Source: ACT Party
The Haps
The country turned 185 on Thursday, but not everyone wanted to celebrate and debate. David Seymour’s address is here. They turned their backs and took his microphone, but nobody actually tried to argue that division based on ancestry is better than liberal democracy.
Spaghetti Government
Just over a year ago the New Zealand Initiative, a think tank, released a short and brilliant report on Government in New Zealand. Cabinet Congestion: The Growth of a ministerial maze.
The gist of the report is that our Government has far more Ministers, and far more portfolios, than similar-sized countries. For example the Government of Ireland has fifteen ministers with eighteen portfolios and eighteen departments.
Once upon a time New Zealand was roughly like that. Cabinet had sixteen ministers who all attended the main Cabinet meeting. Each Minister had one or two departments they were responsible for, and that was also their portfolio. For example, if you were the Minister of Police, you were responsible for Police, Police was your portfolio, and you were the only Minister of Police.
Then came the MMP and the Government required multiple parties. It meant the Bolger Government needed to share power, but wouldn’t. Instead, Ministerial power was diluted with a little water in the wine.
National negotiated the position of ‘Treasurer’ for Winston Peters, because they couldn’t imagine giving up Finance. The idea of a Minister outside Cabinet was also born, meaning Ministers who don’t attend the main Cabinet meeting. Four of these new Ministers meant 20 in total.
Not to be outdone, Helen Clark formed an even bigger Government three years later. Cabinet expanded to 20 Ministers, and Ministers outside cabinet doubled to eight. Then there were 28.
Not much has changed since then, except for an eruption of portfolios and departments. We now have a Ministry for Pacific Peoples, and a Ministry for Ethnic Affairs. Then there are portfolios without a specific department, including Racing, Mental Health, Auckland, the South Island, to name a few of the 78 Portfolios that now exist.
There are other complications. For example needing to pick nearly 30 Ministers from a Government majority of just over 60 MPs affects quality. It means nearly half of MPs are Ministers when their ‘side’ is in Government. There’s been more than a few in recent years who wouldn’t have got a job like being a Minister otherwise.
Most Ministers have multiple portfolios, around three to four on average. They’ll be less effective at, say, improving foreign relations if they’re also responsible for local government (Nanaia Mahuta was terrible at both). They’ll be less effective because they can’t specialise, but also because a specialist is less likely to be appointed in the first place.
On the other hand, many departments have multiple ministers. There are three in Education, but that’s nothing compared with the 18 that MBIE is responsible to. Who is in charge?
As the Initiative report argues, confusion empowers the bureaucracy. They can face multiple Ministers who themselves have many other jobs, often in totally unrelated areas. This makes it extremely difficult to shrink Government, or get much done at all.
Some will criticise ACT for creating the Minister for Regulation. The Party would respond that restricting how other people can use their property is the most important government power to restrain besides taxing and spending. The latter has the Minister of Finance and Treasury, but who restrains regulation?
ACT is now at the centre of government for the first time, and sits at the table that’s been set over the last thirty years of MMP. If the Party was charged with setting the table, there would be fewer placemats.
How would we do it again? Any future Government should stick to three rules when it’s being set up.
- Every Minister sits in Cabinet so they’re part of every discussion.
- Every Minister has a department, so there are no portfolios that don’t involve managing a department.
- No Department has more than one Minister, so every public servant knows who they’re accountable to.
This would mean getting rid of about half the portfolios and eight Ministers. It would go a long way to improving government efficiency and allow the government to get a lot more done much faster with much less ‘resource.’