Where Do Our Tax Dollars Go: $2.4 Billion Savings, No Strategy No Plan
On 2 July, an independent review confirmed exactly what I have spent the past several months documenting, based on what I saw firsthand while working inside a government programme. New Zealand's public service overhaul is meant to save $2.4 billion, and nobody can yet say what the automation behind it will actually cost.
Where Do Our Tax Dollars Go: A Case Study (Part 16) – Nobody’s Job
There is a man in New Zealand who currently has around seventy active ERA cases. Each one of those cases is a person who was bullied at work, pushed out, silenced, or dismissed. Each one of them looked for help and found, in most cases, that there was nowhere else to go.
Where Do Our Tax Dollars Go: A Case Study (Part 15) - They Should Have Read My CV
Somewhere in the Department of Internal Affairs there is a document that describes my knowledge and skills more closely than the people who wrote it ever expected to find in a candidate. This is what happened when they found her, and what it cost everyone when they decided that was the problem.
Where Do Our Tax Dollars Go: A Case Study (Part 14) - What They Are Still Not Telling You
Last week New Zealand learned that MBIE spent $33 million on a project that delivered nothing. There is another programme. It promised to save $3.9 billion, it has been running for twenty months, and it has shown the public nothing at all.
Where Do Our Tax Dollars Go: A Case Study (Part 13) - It Only Takes One
When a public servant is being harmed at work, they are told there are places to go. WorkSafe. The Public Service Commission. The Human Rights Commission. The Privacy Commissioner. Four agencies, funded by the public to be there for exactly that moment. I went to all of them. Each of them sent me to the ERA. This article explores what happened at those doors, and why it only takes one agency doing its job to change everything.
Where Do Our Tax Dollars Go: A Case Study (Part 12) - The Cost of Not Counting
The government has promised $3.9 billion in savings and a workforce that feels safe enough to speak up. It cannot deliver either without knowing what is actually happening. So someone asked. The Commission's answer reveals a system built to produce activity without ever producing the truth about whether it works.
Where Do Our Tax Dollars Go: A Case Study (Part 11) - The Cast
Two org charts. One year apart. Meet the people at the centre of this series and see what changed, and what did not.
Where Do Our Tax Dollars Go: A Case Study (Part 10) - The Note
Writers write. It is how we process, how we think, how we survive difficult days. This is my OneNote. The Department of Internal Affairs used it to remove me from my job.