The claim that National will fund more child care by slashing payments to consultants is the hunger of crumbs to feed our loathing of the Professional Managerial Class.
Child Care in this country is a disgrace.
It should be free. There should be universal free Child Care for every child under 5 in this nation to enable parents to have time out and or work!
If you want an expensive fancy shmancy Child Care service with Yoga and mindfulness you can go pay extra for that as well!
I believe we counter the gender pay gap by ensuring free universal child care for every child under 5 alongside 12months paid parental leave after the birth of a baby. Seeing as having babies is a driver of the gender pay gap, why not subside the cost of having the baby rather than constantly focusing on the upper middle class women who want pay parity with other CEOs?
Wouldn’t universal free child care and 12months parental leave after the birth of a baby do more to rebalance that gender pay gap than making sure wealthy middle management women can get more?
The real problem with the price of the consultants is that it exposes how deep the cuts to institutional State knowledge we really have.
Sure the consultants of NZ have found ways to bypass MPs and push policy directly to an overwhelmed State Service who are staffed by the Wellington Bureaucratic Elite who play private interests and state interests off alongside their own interests in a game of politics that is rarely seen nor understood by the voting majority.
Sure, we keep hiring public servants we cut back as consultants at twice the rate when what we need is an expansion of the State proper, (not merely a bureaucratic skeleton swayed by the short term profit margins of the free market).
Sure all of that, but National want to slash 14000 state sector jobs at a time of crisis when the State is needed to step up more than ever before.
I agree the consultants are leeches, but let’s cut them while acknowledging their use in the first place is because we’ve shrunk the State’s capacity to do this itself!
Cut the consultants, build the capacity of the State to do it themselves!
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Child care in this country under a Labour Government is a disgrace.
Yet another success spelt with a F
But Bob the First, it’s 90% provided by private ‘for profit’ companies – do you think it should be nationalised and put under the Ministry of Education, then it would be the governments responsibility.
Bob is clearly clueless. Political right wing soundbites at primary school level.
Child care is a disgrace and always has been.
Kids from birth need one person to really identify with, usually the mother, and lets face it 95% of babies can be breast fed and should be, it is miles easier to do with a bit of support and your body makes this very nutritious food for your baby, sure it might mean you cannot go out much, but this is such a short time in a child’s life and frankly critical. The notion of handing over a 6 week old baby is just horrifying. We know all this from all the research done over the years.
I am not at all opposed to kids of 2-3 going to child care, but for Gods sake not 40 hours a week. Seriously most of the people who do this are latte lovers with good cars. Don’t have kids if you don’t want to be their number 1 carer. Yes it is tough, I know I have been there many times, but it is also immensely rewarding.
I am not in anyway pointing the finger at those who find it hard to cope and need a break from their kids – dumping kids in childcare for hours and hours is complete madness.
Lastly childcare just like elderly care SHOULD NOT BE A MONEY MAKING BUSINESS. Standards slip as soon as you make it into $$$$$$$$$$$s
I fully agree with you Michal. A return to a family being able to live on one wage would also solve a lot of other problems.
Consultants. I have never really understand when you have a whole ministry running education for the Minister theoretically why on earth they then bring in consultants. Surely this is the job of the Ministry!
gotta say and it pains me to agree with luxton, we are are paying too much to too many for ‘new’ organisational diagrams and how to utilise the coffee machine,,,
Que Sera Sera @ Garg. It pains me also. But if that is the extent to which the current Labour Party has been hijacked – so be it. They’ll wear it.
There is hope however, and currently i’m betting on the Hipkins and the McAnulty, among one or two others.
IF they don’t deliver, may they go down in a pile of shit along with everyone who chose to sail in them.
Of course I’m hoping there are a number I hope don’t survive. I’m tired of voting for the least worst option.
Fortunately, I come from a position of ZERO debt, and the assets I have have already been passed on to the next generation.
Too bad others.
Pffft. Cudda Shudda Wudda not put the SUV that you have no idea how to drive, or the flat screen TV in the bog on the mortgage. shudda cudda wudda done one or tow more cashy jobs under the table eh.
National platform is good if you are happy with the status quo but surely it would be better if we could make it easier for 2 parent to be at home and be a parent. There needs to be a better work /life programme and employers need to be more flexible and still be profitable.
“There is an entrenched relationship between the consulting industry and hollowed-out, risk-averse governments and shareholder value-maximizing firms. Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington show that our economies’ reliance on companies such as McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, PwC, Deloitte, KPMG and EY stunts innovation, obfuscates corporate and political accountability and impedes our collective mission of halting climate breakdown. The ‘Big Con’ is possible in today’s economies because of the unique power that consultancies wield through extensive contracts and networks – as advisors, legitimators and outsourcers – and the illusion that they are objective sources of expertise and capacity. The Big Con weakens our businesses, infantilizes our governments and warps our economies.”
https://www.penguin.co.nz/books/the-big-con-9781802060270
Related issue regarding the power of economic consultants over politicians who, by and large, don’t understand economics. The excellent Gary Stevenson on why governments don’t tax the rich.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0XntlILeHU&t=929s
“Cut the consultants, build the capacity of the State to do it themselves!”
Exactery!
And while we’re at tit, cut the number of unproductive managerialist senior management public servant bludgers and use the money to employ several many more public service worker bees.
Just like Labour (unfortunately), the public service and its overqueen the public services commissar has a really bad signal to noise ratio
Far better that we have an economic system that forces parents to work to get by and requires them to pay another person a pittance to look after their child so we can all pay tax and contribute to the god of GDP. A fallacy so firmly entrenched that to challenge it is to risk being labelled a right wing bigot who hates single parent families and feminism.
There are few choices so financially penalized as trying to be a stay at home parent. The tax system has it written all over it: “We don’t value parenting”. An approach both parties are in full agreement on.
Cut 14,000 civil servants then rehire them as consultant firm contractors at 3-5 times charge out rate makes perfect sense. That’s a National policy, private enterprise treating taxation and govt services as an extractive industry.
Agree, free state funded and provided child care could be better quality than the current private profit low waged minimally trained teacher set up we currently have.
However none of this will address the gender pay gap. I thought it was well understood by now that there is no gender pay gap just an occupational pay gaps. If 80% of cops are men and 20% woman and 10% of nurses are men and 90% of nurses are woman and cops are paid more because it is a more dangerous and life threatening job even if the responsibility for life saving and social care could be seen as similar and women keep choosing nursing over policing then there will always be a gender pay gap. Obviously once women start choosing to be less risk averse and become forestry workers, front line soldiers, front line cops, miners, construction workers, sparkies, brick layers, etc in equal numbers gender pay disparities will disappear.
Oh and the only reasons c suite woman are paid less than men is their negotiation skill or negotiating agent doesnt negotiate the best deals or where payment is dependent on performance then the performance is not up to par.
Its all locked into now, eh locked back when, was better than now,truth or lie.
Mandatory, National Control,by the state for our children!s health and care,with State govern free of charge, with capitals largues of its purport to care.
there was a ‘golden time’ between th 40s and the 70’s when preschool was about development now it’s about the cheapest warehouse to free up the parents for work, that’s what it’s about, that’s all it’s about, get used to it.