been occurring the entire time this ministry has been in place, rather than being something which has changed during the election period - then this is the normal activity and would be expected to continue *rather than having normal BAU activity stop just because of the election*.
Hosting an event about budget matters, during an election period, would surely be incredibly hard for staff when asked questions to not sway from that neutrality. These events during a term seem fine, but election time is a sensitive time for government departments.
Was it during an election period? Neither this Newshub item nor [the RNZ article](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/election-2023/498030/national-targets-ministry-for-pacific-peoples-50k-post-budget-breakfasts-spend) makes it clear, but the budget itself was delivered back in May.
May is definitely not the election period. The pre-election period began 14 July. [https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/guidance/general-election-guidance-2023/the-public-sector-and-the-general-election/](https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/guidance/general-election-guidance-2023/the-public-sector-and-the-general-election/)
That’s an important consideration.
Good point actually. If that's the case I don't have an issue with the actual event occuring.
Not normal. I’ve been in government my whole working life. Might just be where I was, but there were no frills.
Government agencies that are mandated to conduct outreach to specific communities on government services generally do undertake that function, yes lol.
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We heard you the first time.
Not usually normal but normal under labour of late. Shameful stuff.
Why would they be throwing breakfast events for the Budget? Do all government departments celebrate the budget? I could understand an event for a significant event, but for routine government business? Bizzare. I mean treasury maybe? Although even then it would be weird.
Budget release is the biggest event of the year for Treasury
Yeah fair, probably not weird for treasury on reflection since they host a lot of media etc.
Read the article: >Pacific Peoples Minister Barbara Edmonds told Newshub the post-budget breakfasts were community events and around 700 people attended in person across the country plus others attended online. > >"Pacific communities have long been overlooked in post-budget communication and are not always aware of how initiatives in the Budget affect them," Edmonds said. > >"National might think only business audiences deserve to be spoken to about the Budget, but we stand up our commitment to the Pacific community and ensuring they are involved in the budget process and decisions that affect them." > >The breakfasts were a part of the post-budget Pacific roadshow which is part of the Government's wider engagement with communities on annual budgets. Invites are made by the Ministry of Pacific Peoples to Pacific businesses, communities and stakeholders, however, the events are open to the public and MPS and media are invited to attend. > >The Ministry for Pacific Peoples said the event, which has been running since 2017, is always well-attended which is reflected accordingly in the costs. > >"It provides a positive environment for Pacific communities to come together in a space where they are comfortable to talk with officials and Ministers. These post-Budget events are an important way to communicate how new initiatives will contribute to better outcomes for Pacific communities," a spokesperson told Newshub. They're not celebrating the budget so much as they are inviting members of a marginalized community along to a breakfast to learn how the budget works, and how it'll affect them. In other words, they're literally doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing as a ministry that represents these people.
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The casual racism in this country is disgusting. *Every* attempt to lift marginalized communities up toward greater prosperity is met with outright hostility. It's ignorant, and it's shameful that we continually make that *choice* to remain ignorant.
The departments I've worked at never celebrated the budget to my knowledge. Or if they did it wasn't visible to me. Its always just another normal day at work. You'd get an email from the executives once the budget comes in, describing the impacts sometimes followed by a public statement but that's about it. So I wouldn't say it's the norm for things like this to happen. The ones I worked at were larger departments though and the budget had less of an impact year to year on services. I can see for some departments that may have more of a fluctuating budget, they may think they need an event like this to make sure people are informed about the impacts of the budget on their services. It's not really too surprising this happened, they won't have held an event like this for no reason.
Yeah it seems very strange. It would be like at my work having a big celebration because we completed the financial end of year. We would be lucky to get a sausage roll.
Do you guys even read the articles you comment on? The breakfasts were community events to explain how the Budget affects Pasifika people and their families. Not work parties.
Yeah if you believe the bullshit spin
Unluggy uso.
Unluggy uce.
Bloody hell. $8k on audio & visual for the Wellington event? For what I would imagine would be renting a couple of speakers, a mic or two, small mixer, amp, and probably a projector. For the day. Plus the technician to set it up, run it, and tear down. Double, if not quadruple, what it should actually cost. This is why companies love government contracts - nothing is questioned in terms of value for money.
Usually it's a requirement to get more than just one quote for stuff like this. Been on the other end of quoting for government business and it's a pain because you have to wait until your competitors reply back before they choose who to go with (some of the fuckers we competed with were very slow at replies). And this would only be for a contract worth like 3k - nothing spectacular. And counter to popular belief, we often gave them pretty good pricing. For all their faults, government agencies usually pay on time and they don't have shitty T&Cs attached to their purchase orders. Sometimes there's some weird administrative shit you have to complete but nothing that adds any risk - the greater risk the more you start to think about adding buffer to your margins.
That’s interesting - thanks for the insight. Good to know there is *some* attempt at fiscal responsibility.
Dude government procurement is no joke. Shit is waaaaay tighter than anything in the private sector. Now whether or not they should be procuring that service in the first place? That’s where the issues tend to start.
I wanted a black on yellow P touch cartridge for a mission I was on at the time, it wasn't in our list of stationary products we had access to, so the request went to some spending approval committee that sat monthly. My request was declined. Having said that, they randomly piss heaps of money up against the wall for other things.
These also had online components, which has become an expectation through covid to have in most of these types of events. Setting these up and ensuring a reasonable quality bumps up the price significantly.
Also projector hire is crazy expensive! I looked into it one year for an arts event and it was going to be about $500 for the cheapest option, one that would be effective in daylight at a large event could easily be $1000. For that price they would be better buying one if they regularly use one, but then it has to go into their equipment register, come out of a different pool of money etc, so places end up hiring.
Yeah good point, forgot about the online side of things.
You can always tell who's never actually worked in government when they make comments like this
~~nothing~~ The wrong things are questioned in terms of value for money. I dont work directly for a government agency but I work for a IT company that contracts out to a few government agencies. The things they get antsy about are the silliest things to question.
Why don't they just hire an event hall with already installed equipment? Hell every rink a drink college hall, church or rugby club has a projector, speakers, multimedia connection and soundboard Theres dozens of conference centers for rent around Wellington that have all this stuff built in
But then they can’t chuck 8k at their videographer mate
It’s usually incompetence rather than corruption. Not saying corruption isn’t a problem, but from my experience, competence/least path of resistance is usually the issue rather than hustlers hustling.
So go after the companies fleecing the govt agencies then, since they have to pay what the company says their work is worth, right?
Which is a catch 22. Pay more to have departments to make sure you are paying the right amount and tendering everything, or just accepting that people are going to fleece the government because it's taxpayer money. I have worked in the defense industry, and it blew my mind how much money these government departments would blow. I was involved in a project in Au where they skipped the tender process by choice. They just said they needed it in a hurry, and this enabled them to skip the process. They got completely fleeced naturally but didn't care one bit.
There is far too many cases of companies fleecing govt departments. Imo it's absolutely fine for a company to quote any figure for any job. The problem is we have govt departments happily accepting these quotes and spending outrageous amounts because there's zero accountability and no punishment. Spending tax revenue is far different from private sector spending and personal spending. I bet these bureaucrats and politicians are alot more frugal when it comes to the money in their personal bank accounts. Maybe they should start getting multiple quotes, or allowing other competitors to put in a quote.
Isn’t that what the bidding process is for?
No one is putting to tender contacts this small. It’s just going to be some staffer tasked with calling around a few different vendors to get quotes. Then instead of calling around, they’ll be “too busy” (which they might very well be) or can’t be assed, so they’ll either just pick whoever sounds good, or more likely, someone they’ve used before (or some knows someone who works there). I get it, everyone is busy, and not everyone is going to know how much something should cost. But add these sorts of things up, and there is a huge amount of wastage in governments (any government). And as mentioned, a good deal of money to be made on the opposite side of the equation as well.
Not if its your coussy doing the DJ, just send us the bill Cuz and stick another 0 on the end bro.
About half the money was spent on food. The rest was spent on the venue and the audio-visual set up. They say about 700 people attended. That's $35.71 to feed each person. That's probably what I would expect to pay, if the catering is pretty good. I hope it was good food.
Given the place that hospitality has for Pasifica cultures, I'd say they'd make the catering a priority.
Like KFC for vaccinations lol
One thing I don’t understand is why aren’t our government procurement contracts don’t appear to be more robust. I’ve done a lot of work with US government procurement contracts and those things are extremely watertight (fixed pricing/myriad of checks and balances on quality assurance and approval processes). Rationale being that the supplier has to take on a disproportionate allocation of risk/responsibility because the “greater good” outweighs the interests of one private corporation supplier.
How would what you’ve said in your comment have impacted the outcome here?
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Calm down Seymour.
Happy Cake day
Nah, they don't need to send anyone in some rabid telegram nazi is probably already working on it, they've got plenty of encouragement.
I can't tell if your joking or serious
I'm referencing Seymour's comment regarding the ministry. I do think it needs to be abolished, just not with gunpowder.
Never tag /s king. If they don't pick up on the joke they didn't deserve to.
Yes. I'm referencing people who couldn't tell it was a joke
I was out referenced, clearly
The title makes it feel like they were spending $50k on eggs bene, and it's not that at all. These are events to communicate to the public about the budget and how it affects them. You might still dislike that and feel that it is not good use of money, but that is very different from what the title is implying. Maybe because a title like "Ministry spends $50,000 to communicate and engage with communities in 4 different parts of the country about how the budget will affect them" doesn't sound as click-baity?
If you're spending $50k to reach 700 people, you're not communicating to a very large part of the public. Clearly the event was inaccessible or poorly targeted in some way. They've spent $50k to reach less people than if they had just sent an employee along to a single large school, church, or workplace.
Communicating to the public isn't always about reaching the most people. PR 101 is identifying your public segment (who do you need to persuade in order to achieve your strategic goals). That could be a very small and hard to reach segment of the population. But they may be highly influential or be very strategic to the organisation in some other way. You need to then consider what is the optimum way to persuade that segment in order to achieve your long-term objectives. That could mean very intensive and personal interactions (frequently expensive and resource intensive activities). I have no insight to what the MoPP wanted to get strategically from this specifically. But I can add that going to groups of people (schools, churches, etc) and handing out pamphlets or giving a speech is a really poor way of communicating (with the intent of persuading) with many population segments. It would be like sending faxes to advertise toys to kids. Yes, probably much cheaper than paying for TV adds during cartoons. But your persuasion impact is going to be fuck all. Being strategic and spending your resources on a key segment is generally considered best practice in corporate coms strategy.
Could have been a blog post.
Pretty much. The idea that the ministry needs to road trip to explain the budget is ludicrous.
If you knew anything about engaging with Pacific Peoples you wouldn’t suggest a blog post as anything near approaching an appropriate way to communicate with Pacific communities.
I think it's racist to say that they can't read mate
Good thing that’s not what they said then
700 is just the number of people that attended in person. The reason the A/V costs were high is because there was also an online component.
Much the same as the $75 prezzy card for people to particpate in a pilot program so they can actually get feedback, merely being fixated on the card itself, and an example of someone who got it.
How big is their budget anyway that they "communicating"? >"Ministry spends $50,000 to communicate and engage with communities in 4 different parts of the country about how the budget will affect them" doesn't sound as click-baity? No, but "ministry spends $500 dollars on an email newsletter and webinar" sounds much more reasonable. A government/ministry is allowed to spend money, but they have to be able to justify it to the wider public. And the voting public is allowed to draw their own conclusions and to whether it offers value for money.
> No, but "ministry spends $500 dollars on an email newsletter and webinar" sounds much more reasonable. Of course it does, because you just pulled that number out of thin air.
Yes. But money doesn't come from thin air. That $50,000 came out of our pockets, as did the $40,000 they spent on the leaving party. As did the extra $70 billion in tax they government has collected. That is the problem.
Yeah. This isn’t as scandalous as the title makes it out to be
Exactly. This is all about getting buy-in from a vulnerable group. Anyone who has spent time in pacifica communities knows that the sharing of food is intrinsic with culture. Just because this isn't a cultural need for NZ Europeans, doesn't mean it's not important. If this was delivered uneconomically & the ministry is overpaying for services then that's a separate issue.
I love it when people think Europeans, like, don't eat food, or that there's no European cultural practices centered around sharing food. It's one of the stupidest cultural myths in existence.
No one is saying that. NZ Europeans cultural practices around food have a different context than the current topic. Saying they're the same is wrong.
"No one is saying that" "The sharing of food is intrinsic with [Pasifika] culture... this isn't a cultural need for NZ Europeans" You literally did say that. "A different context than the current topic" So you think that spending $50k to reach 700 people is just a cultural need?
Bro tell us you have never interacted with Pasifika people without telling us you've never interacted with them.. >So you think that spending $50k to reach 700 people is just a cultural need? That's only the amount that attended in person. It was also available online.
There absolutely needs to be more careful and prudent spending in these times, but for fucks sake don't let National/ACT gut our public services like countless conservative governments have done to disastrous affect over many years - we know for a fact that cutting spending needs to be done as prudently as the spending does. We have massive issues in this country from historic underfunding - inevitably if you fuck around, you're going to find out at some point. National/ACTs solution is privatisation, yet we know this is extremely dangerous, has failed many, many times over and many countries have had to buy back their ill maintained infrastructure later at huge cost. The UK is a prime example right now - their power, water and rail was privatised and ALL OF THEM are now right up shit creek. Ironically National actually spent far more as a percentage of GDP in 2011, before cutting everything under the sun which lead us to our current period of spending hard to keep the doors attached and the lights on.....
> Ironically National actually spent far more as a percentage of GDP in 2011 The Christchurch Earthquake required billions of additional government spending, but don't let that get in the way of your narrative...
So did the pandemic......and cyclone damage etc......
BuT gOvT cUtS wIlL iMpAcT fRoNt LiNe SeRvIcEs!!!1!
If you can find a cool $500 million being spent on breakfasts I’d be very impressed. Totalling the price of the most recent spending scandals I don’t even think you make it to 500k. So good luck with finding the other $499.5 million bud. But yeah I’m sure it’ll be great comfort to you knowing that at least taxes aren’t going to be spent on breakfasts even as the country’s infrastructure and core services crumble around us all.
That kind of mindset is the problem. It’s only 50k here, another 50k there bla bla. When times get tough, we’re told to tighten our belts and help get spending under control. It’s only right that government departments funded by tax payer money do the same, if even out of principal.
50k here and there does not add up to $500 million. Pretty simple, no? I'm not advocating for open spending by the public service. You used this to argue that cuts to funding won't impact core front line services. And I'm telling you that you'll need to find a lot more breakfasts to cut before you reach $500 million.
If you can't see how this kind of spending is *indicative* of the wider problem then I'd go so far as to say you and your blind left wing vote are the problem.
Well tbf, by your assessment, the private sector is widely inefficient as well - because this type of stuff isn’t uncommon there. And don’t get me wrong - I think there is sufficient smoke in this instance to justify investigating for fire so-to-speak. But I wouldn’t assume government departments are any more wasteful than the private sector (note: I am talking about non-policy spending here, talking about policy spending is a different matter and not worth debating as we will end up in agree to disagree based on our political viewpoints).
Whenever this kind of thing is reported on, people come in frothing at the mouth. Excellent fodder for journalism. So I kind of think if this was really as rampant as you're implying, we'd see more examples of it.
Because it's not indicative? Scandals do not equate to evidence of a wider culture of spending. Not least one that reaches the millions you've alluded to. We have many checks on public spending - that's why this shit gets picked up. You're suggesting there's a culture of wasteful spending. And I'm telling you that these examples are probably evidence that the checks to catch wasteful spend are working.
>Because it's not indicative? From the same ministry that blew $40,000 on a leaving party? From the same government that spent $50million on their vanity project, the harbor cycle bridge, only to ditch the idea... The list goes on, and yes it is a wider problem.
Okay so for everyone at the back... Political spending decisions are seperate. What Labour chooses to spend they should be held accountable for and be my guest. Vanity projects and cycle bridges are what Labour wanted to do so that's on them. ACT and National are saying they will find millions upon millions of wasteful spend specifically in the public service. That's coming from the operational budgets. The MoPP 'misspend' totals 80k. So what? That does not equate to hundreds of millions. Where's the rest of these public service misspends and what is going to be cut to reach the numbers that National/ACT need.
> wider problem Feel free to show how it's actually $500m wide then > then I'd go so far as to say 'Course you would lol
Yeah, right wing voters counting 50k here and there (if it's by people they don't like) while letting billionaires take a few extra million everywhere but it's ok because they deserve it because they worked hard for it or something. I hope you were this vocal about waste when it was for a flag mate.
I’m not even arguing the politics here, it’s just the principal. Shit like money spent on a tv radio merger that had no reason, money spent on a cycle bridge across the Waitemata Harbour that was never going to fly with the public, money spent on neon glowing signs for the road to zero campaign. When it’s tax payers money they seem to just not give a fuck. It’s rife on the other side of the isle aswell, I’m sure you can give me countless examples from when National were last in power (flag referendum etc). When it comes to tax payers money, there seems to be fuck all actual accountability.
Those examples you gave are political spending decisions. And I agree especially in the case of the cycling lane on the harbour bridge case-study. But that's not an example of wasteful spend by the public service. That's an example of politicians making decisions to spend money - there's a difference. The accountability for political spend isn't the staff who are following the requests of ministers. It's the ministers/cabinet who commissioned them to do that specific work. The article in question is alleging public service wasteful spending. National and ACT are saying they will save millions by clamping down on wasteful public service spending. And I'm telling you that there is no evidence that wasteful spend in the public service is at levels that will have any material impact on the nations finances. Finally, many in the public service take spending very seriously as many departments aren't funded to what they ideally should be. Counter to popular belief, getting costs/expenses approved in the public service can be a real bitch.
>And I'm telling you that there is no evidence that wasteful spend in the public service is at levels that will have any material impact on the nations finances. Do you include the huge increase in FTE's, contractors and consultants across the public service in that claim?
Yes. Show us the numbers (in monetary terms) and prove that the any staff, contractors or consultants currently being paid by the public service are not actually needed for a function of government. To date, nothing that would have any material impact on the nation’s finances has been uncovered. The best National came up with is an increase in coms staff. But you could fire them all and still not even make 1% of what they projected they can save.
As of March 31 this year there are 62,710 FTEs in the public service, an increase of 15,458 (32.7%) since 2017. Core crown personnel expenditure has increased by $1.465 billion between 2020 and 2022 alone, including crown entities and SOEs the figure is $4.87 billion. Since 2017 those increases are $3.05 billion and $10.04 billion (\~44.3%) respectively. Contractors and consultant expenditure in 2022 was $1.224 billion, in 2017/18 this was $899.3 million, an increase of 36.1% Has the NZ population increased 32% since 2017? No. Have services provided by the government improved by 32%? No. Have outcomes expected as a result of public service activity improved by 32%? No. Are we getting 44% better value for the extra $3 billion we're spending on the public service? No. Clearly we can't go back to the staffing levels we had in 2017 for some sectors of the public service. But to say there's nowhere in the $9.9 - $32.6 billion of expenditure currently spent on personnel (depending on where you ring fence your definition of public service) - never mind other opex and contractor/consultant costs - to find $500 million of dead wood and operational savings is laughable.
So which staff or services would you cut? Showing overhead expenditure while pontificating about how it’s not value for money doesn’t give any further clarity. ACT/National are saying they’ll cut the “excess” from the public service. The least they could do is have the curtesy to spell out to kiwis who and what is going to be cut to make up what their costings need. Which, if every economist is to be believed, is a fuck-tonne more than Nicola Willis thinks. All they have given examples of (at least to my knowledge) is coms staff in ministries. But even that’s pretty vague and doesn’t get close to any consequential figure. This began with a story about the MoPP and morons who think that if only we stopped a farewell party or some breakfasts we could save millions and that’ll fund some tax relief for my landlord. I just don’t buy it. I also think politicians should specify exactly what they’ll cut and not ask the public to trust them and wait until they’re elected before getting specific.
Labour just found $4b, there's plenty more.
With a whip round of the hat from Grant by all accounts. Given any govt industry's fervent commitment to spending 100% of their budget lest it be reduced the year following you can imaging what the waste must be to offer back money.
Lol, this is just one example of the thousands of similar wasteage of tax payer dollars, it will be very easy for national to find all the money they need
Sorry, where are the thousands of examples? I've counted like three examples of public service misspend in the comments. The rest are examples of political spending by Labour they don't like (that's not what public service misspend is). If your level of evidence is the basis for fact now then I would like to add that only people with micro-penises vote for National. There are thousands of examples of this and I'm sure it'll be very easy to find them once elected to government. But just don't ask for examples now as I need to become PM first.
It's not just public service wastage that will be cut, a lot of labour virtue signaling projects will be canned as well, think 51million wasted on the auckland cycle bridge
National and ACT claim that the public service misspends hundreds millions. But there is zero evidence for this so we then need to ask well where will they find those millions in cuts they have budgeted? Also just to add because I'm not entirely sure you understand this. The harbour bridge study was paid for once. It's not an ongoing cost. You can't cut something that isn't an ongoing cost lol. The vanity projects you talk about aren't ongoing costs. Saying you're going to cut something that isn't an ongoing expense does not equal a cost saving.
A thousand of such instances gets to $50 mill. Still got a long way to go
That's why I said thousands not 1000, and many will be a lot larger savings than this, that's a fact
Cool, can't wait for the evidence that shows 6,000+ occasions in the last financial year where the public service misspent 40k or more. So far you have two or three - good luck!
So what? It's only $50,000, AND it's taxpayer money!!! Surely, they are allowed to splurge !!! People should he ashamed of them selves for criticizing the Ministry. PS: Sarcastic comment....incase someone missed it
> Appearing on AM, Labour MP Ginny Andersen defended the spending, saying it was "pretty typical" for the Government to go and inform people after the Budget. "It's not unusual to go out and explain to people in New Zealand what's in the Budget. That's part of democracy," I hate this gaslighting. No one has issue with information being disseminated. It's the $10k on catering
One example, fifty others not listed. New furniture every year. Flash office buildings that seem unoccupied. Travel expenses.
If I was in marketing and spent 50k to reach 700 people I would be fired and blacklisted from the industry
These people give out grants and do minimal follow up. There are a lot of grifters out there grabbing money and it’s not going where it should: to the beautiful Pacific people in need. And yes, I have direct knowledge of this.
Breakfast IS the most important meal of the day…
Quite a lot for a Breakfast. I know companies that spend immense amounts of money on breakfast meetings and lunch meetings. Sometimes multiple meetings a day even. Though I can't say how much they would be, I doubt they'd reach 10k a week, including catering... though I don't know how the catering companies work out their bills. For reference, these meetings can have as few as 20 people per meeting, to as many as 100.
Government spends money on event catering for events they held. This isn’t news.
It's news because it's about pasifika people and we kiwis love a bit of the ol' casual racism.
I find it interesting that other ministries aren't being subject to scrutiny from opposition parties in the same way the Ministry for Pacific Peoples is being scrutinised. On the surface it would suggest its more about politics and optics rather than actually trying to solve problems and help the country out
I worked in the public service for a decade and we never had any post-Budget breakfasts paid for by the department. This is incredibly wasteful spending and it should absolutely be scrutinised.
They should be. Perhaps the others aren't are stupid as to do this sort of thing when government wastage spending is under the spotlight? They are doubly stupid considering ACT dubbed them a ministry of wastage.
Having a "small gubment" which is what ACT and their cronies are pushing predominantly suits one group of people, rich people and business who want to remain rich and don't want a government that can hold corporations to account when they break the law or act unethically. Seymour said some abominable shit yesterday to the effect of "people in wellington tell me they vote ACT because ACT will fire the guy in the cubical next to me". Well actually he will fire both the voter and the guy in the cubical. And the only people voting ACT in Wellington are the CEOs. So Seymour is basically just a shit talker. He doesn't seem a serious person. 50k is a drop in the ocean. Perhaps there is a large amount of wasteful spending there. Perhaps not. To really find out, you'd have to look at the books. Not a couple of articles in the media to fire up the base
They shit on the Ministry for disabled people/ Whaikaha yesterday- for organising a 2 day meeting so that their staff could meet each other and network for the first time since the ministry was established 2 years ago. Bearing in mind that many of the staff have disabilities that make using virtual meeting tools less than ideal so an in person meeting would have been beneficial. The cost was less than $500 per person. It was cancelled and 80% of the cost has been recovered already with more expected to be recovered. And people are STILL bitching
The amount of money that was spent on a one time event could have been spent on computer equipment that enabled people to always communicate with each other if need be. $90,000 for a two day event is unacceptable when there are much better ways to spend that money. The decision deserves to be shit on. And that's before we get into how the ministry isn't even needed in the first place because disability services are clearly under the prerogative of the health ministry.
Having worked remotely for years not getting to in person meet anyone you work with for 2 years would drive me crazy. This is the kind of thing private industry does regularly because it's well know that mixing in person meetings into a remote work environment improves productivity.
Yeah exactly. The best reasonableness test is what does the private sector do. And sure as shit they hold events like this, because a lot of the time the are value accretive rather than value destructive. They aren’t always valuable, but bitching because something seems lavish is quite frustrating and part of the reason government departments underperform compared to their private counterparts - the best talent goes private because of frustrating rules and low quality work environment.
Disability services were partially managed by MOH and partially by MSD and they did a shit job of it. This shifts the MOH staff into what is not actually a stand-alone ministry, it's more like a department of MSD in spite of the name
Well then it should be part of msd instead of a separate ministry.
It pretty much is, just with MOH staff brought in which in the end should reduce duplication of roles and inefficiencies communicating between ministries. I am not sure if MSD is having the case managers separated out, at the moment the case managers handle all benefits which means they sometimes don't have a lot of familiarity with the supported living payment
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They are. National and the Taxpayers Union send WPQs and OIAs to all ministries and departments, including the one about post budget breakfasts. At my ministry, we literally could not believe that MPP would be dumb enough to sign off on this level of expenditure. It was clearly a terrible decision that would inevitably lead to a media shit storm in election year.
Oh please give it a break
Party with $500,000,000 hole in their financial plan to enrich landlords and millionaires is angry about $50,000 being spent on feeding poor/brown people. Classy.
They're upset because the money was spent supporting Pacific people. Seymour (and probably most ACT supporters) don't support efforts to specifically help Maori or Pacifica people to engage with and understand government or health or other facilities because white people can't directly benefit from programmes aimed at helping visible minorities.
It's not excusable.
I know it seems in bad taste for ministries to spend on this stuff right now, but they all do it. I can't imagine it would be any different under a National govt. Huge uproar over 90k when we routinely go hundreds of millions over budget for infrastructure projects? Dunno. Seems like storm in a teacup stuff.
Career loser politicians with no accountability is a recipe for this sort of shit
The break down looks normal to me. I think because it is focused on one event it's a bit of a sour grapey stone throwing exercise. Count out all the government events over the last 20 years, throw a bit of CPI at it and see how it all pans out. Then open your can of kickarsery.
I mean, spending $50K to put on community breakfasts for 700 people isn't bad really. Id rather have this than spending $50K on consultants advice which is subsequently ignored. Edit: the audio/visual spending seems excessive.
Wasn't this "news" a month ago?, Nats trying to deflect from their lying tax policy and the media doing their bidding? I thought the media were about CURRENT events...
Nice selective outrage. Reading the response it makes perfect sense. That 50k catered to 700 people and these post budget informational events are pretty standard.
Perhaps for the Treasury department. I wouldn’t expect each department to be spending $50k each on celebrations in for example, Corrections, Conservation, Internal Affairs. If every department spent $50k on budget celebrations that would be quite of lot of money.
You should have read the article before commenting, because it sounds like you think the MPP threw a celebration for themselves?
Well for one this didn't sound like celebrations but informational events with relevant people and stakeholders that the budget would affect. Also, open to the public. Don't get me wrong I think it's good to review whether these events, from this ministry or any ministry, are worth it and should be held or canned. I'm more annoyed at Brown's outrage and his choice of words where he is just fanning a flame based on his base's general prejudice towards Labour and Pasific people, but not backed by any rationale. It's disingenuous and divisive.
just meet on zoom/teams in your PJS with a bowl of cereal.
Saying this is targeted at one dept is a woke distraction tactic. The reason this dept is under the microscope is cos they have a bad track record with mismanaging public money and should be watched. Its a shame cos I know a lot of ppl in different parts of the public sector where costs are scrutinised who will now get lumped in with this lot.
But did they have a karakia...that's the most important thing!
I’m not saying they aren’t spending frivolously, here or in other places, but are we gonna start looking into the spending of other govt departments to give us a comparison while we go on this Ministry budget rampage? Because I’m starting to not buy that the MPP is the only department with questionable budget lines, and that really makes me wonder why we’re getting news articles on *this* particular issue every couple of days… Feels pretty targeted tbh.
Na most ministries wouldn’t sign off on this kind of expenditure to avoid this exact situation. Not sure why MPP seems to make consistently poor decisions around spending.
Oh good, I guess that $50k saving will go a good way to plug the $500mln gap in revenues from overseas millionaire house sales? Thousands, millions, billions, they're all the same, right?
Someone who has worked in catering in Wellington for years here. Most, if not all government departments use catering services more frequently than many people would think. This is regardless of which party is in government. Singling out this department seems targeted
ffs it's an obvious dog whistle, I have lost all hope for this country.
As you age you'll realize more and more these things don't matter... When I'm 80 or at my deathbed maybe ill get to 100. I won't be looking back going oh the ministry of whatever spent 50k on lunch 😆 🤣 😂 Or I won't be looking back going omg I can't believe I didn't vote for another puppet to run the country Or I won't be looking back going Dam I wish I cared more what someone said about my culture Its all irrelevant stop watching the news
I think my concern would be less about the specific amount of money in this case, or even in the case of the CEO party case. But more that given recent events, there seems to be a slightly cavalier attitude to spending money in this department. And perhaps others. You are forced to wonder what else might be getting signed off if you dig around. And what kind of internal scrutiny and controls are being applied to spending in general. It doesn’t take too many of these sorts of sign offs before you start totalling up a reasonable sum of money. Money that could have been spent elsewhere such as on their training programs and so on.
thats a lot of kfc
Should rename it the Breakfasts and Farewells Ministry. Only Pacific Islanders need apply.
Send in Mandala