Hypocrisy and lies on state sector CEO salaries

First the hypocrisy exposed by Keeping Stock:

Mr Rennie said the pay rises flowed through from a decision in 2005 to increase the overall funding for chief executives by 5 per cent a year for five years. …

Yes that is right. Labour signed off on a formal policy to increase by 5% a year for five years. A policy cancelled by in 2009.

Then we have both the hypocrisy and a lie, from Grant Robertson.

I actually find it hilarious that Grant, the self appointed defender of the public service is promoting Goff's idiocy.  Grant has oppossed every cost savings National has made in the public service, demanding more public servants and higher , and then suddenly he is for a pay cap!

But the lie is this:

A raw nerve has been struck very quickly with David Farrar over the commitment in 's speech to cap Public Sector Chief Executive pay at the level of the Prime . He describes the policy as “idiocy”.

I wonder how DPF's friends in the UK Conservative Party would feel about him calling David Cameron an idiot. Because, as Phil Goff said in the speech today, this is something that the UK Tories are also talking about.

Grant is wrong. Maybe he did not read his own link and just trusted that Phil Goff was correct, He's a smart guy so won't make that mistake again.

What does the article say David Cameron wants to do:

  • speculation that public sector salaries may be frozen if the Conservatives are elected – something Labour and the PSA no doubt would condemn
  • named several public-sector employees he indicated are overpaid – and I could name some here also.
  • said a Conservative Government will “out” quangocrats and mandarins who have been “getting rich at the taxpayer's expense” by publishing details of all public sector salaries over £150,000 – well we already publish salaries over $100,000
  • Mr Cameron said that means-tested tax credits for people earning over £50,000 would be scrapped to save taxpayers' money – scrapping their equivalent of WFF – again not sure Grant is endorsing this.
  • seek to reintroduce Gordon Brown's “golden rule” – to keep Government borrowing below 40 percent of national economic output – wish Labour would tell their debt – seems to be the higher the better
  • The Conservative leader also indicated that the Conservatives may freeze public spending in future – wow a spending freeze

Nowhere at all does David Cameron talk about having a policy that no public servant can be paid more than the Prime Minister who gets 197,000 pounds.

His Shadow Chancellor did in one speech suggest that the Chancellor's permission be necessary for any pay above the PM. His exact words were:

In the current climate, anyone who wishes to pay a public servant more than the Prime Minister will have to put it before the Chancellor.

There is a huge difference between needing to make a case, and a blanket ban which Goff announced, as the House of Commons itself resolved.

Osborne also incidentally proposed a 5% pay cut for Ministers, cutting the number of MPs by 10% and closing off the parliamentary pension scheme and most of all cutting the cost of Whitehall by one third!

Now the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee happens to have just published a report on top pay in the public sector. Let us see what they think of Phil Goff's idea:

Public servants who earn more than the Prime Minister are very well paid indeed. Reward at this level deserves a clear and public justification, and close and sceptical scrutiny. But any proposal to use the Prime Minister's salary as an absolute cap on public sector pay would be little more than a political stunt.

Little more than a political stunt. That's NZ Labour.

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