Politically, I’m a Libertarian, leaning heavily towards free-markets and hands off government policy. Given a choice, I prefer conservative politics to liberal politics. I’m not a National party supporter, but I’d prefer those guys in power rather than the other.
But sometimes our prime minister is tone deaf. This article is one such instance.
Context is everything
New Zealand’s going through a bit of an economic downturn at the moment. Its pretty gloomy on the job front. It’s gloomy on the cost-of-living front. The weather sucks at the moment too.
On top of that, AI is going to come around very quickly and will be nailing our jobs very soon. Despite 7 years of university training, I figure I’ve got about 2 years max before AI can do my job. And then my job will be outsourced to someone in India who will be able to do it as well as I can using AI for a zillionth of my income.
That’s progress – no one now-a-days morns the loss of the typing pool.
But if you are experience anxiety, doubt, trepidation, fear, worry, about your work investment today, its prospects for the future, and your career, Luxon comes swarming into view saying something cold-hearted and callous like this:
“Public service is not a make-work function. It’s not here just to maintain jobs and maintain a position of how it was always run since 1995 in the same way. We have to constantly evolve the public service to make sure it’s on point and it’s delivering for New Zealanders. It’s pretty exciting, sort of proposition,” he said.
Having just recently visited Singapore, the prime minister said it was a good example of a country better applying AI and technology in the public service.
“Even look at the work that’s been happening in Malaysia and other parts of Southeast Asia as well.
“You’ve got people who need to purchase a house, they go around a very convoluted process, trying to prove their identity, trying to prove their income, that can be automated. You think about a Mum with an 11 and a nine-year-old, and one needs eye glasses, and she’s trying to work out her working for families tax credits. There’s a whole bunch of better ways in which we can deliver those results,” he said.
Public service is not a make-work function
Obviously, being election year, Luxon is dog-whistling to a section of the population who think public servants are rabid Labour or Green voters, card-carrying unionists and generally rubbish at their job. In this mindset, public servants are pampered, protected, well-paid sheep who are fixed in their thinking, useless in their performance, and expensive in their cost. And they don’t do anything.
I’ve encountered this before when I was on the Board of the Canterbury Employer’s Chamber of Commerce back in the 2000’s. We had Michael Cullen, then Minister of Finance come and talk with us in an closed meeting. And the first thing he did was sympathise with business and the issues of business / government engagement. And then, in the same breath, the next thing he did was blame it on the public service and the “bureaucrats”.
Oooohhh the woo!!! Cullen honestly wanted to help business.. but his hands were tied by the inefficient, mindless bureaucrats who blocked him at every level.
Just to reemphasis a point – the ministries do not make a single decision or take a single action that is not 100% sanctioned and demanded by a minister. If the government is inefficient, there is a minister who knows that and chooses that outcome.
Singapore, the prime minister said, was a good example
Singapore is a great example. Recently, its prime minister, acknowledging AI is going to fundamentally change the shape of the workforce and careers, including peoples livelihoods and incomes said this:
Luxon didn’t need to be callous and uncaring – the economics of AI and the shift in the workforce looks to be inevitable. The least he could have done is sympathise with the plight of people who’s livelihoods are changing. And maybe announce something that could help them retrain, rather than just paint the 9000 workforce as useless and in dire need of redundancy.
Here’s the full page article: The Straits Times AI and Workers
There’s a whole bunch of better ways in which we can deliver those results
There are a whole bunch of better ways to deliver results. And overseas AI will provide it. Just keep milking those cows New Zealand and owning those houses. She’ll be right.