4 September 2002

A Lot Of Mouths To Feed

New Zealand's taxpayers have a lot of mouths to feed according to statistics contained in the State Services Commission briefing papers to incoming Ministers released today. The National Party spokesperson on State Services, Murray McCully says the papers disclose a total of 223,700 full time employees in the public sector.

"The papers show there are 30,000 staff spread across 36 Government departments, another 23,000 in non public service departments like the Police and the Defence Forces, 155,000 staff in Crown entities like schools and hospitals, 14,000 staff in SOE's, 1,500 in the Offices of Parliament and 200 at the Reserve Bank.

"Add these numbers to the 400,000 on income-tested benefits like the unemployment benefit, DPB and invalids benefit (there were 397,794 in the official statistics last December) and another 430,000 receiving New Zealand Superannuation (428,419 as at December) and we have over 1,050,000 individuals dependent upon the nation's taxpayers. And that's before bringing support like special benefit and the accommodation supplement into consideration.

"Quarterly employment survey statistics show full time employees at 1,187,000 as at May 2002. The State Services staffing figures released today, when placed alongside the most recent Social Services statistics (their briefing papers to incoming Ministers have yet to be released) show that the nations hard working employees have a lot of mouths to feed."

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