Inland Revenue contact centre workers thought contracts were 'a joke'

As a tax professional I can tell you these issues are the worst Ive experienced with IRD in my 20 years of dealing with them...the past few years it was difficult to contact IRD in April, but definitely not through to the end of June as per this year.

Ive only ever had good customer service from these hard working people. Ive never had trouble getting through. Yesterday I spent 108 minutes on hold before giving up. Now I understand why...

Im glad this story has got some media attention as the use of temps has become rampant in government departments.And by temps, I don't mean staff who are on the government payroll on temporary contracts. I mean outsourced temporary staff, who are considered employees of a temping agency, who do exactly the same job as full-time staff who are on the government payroll and whose wages and conditions are so low it is beyond belief.I would also point out that these staff are not eligible for the living wage pay increase recently announced for government employees. Why? Because they are not considered government employees! They are considered employees of the temping agencies. That is why it is only going to cost the government $7.22 million and affect the pay of 2,048 employees who currently earn below that wage. The thousands of outsourced temporary staff will be unaffected and that is not fair!The unchecked use of temp agencies is being used by public service managers to appear as if they are saving money when the reality is all it does is cause a degradation in the service they are there to provide the public. It actually increases cost with the higher staff turnover and increased costs required to train new staff to replace the old staff who cannot be retained due to the poor working conditions. This should not be happening in the public service; they exist to serve the public and it is a disgrace!And people wonder why theservice being provided to the public is suffering?

Look after our own people. Give New Zealanders a decent salary to live not a minimum wage with no permanent contract, it is a joke. Our country is truly broken.Mass immigration has caused low salaries, housing problems, transport chaos and a stress on hospitals, inland revenue and so many other basic resources in NZ.The governments over the last 20 odd years have sold our country down the toilet to big business and foreign countries. This comment is sticking to the issue at hand as the MPs and cabinet need to listen to what real Kiwis want.

Blimmin heck - The workers employed by Salmat and Madison are not Inland Revenue employees, so it is inappropriate for us make any comment on their employment arrangements, van Schaardenburg said. Talk about weasel words!! When a govt dept starts to use things like this as its moral compass I think there is a massive disconnect... Shame on you IRD

For a government agency, this is absolutely appalling.

Had a mate who was a cleaner at IRD head office,he said when the head honchos threw a party for visiting overseas senior IRD people,he couldnt believe how much top shelf grog they went through,single malt whiskeys,nothing cheap,champagne etc.Then he looked in his pay packet and realized who was financing this carry on.

The IRD has, and continues to function on a culture of bullying.

Offer the bosses a contract like that and see how they like it.Absolutely not moral.

I always thought the ird would do things correctly. I cannot believe they are doing this to their workers what a disgusting state of affairs. I hope some of them take out a grievance against the ird and the ird gets pulled back into line, how shopping.

You would think that a government department that handles most of New Zealands money would at least have a functioning call centre.. easier to get ET to phone home these days!

temping contracts outsourced to temping workers. I would have thought that IRD would be a model employer and so this is how NZ is sourcing employment? I wonder what the percentage is nation wide? People who are employed as permanent workers must know how lucky they are. Try calling Spark, same problem there, wait for two hours or go online and leave a message. Hardly satisfactory and the call centre is so overloaded and not enough staff on, and Spark makes millions.

Without the continuation of suitable contracts, the staff turnover must be diabolical. How is that good for anybody who has privacy concerns around sensitive financial records? I want to be assured that the information that I am legally required to file isn't going to be misused by a temporary employee, that may or may not have a gripe with either myself, my company, or the IRD. The Police and Justice system just don't have the resources to protect each and everyone of us that have privacy/misuse of power issues to investigate.

Feel for these guys, I really do. No wonder I have been unsuccessfully trying to call IRD for the last 6 weeks only to be hung up on several times. This gave me no other choice but to seek contact online, via MyIRD letters. Wrote to them, got an unsatisfactory response in 15 days. Wrote back again and made a complaint at the same time, thinking the complaint will take less to resolve. Haha. Contact back 14 days later and then a day later a response to my complaint. IRD - your customer service officially sucks! And its not the bottom of the food chain peoples fault. Fish rotten from the head.

Makes the Nurses deal look like the best thing since sliced bread. Where are you hiding Minister Nash and Prime Minister Peters? Not quite as popular a cause?

IRD probably did what Education and Immigration departments did. That is had incompetent mangers who didnt understand new technology or IT systems and spent way too much then realised it doesnt do nearly half the things they thought it would. And as a by product have to cut staffing a working conditions to cover up the whole in their budget.

Welcome to the world of US-style HR management practices.

Its the management that decide how resources are allocated hardly the fault of front line staff.

We should expect better from a government department.

I think this is a very unfair comment. Getting upset with IRD workers for helping implementing and helping people understand the governments tax policies is equivalent to getting upset with the supermarket checkout operator because the price of milk is too high. The staff at IRD are just trying to help you get you through the queue as quickly and efficiently as possible with the rules they have to work with and for the most part show professionalism, empathy and respect for customers. If you want someone to blame for how tax policies make you feel perhaps you should blame the people who create them - the government!