Labour says it is undemocratic to have public sector redundancies!

Olivia Wannan at Stuff reports:

Older public servants have borne the brunt of recent government job cuts.

In the past two years, 412 government workers aged over 55 have been laid off, 42 per cent of the 970 redundancies in 10 agencies, figures released under the Official Information Act show.

Opponents say the loss is undermining the country’s democratic process.

Really?

The Public Service Association’s Brenda Pilott believed the Government initiative to condense levels of management was one factor behind the age skew.

“In that case, it is inevitable you’re going to be losing people who are in the older age group, as they’ve moved up into those middle and senior roles.”

So the Government is reducing the number of managers, and this is anti-democratic according to Labour?

It is a good reminder that Labour have opposed pretty much every state sector spending reduction in the last five years, and under them we’d not be heading into surplus, but ever growing deficits.

Labour state services spokesperson Maryan Street said the figures showed the public sector had lost many of its most experienced employees.

“The Government is, I think, deliberately stripping out the institutional knowledge and experience of the public service.

“This leaves a workforce that is not going to challenge anything ministers do and that is one of the things the public service is there for . . . It’s not good for our democratic apparatus.”

So Labour think it is the job of the public sector to challenge Ministers, not assist them?

What is depressing is once again Labour conflates quantity and quality. They think more of something is automatically good.

About 2.5 per cent of all public servants at the nine government agencies were made redundant over the past two years.

2.5%? And Labour is calling it the end of democracy. Sigh.