ACT leader David Seymour is calling for a 'reality check' after outcry over the latest round of job cuts.
The Associate Education Minister says they dwindle in comparison to growth across the public service under the previous Government.
School's out at Porirua College as the Government continues its clean-out of public service workers, which could include members of the school lunches team.
"We know that Māori and Pasifika students are in the lower-socio-economic groups and school lunches target those groups," said deputy principal John Topp.
Newshub's also obtained documents showing the Ministry of Education's Te Hurihanganui team, which supports communities to address racism, is also in the firing line. The ministry won't say which roles could go, but changes "have been designed to avoid direct impacts on services to children, teachers and principals/leaders".
Topp said the education system needs to honour Te Tiriti.
"If we don't confront our unconscious bias with third-party support, because you can't do it on your own, we are not going to be able to do that," he said.
But Seymour said: "Having public servants sticking their beaks into how people treat each other has made us a more complicated and divided country."
As well as 565 jobs at the Ministry of Education, Oranga Tamariki yesterday proposed 447 roles will be lost.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said that's about "1000 people in one day alone".
"That is a lot of people to be potentially losing their jobs."
But Seymour said there needs to be a "reality check".
"Everybody is gnashing and wailing about the public service. The reality is, it has grown more in the last six years, much more in fact, than any reduction happening right now."
According to Public Service Commission data, OT's workforce has grown from 3870 in the second quarter of 2018 to 4904 at the end of last year – a 26 percent increase. It now has about 5100 permanent and fixed-term staff, and removing roughly 450 roles takes it back to where it was mid-last year.
Over at the Ministry of Education, there's been a 55 percent staffing over the past five years. Losing 565 roles would return them to pre-2022 levels.
"It is justified to spend more money on supporting some of our most vulnerable children. The biggest area of growth at the Ministry of Education has been in areas like learning support," said Hipkins.
Seymour said: "The simple number of people being hired doesn't mean you get better results."
The governing parties were elected on a promise to pare back the public service and it sees these jobs cuts as delivering. The opposition argues the bureaucratic boost is in line with the public they serve as the population has grown.
The public service's grown 32 percent in the past five years. But as a proportion of the total workforce it's only a very slight increase.
"It hasn't exploded," said Hipkins.
Seymour said: "It's not always true that because the population increases the size of the public workforce has to increase."
