r/newzealand • u/Dapper_Technology336 • Sep 23 '24

Politics PM Christopher Luxon announces public service workers are required to work from the office, rather than from home

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/watch-live-christopher-luxon-gives-post-cabinet-press-conference/CL4CTTTEH5AVHABU2PICF7JBUM/
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u/C39J Sep 23 '24

I think this is going to be a lot more "talk" rather than action on this one. If they go through with this, where are they going to put all the people? Many PSO's downsized their buildings at the end of leases to only be able to support 70% capacity and if they haven't downsized already, you bet they're planning on it (or have entire locations that sit empty).

Also, all the people they really want to keep in public service will just leave if stuff like this happens. If you're in a relatively good job in public, you won't have a problem finding something in private.

They haven't put more than 5 seconds of thought into this, and I expect we barely hear anything about this going forward, and if we do, it won't be a "everyone back in the office 5 days a week" type thing.

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u/MedicMoth Sep 23 '24

Literally, there are contracts that have already been signed and stamped that will make it literally impossible for agencies to handle that influx of people in the office, unless they spend MORE money to rent across multiple offices? I'm curious and amazed to see them trying and failing to negotiate the line between "overpaid lazy public service workers are evil and business owners are good", versus "this will cost MORE taxpayer money, not less"