Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

The Public Service Commissioner, Peter Hughes, took umbrage at an editorial I wrote last week challenging the under performance of Ashley Bloomfield in his role as Director General of Health.Hughes misinterpreted this as me criticising frontline public servants, who he said deserve respect. That’s right, they do — from Ashley Bloomfield, whose supposed to be working on their behalf.No one’s a bigger supporter of people on the frontline than me. They do an incredible thankless and tireless job. I was not referring to them. I was talking about the man tasked with overseeing our Covid health response, and paid more than half a million dollars to do so. My criticism was of the bloated ineffectual bureaucracy sitting behind desks, which suffocates frontline workers with unnecessary overloaded processes. These are the people often caught off guard by announcements made from the 'pulpit' that aren’t directly communicated to them. It’d be great if public sector workers could be left to get on with it – let police pol