Trevor Mallard’s overseas junket for beginner MPs doesn’t seem to have helped his judgment.
He’s posted on Red Alert, complaining about restructuring in the public service.
“I now think it is better to have a longer term vision, make changes at the margins and focus on sharing as many services as possible.”
Really? Make changes at the margins? But Labour’s criticised every effort to improve back office performance.
What does the PSA say about Labour’s new policy to promote National’s back-office efficiency drive?
Trevor doesn’t stop there. He mentions the MSD merger and says:
Some of the best people left with very expensive redundancy packages
Perhaps he’s forgotten that Labour pretended to have a policy of no golden handshakes, and that’s why he tried to design the MSD merger to ensure Christine Rankin didn’t get one. At the time, Labour had reports saying the merger was unnecessary, and emails later emerged showing the Minister (Steve Maharey) was against it. This merger wasn’t driven by advice, it was personal.
But to top it all off, Mallard’s main argument back then, was that our public sector was too big. It’s bigger now.
It’s this sort of political baggage and fatal forgetfulness which makes TradeMe Trev an ongoing liability for Labour.
