A grim future awaits the New Zealand public service if the right wing government of National leader Christopher Luxon is returned to power. Next weeks Fiscal Budget is expected to see announcements about hefty job losses, on the grounds that this is how the country returns to surplus.
In many respects Minister of Finance Nicola Willis is overtly trying to emulate her 1990-1993 predecessor Ruth Richardson. Ms Richardson is best known for her 1991 Mother of All Budgets, which was effectively an attempt to destroy as much of the welfare state that propped up New Zealand, as possible. I have described this attack in other posts, but in the last week, Mrs Willis has all but declared war on the public service.
The rationale from Mrs Willis’ standpoint is probably quite simple. The Government has delivered a shock and awe offensive against bureaucracy since it came to power. The offensive was designed to move so fast that people struggle to keep up with what is happening. Now, the shock is wearing off. People are seeing with their eyes and hearing with their ears that this is harming New Zealand.
It is made worse by the fact that Wellington City has been under sustained assault over the last few years. Much of the central city is struggling because the public service workers who keep the ministries of the Crown functioning have lost so many of their number. The bars and cafes, restaurants and so forth have lost a significant portion of their local clientele.
And now it appears likely to worsen further with an announcement that has A.C.T. M.P.’s jumping for joy, that 9,000 public service jobs are going to be cut.
All this though is contingent on an election that at this point in time, National have a good probability of losing. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s persistently poor polling is wearing off on New Zealand who generally believe that he is aloof and out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders.
Mrs Willis might also want to look at electoral history, as Ms Richardson’s policies were so hated by the country, that the government she was a part of, barely survived the 1993 election. In that election, the ruling National Party had come into office with an 18 seat majority after promising to end the neoliberalism that the previous Labour-led Government had introduced. Instead, they not only continued to implement it, but tried to drastically accelerate its rollout. New Zealand did not like that, and reduced their majority to a single seat in the 1993 election.
History has its lessons, and sometimes if they are not heeded, history repeats itself. Will National get the same lesson of 1993 repeated in 2026? And for the same reasons?