Good piece in the Herald yesterday (and the Dom Post the day before) from PSA national sec Richard Wagstaff critiquing ANZ National chief economist Cameron Bagrie’s woeful report on public sector ‘waste’.
Wagstaff takes aim at the underlying assumptions of the report about ‘productive’ versus ‘non-productive’ public sector spending, then proceeds to rip through some of the more glaring omissions and misleading examples in the report.
One of my favourite examples:
Then there’s the Department of Conservation. According to the report, it’s also “non-productive”.
But where would New Zealand’s tourism industry be if DoC staff weren’t protecting our natural and historic heritage? Of the 2.2 million overseas tourists who visited between March 2006 and March 2007, 668,400 - 30 per cent - visited a National Park maintained by DoC staff.
The West Coast’s five National Parks generate $220 million in tourism activity a year, creating jobs for 1800 “Coasters”. In the North Island, the Whakapapa and Turoa ski fields are also included in a National Park maintained by DoC. They generate more than $45 million a year and create more than 2100 jobs.
Yet ANZ says this is “non-productive”.
You can read the full article here.
After reading Steve’s post this morning mocking ANZ National for putting out confused National Party talking points dressed up as research, a reader was inspired to send us this:
I was going to write a piece on the much anticipated paper from ANZ’s chief economist on government spending. But now I’ve tracked it down and read it, there’s hardly any point. It’s just 4 pages in the Bank’s monthly market report and it reads like something I would expect from an excitable commerce student, not a professional economist.
Allegedly, the report shows ‘back-room’ government spending has increased 40% faster than ‘front-line’ spending but it takes a bizarre, self-serving definition of ‘front-line’ vs ‘back-room’ spending. No logic or arguments are provided for assigning spending to either category. Areas that have grown rapidly are lumped in backroom spending to bolster its growth figures. Health spending is not even included - if health were included in the ‘front-line’, there would be virtually no growth difference in ‘front-line’ and ‘back-office’. It then compares the percentage increases in these two stupid categories (which hides the fact that nearly all government spending is ‘frontline’) with the automatic conclusion that spending on the second category is bad.
In fact, the whole report is premised on the childish position that anything non-’front-line’ is waste - but you can’t have a ‘front-line’ without back office support. Hell, ANZ’s chief economist has a back office job, is he a waste of money? (don’t answer that)
[Update: "Stick to Banking – CTU tells Bank Economist", ouch]
A few weeks back ANZ National announced that over the next 12-18 months they plan to export 400-500 New Zealand jobs to Bangalore. In response, the bank workers’ union Finsec has started a campaign to stop them in their tracks.
If it goes ahead this will be the largest offshoring of jobs ever in the New Zealand banking industry, and it’s being done by a company that can well afford to keep them here. Since 2004 ANZ National’s profit has increased by 76% and last year made an after-tax profit of $1.168 billion.
ANZ National has tried to excuse its decision on operational grounds, but the reality is it simply wants to increase its profits by cutting workers’ pay and removing their rights. And like Fisher & Paykel, ANZ National’s management realises the easiest way to do this is to ditch its Kiwi workers and move the jobs to the developing world where the pay is lower and the workers aren’t always as able to speak up.
You can do your bit to help Finsec’s campaign by visiting www.finsec.org.nz and sending a message to ANZ National’s CEO Graham Hodges that New Zealanders aren’t going to put up with their race to the bottom on wages.
Meanwhile, if you haven’t already, quit your accounts at ANZ National and go set one up at Kiwibank.
