Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
A New Zealand think tank that suggested the need to downsize the country's executive roles last year is applauding David Seymour's suggestion to do just that.
Executive director for the New Zealand Initiative, Oliver Hartwich, says the current system has "become quite absurd" and he's "absolutely delighted there's a politician" who's willing to consolidate the way governments run.
Hartwich doesn't think it's necessary to have both a Minister for Finance, and a Minister for Economic Growth, "it's just window dressing".
In a speech to the Tauranga Business Chamber Thursday afternoon, the ACT leader made the case for streamlining the executive, saying the current set-up was a complicated bureaucratic beast.
Seymour criticised the ministerial line-up as looking "bloated" and full of meaningless titles.
He proposed cutting the number of ministers down from 28 to 20 - with no associate positions except in finance. He also wanted to slash the 41 government agencies down to 30 - with ministers solely responsible for their department rather than multiple symbolic portfolios.
Ultimately, the size and make-up of an executive is determined by the prime minister.
The New Zealand Initiative released a report on the issue in March last year, arguing the country's Executive Branch had grown to an "abnormal size."
"The number of departments, portfolios, and ministers likely causes a suite of coordination, policy drift and resource management problems."
Hartwich said the problem was that New Zealand had split the executive government into more than 80 ministerial portfolios. There were just under 30 ministers, associate ministers and parliamentary under secretaries. He explained their responsibilities are split over those 80 portfolios.
"Now we have 41 agencies, ministries, departments, working for these executive ministers. And the result of all of this is a massive confusion and a massive problem with transparency."
He pointed to a separate Ministers for Housing (Chris Bishop) and for Building and Construction (Chris Penk), when "housing and building on construction have a lot to do with each other, so it would actually makes sense to have this dealt with by one minister or another".
He also referred to the Minister for Defence (Judith Collins) and the Minister for Veterans (Chris Penk).
"As long as you're serving in our Armed Forces, you'll have one minister dealing with you, but once you're retired, you've got another minister taking care of you."
He questioned whether it was necessary to have a Minister for Rail. He said KiwiRail was a State Owned Enterprise - which there is a minister for.
"We also have a Minister of Transport, and we've got a Minister of Finance, and you would have thought [sic] between them, they could have actually sorted out KiwiRail and the ferries, but no, we have created yet another portfolio to deal with that."
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has taken aim at Christopher Luxon's leadership. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
He also criticised the need to have a an "economic growth portfolio" especially given that is now held by the Minister in charge of the Finance portfolio.
"As if the minister of finance should not always be automatically normally the minister also taking care of economic growth.
"It's just window dressing. It is just political signaling that the government cares for some issues."
He said New Zealand had, over the last century, created more and more ministerial roles "especially" when it came to coalition negations, calling it a "political football."
"They are created to appease coalition partners," he added.
"You're trying to create something that you can offer to your coalition partner.
"Sometimes your coalition partner may want to have a closer look at what you are doing as the main party in your own portfolios. And so you create associate roles. You split portfolios, you split responsibilities."
But he pointed out, once the next government is formed, "none of these portfolios ever disappear, because we only add to them".
"Because it is really hard to get rid of something that you've created for political reasons, because then it becomes just part of your negotiation mess for the next coalition negotiations. And so it is incredibly difficult to reverse this.
"Once you create a portfolio, once you create a department, they will be there almost forever, whether they're any more needed or not."
Portfolios
Seymour singled out the Child Poverty Reduction position for criticism, calling it no more than "window dressing". The role was first held by former prime minister Dame Jacinda Ardern and now National's Louise Upston.
As well, Seymour questioned the need for other roles like Hospitality and the Voluntary Sector, also held by Upston, or Racing, held by NZ First leader Winston Peters.
Others portfolios named included Auckland, the South Island, Hunting and Fishing, and Space.
Ministers Upston and Meager declined to comment on the issue, and Minister Peters is in New Caledonia and was unavailable to comment.
The prime minister also declined to provide a response. But Labour's Chris Hipkins took aim at Christopher Luxon's leadership, saying barely a week goes by without one of Christopher Luxon's deputy prime ministers casting aspersions on their "so called partnership".
"How Christopher Luxon plans to rein in David Seymour's criticism of the government he is a part of remains to be seen."
Hipkins said he knew Peters and Seymour were "sharing roles," but he didn't know Luxon and Seymour were "sharing theirs too".
As for the ministerial roles, Hipkins said the number of portfolios changed from "time to time" as "new focus areas develop".
"Any decisions will be made when we win the election in 2026."
