People take civil service jobs just because they'll get that kind of treatment: they're impossible to fire, and they'll get a pension just because they stayed around.

You could say that's inefficient and it is, but given what pathetically little the civil service can offer you, "job security" really needs to be part of it.

That does not need to be a part of it. Governments can choose to pay market rate for labor and not waste money in the long term.

.. and yet, almost none do. Maybe they see it differently from you?

They have the ability to punt today’s labor costs to future taxpayers via unaccounted debts in the form of underfunded defined benefit pensions and retiree healthcare.

So what they see is promise low taxes today, get votes today, let tomorrow’s taxpayers deal with debt problems. I cannot blame them, the voters give the leaders the wrong incentives.

Now you've got it.

Singapore does, which is why the government is so efficient and effective at almost everything it does.

Singapore has a land area equal to Lake Taupo in NZ.

What does that have to do with the competence of the civil service?