The ACT Party thinks its proposed public sector job cuts can be be done quickly and should not cause too much unemployment.
It thinks the fired public sector staffers could be absorbed into the rest of the workforce.
The Party is bent on cutting 15,000 state sector jobs to bring the public service back to 2017 levels.
"Over the last six years we have seen a 30% increase in the size of the public service," the party leader David Seymour says.
'We have equally seen a 30% increase in public spending after inflation and population growth. Yet there is widespread dissatisfaction with the quality of public services."
And he says the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has increased its workforce by 64% but small business owners have not seen any improvement at all.
This policy of cutting jobs has been repeatedly attacked by the trade union movement, especially the Public Service Association (PSA).
But Seymour is standing his ground, and argues the workplace cuts can be done quite quickly, without too much cost.
"There has got to be a process, first of all you have got to identify where efficiencies can be made and you have got to work through the proper processes," he says.
"A lot of people will be members of the PSA and their contracts give them a redundancy process, so you are looking at a six month to one year period.
"But let's be very clear, we are going to end government waste, to take pressure off inflation and interest rates so households can balance their budgets."
Seymour also rejects a suggestion that the laid off public sector staff will end up on the dole queue.
"If you look at New Zealand's labour market, every day 3000 people leave one job and enter another. So if you think about it, 15,000 people is actually a week of people leaving one job and going to another."
"So these people, I am sure, will find new jobs and there will be no impact on unemployment over six months to a year."
'Destructive and insulting'
But the PSA calls ACT's policies destructive and insulting approach to the public service.
"They will not simply impact thousands of workers and their families, they will end up hurting all New Zealanders," says its Assistant National Secretary, Alex Davies.
"It is just not possible to deliver the scale of cuts ACT would be demanding in government without impacting services."
Davies goes on to say New Zealand's public service is trusted and efficient by international measures.
"Public service workers are working hard to deliver services New Zealanders need across the country and doing the difficult work of tackling our challenges ahead from climate change and an ageing population.
"ACT's approach would make many Kiwis worse off today, and tomorrow."
An earlier submission from the PSA cited work by MBIE on green hydrogen in Southland, on new industries replacing fossil fuel in Taranaki and on the Rocket Lab business in Hawke's Bay.
It said these industries were assisted by the public sector, as was the events business, which produced successes like the women's football World Cup.
It conceded there had been hiring in the public sector since 2017 but that was done to address previous chronic under-investment.
"New Zealand has a trusted and efficient public sector that has grown in line with New Zealand’s population, got us through the pandemic, and is still on a per capita basis similar in size to Australia and the UK."
Meanwhile, ACT has backed up its policies on public sector staffing with an open letter to the heads of government departments telling them they are wasting public money.
It adds they should also not implement race based policies.
"If New Zealanders give ACT the privilege of being part of the next government, there will be real change in the public service," ACT says in its open letter.
"Government departments have made New Zealanders’ lives more expensive and divided them by race. They are tired of it, and so is ACT," the party says.
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