The Tuesday Club was initially started by Peter Beck, John Patterson, and me.
A common theme has been challenging and analysing the results of the extreme neo-liberal values imposed on our community by most politicians of the main two parties since 1984. We will continue to promote this analysis while we still breath in and out.
One of our founders, John Patterson, has had a chequered career in many areas. At one stage he was President of the Public Service Association in Southland. Here is a photo of him with the then Minister in the Labour Government, Stan Roger, who had sold out on his old mates in the public service where once he had been the National President of their union. John and Stan had just had a very acrimonious meeting in Invercargill and the Southland Times produced the photo below after this meeting.
Go for it, John-boy. The battle for economic reform which creates an inclusive society is still to be won.
Comments
Rose McDermottsays
This article makes interesting reading:
State of inertia / Danyl McLauchlan
New Zealand Listener, 29 May 2023
It’s the time of the Great Centrist Drift, writes Danyl McLauchlan, an era of “lost opportunities and gradual failure driven not by ideology but a lack of it”.
This paragraph is particularly pertinent:
The 30-year period of the Great Centrist Drift sees the transformation of the public service into a prelacy that’s deeply preoccupied with knowledge work and with itself; with generating reports and papers, and with branding and rebranding and restructuring and renaming and merging ministries and departments, with the creation of new commissions, agencies, enterprises, entities and executive boards.
Slowly, over time, the attention of the state drifts away from the public and towards implementing conceptual frameworks, hosting conferences, building websites and apps, delivering mega-IT projects (or, not infrequently, spending the money, but not delivering the websites, apps or IT projects). With marketing and public relations, internal communications, legal analysis, business and management consultants, attending meetings and sending emails become the primary vocations. All of this highly credentialled and well-remunerated work – some fraction of which is doubtless worthwhile – takes priority over the more pedestrian chore of delivering public services.
Danyl also wrote
Bees & honey – New Zealand Listener, 8 May 2023
Our public services spent $1.25 billion on outsourced help last year. Are consultants worth their inflated pricetags and industry jargon?
This article makes interesting reading:
State of inertia / Danyl McLauchlan
New Zealand Listener, 29 May 2023
It’s the time of the Great Centrist Drift, writes Danyl McLauchlan, an era of “lost opportunities and gradual failure driven not by ideology but a lack of it”.
This paragraph is particularly pertinent:
The 30-year period of the Great Centrist Drift sees the transformation of the public service into a prelacy that’s deeply preoccupied with knowledge work and with itself; with generating reports and papers, and with branding and rebranding and restructuring and renaming and merging ministries and departments, with the creation of new commissions, agencies, enterprises, entities and executive boards.
Slowly, over time, the attention of the state drifts away from the public and towards implementing conceptual frameworks, hosting conferences, building websites and apps, delivering mega-IT projects (or, not infrequently, spending the money, but not delivering the websites, apps or IT projects). With marketing and public relations, internal communications, legal analysis, business and management consultants, attending meetings and sending emails become the primary vocations. All of this highly credentialled and well-remunerated work – some fraction of which is doubtless worthwhile – takes priority over the more pedestrian chore of delivering public services.
Danyl also wrote
Bees & honey – New Zealand Listener, 8 May 2023
Our public services spent $1.25 billion on outsourced help last year. Are consultants worth their inflated pricetags and industry jargon?
Very interesting reading