Kate Stewart Photo/File
When it comes to civil servants I have always held the belief that it is a simple case of too many achieving too little.
So what I'm about to propose may seem strange.
We need more government departments. The evolutionary nature of our society has exposed gaps that can only be filled with the ridiculous red tape and bureaucratic bollocks that civil servants are famous for.
It doesn't have to mean a larger wage bill for the taxpayer, however. With some minor reshuffling, existing departments can simply offload their most ineffective staff members (talk about spoiled for choice) and have them fill the new positions. Many will be arrogant/dumb enough to think they've been headhunted for the job.
The first will of course be the Department of the Politically Correct and Pointless.
Once they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding they will then undergo the rigorous procedure of learning how to write their own MOUs. When they have this mastered, they will move on to taking the once rare and special cultural displays, like powhiri and hak, and advocate that they be thrashed to death at any public event, so much so that they become a yawnfest and are so common they become cliche.
The DPCP will also house a sub-branch, The DCC, the Department of Christian Crushers. Here agnostics, atheists and those of faith will carefully select what they like about Christian festivals, ie the statutory holidays that come with them, claim them as their own but insist through careful wording that the "holiday" is in no way faith-based. The groundwork for Christmas has already been laid and with talk of allocating Easter a fixed yearly date I fear the Hot Cross Bun will soon be a thing of the past.
You would think the non-believers, so strong in their convictions, would fail to recognise these holidays at all and yet somehow they all seem to embrace them and even see them as their right. Strange that.
The DPCP will be responsible for many more pointless tasks and procedures but without a signed MOU I am not at liberty to discuss it any further.
Lastly we have the DINC, Department of Imbecilic Number Crunching. This office is home to those who come up with some of the least cost-effective solutions possible. Like the single parent seeking an extra $20 a week to help with transporting their wheelchair-bound child to school. She is told that no, there is no funding for that but at a cost to the taxpayer of $150 a week, their ever-rigid policy does allow for a mobility taxi to do the job. Their motto should be: A Waste of Space and Money.
You have to wonder, don't you? The examples for this department could go on and on. Try as you might, you can't make sense of them because they simply don't make sense.
Or scrap the whole thing and go for one giant office, aptly called DUD ... Department of Useless Departments.
-Kate Stewart is a politically incorrect columnist who does not suffer fools but does suffer from the occasional bout of hayfever.