Ryan Bridge: Another example of bureaucracy undermining government policy

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

You've got to ask yourself who's running the show. There's been another example of bureaucracy seemingly undermining the government on its cost cutting plan which, remember, from outset they said wouldn't impact the front line.

A Health New Zealand manager has done a PowerPoint to 90 staff about upcoming changes, and they indicated that jobs could be cut including 470 doctors and 1400 nurses.

Who on earth thought that was okay?

Did they do it on purpose? Is it a middle finger to the government and to the Commissioner Lester Levy?

The truth is we don't really know at this point, Levy asks is this reluctance, is this resistance, or is this sabotage?

Fair question. He's promising consequences. It's totally unacceptable, but it's not an isolated incident.

Oranga Tamariki is another agency cutting funding left, right, and centre to services.

The stories get in the press and then there's a back down.

And we've had public service leaking against the government, loads of examples. At least six major leaks that I could recall.

There was a Cabinet paper on the foreign housing investors, also the treaty principles bill.

You can't know for sure the motivations in each case, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that there is huge resistance to the coalition government's agenda within pockets of the bureaucracy.

They need reining in, examples here need to be set.

And if the message falls on deaf ears, well, maybe they need to be marched out the door.

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