Treasury Staff
February 1st, 2010 at 5:55 am by David FarrarThe Herald reports:
Treasury Secretary John Whitehead rejects the suggestion that he employs a bunch of bookish, chin-stroking, policy eggheads who sit around dreaming up economic miseries.
I’m sure sometimes they do it standing up. 
The Treasury family were a diverse and well-rounded lot. The Treasury had recently employed a former Presbyterian minister and someone who featured on television talking about a nudist camp they had set up.
Oh dear – is this meant to increase confidence in the fiscal forecasting – that Treasurys employs former priests and nudists!
Still the nudist might liven up casual Fridays
February 1st, 2010 at 7:45 am
David, please get your facts right. Roman Catholics have preists, Anglicans have vicars and Presbyterians have MINISTERS.
In my twenty five years or so of dealing with many superb ministers and a few ratbags, (yes, they are human) I have yet to come across one who has sinned so egregiously as to have forsaken his calling and joined Treasury.
Vote:February 1st, 2010 at 7:58 am
Does Treasury still employ people who dont follow the law, as in the prefu cockup?
Vote:They have just done a stalinist style purge of the top leadership so have a lot of newbies running the show.
Any chance of revising the $800 million plus that is ‘predicted’ to be paid out in losses for Finance company guarantees? Or is that another figure plucked out of thin air
February 1st, 2010 at 8:07 am
Anglicans have three types of ordained ministry: bishops, priests, and deacons. The priest who acts in place of another received only a lesser tithe of the parish and is a vicar; the priest who hold the appointment to the parish is a rector and a priest who acts as an assistant to another priest is a curate; the term is also used for deacons. Tithes are now all pooled and a stipend is paid to priests, so the vicar/rector divide isn’t so noted- the term vicar tends now to be used only for those who are acting on behalf of the bishop i.e. the priest appointed to a parish in place of the bishop and the priests appointed to jobs on behalf of the bishop e.g. as military chaplains.
Vote:The Naked Civil Servant was the title of Quentin Crisp’s autobiography; I wonder if the Treasury has as good a set of raconteurs as he was?
February 1st, 2010 at 8:08 am
Countess- good question re Prefu.
Vote:February 1st, 2010 at 8:43 am
I seem to remember something about neither a borrower nor a lender you should be, and tax men weren’t at the top of the hit parade either….
Vote:February 1st, 2010 at 8:46 am
Thankyou Adolf – I just logged in to give DPF the same lecture!!!
Vote:February 1st, 2010 at 8:49 am
And if some of the young secretaries and PAs got in on the act, Treasury would probably have to change a letter in the term Policy Wonk.
Vote:February 1st, 2010 at 9:27 am
Actually Treasury like many Bank Economists need replacing with people who have sufficient intelligence to forecast at least reasonably accurately. None of them have anything like a descent track record.
Vote:February 1st, 2010 at 11:04 am
A nudist-camp entrepreneur, a (presumably failed or lapsed) Presbyterian minister, opera singers, actors and even a “vintage Burlesque dance teacher.”
Probably wouldn’t hire Adam Smith. Too bourgeois.
Sounds more like a wartime Army concert party than a serious national economic unit. No wonder the country’s struggling.
DPF should expect to receive this media release any day.
TREASURY PRESS RELEASE – IMPORTANT
Attention all media
An important change is being made in nomenclature at The Treasury.
Please advise all Parliamentary and other reporters and editing staff that from 1 April 2010 The Treasury chief executive officer will no longer be known as the Secretary of the Treasury.
The new designation will be the Treasury Master of Ceremonies. We encourage all media to use the abbreviation MC after the first mention, and believe that this will soon become well enough known that the term Treasury MC will be adequate at the first mention.
Vote:February 1st, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Still the nudist might liven up casual Fridays
No DPF, they wouldn’t! The only nudists I have ever worked with are not the type of people you want to show up to work naked! Seriously, what is it with nudists not willing to keep their bodies in shape??? If your gonna strut arounds starkers, can you at least do a few crunchs!
I fact if they were to do so would guarentee that no one else will turn up – let alone be able to keep their lunch down.
Vote:February 1st, 2010 at 12:47 pm
I used priest in the generic sense of the term – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest
Vote:February 1st, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Silly me. I should have realised earlier a former ecclesiastical gentleman would fit right into the Treasury ethos. Just another faith community, based on recent performance.
Vote:February 1st, 2010 at 3:03 pm
More fool you for trusting such an unreliable source.
Vote: