Public Service—Ideas

If the Government does not get its ideas from the Public Service, why has the biggest-growing sector of the New Zealand economy since 2000 been Government administration?

Hughes Hon Darren Hughes Link to this

Of course, someone has to work up and develop the brilliant ideas of the Labour Government, like KiwiSaver, Working for Families, the emissions trading scheme, the Energy Strategy, 20 hours’ free early childhood education, and many others I could name.

Has the Prime Minister received any reports on extravagance in the New Zealand Public Service?

As a matter of fact, I have. I did see reports about videos having been made for the Department of Work and Income in which the then chief executive, Christine Rankin, appeared on one occasion as the mother-in-law at a mock wedding, and on another dressed in a full length fur-trimmed silvery coat, climbing on to a wharf. The mind boggles. That was in 1999. The employees who saw the video were warned by Mrs Rankin not to talk to the media. She is of course now a very prominent member of the National Party.

Wilson Madam SPEAKER Link to this

Does the Prime Minister think—[ Interruption]

The question will be heard in silence. Anyone who interrupts will be asked to leave the Chamber.

Does the Prime Minister think that all of the reports and strategies being produced by the Public Service are of good value, important, and necessary?

They surely are an awful lot better than having no ideas, no policy, no strategy, and not even being able to understand a simple statement made yesterday about an upfront $700 million investment in innovation in the primary sectors, which is totally supported by those sectors and opposed by Her Majesty’s Opposition leader.

Can I ask the Prime Minister as to whether on the question of the acquisition of ideas she intends to avail herself of a supplier of ideas as set out in this complaint made to the chief executive officer of APN, which is the owner of the New Zealand Herald, which states: “However, the potential effect is to portray all New Zealand newspapers owned by APN as subservient to political interference. The risk is that the readers will perceive the Herald … as open to National Party influence.”; will she avail herself of that outlet of ideas—namely, APN, which runs so much of this country’s print media, as everybody knows, and as I have told people for a long time?

Barnett Tim Barnett Link to this

It would be very difficult to borrow ideas from the National Party, because there are not any. I hope that on this side of the House we never go down the low road that those members went down in their bullying of a junior journalist and an editor of a regional paper.

Has the Prime Minister seen any reports of extravagant conference expenditure by Government departments?

As a matter of fact, I did. A quarter of a million dollars was spent by the Department of Work and Income on a conference for staff at a resort hotel in Taupō in 1999. Of that, $168,000 was spent on chartering planes, and the Audit Office found the travel arrangements for the course had a “secretive flavour”, which was “inappropriate”. The chief executive who organised those arrangements was none other than Mrs Christine Rankin, who is now a prominent member of the National Party, and if someone can enlighten us as to where she is on its list, we will be all ears.

Does the Prime Minister think that the report produced today by the Families Commission, which is to spend around $500,000 on telling people that they should value parents, is of good value, necessary, and worthwhile, when Dr Prasad stated: “Such messages might be self-evident, but they are still worth repeating.”; and would the Prime Minister like to tell New Zealand families who are struggling to make ends meet that it is far more important that things like that report are produced than that they have an opportunity to make their mortgage payments?

Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition is the only member in the House who does not think that good parenting is important. Better parenting might save us all a lot of money on the criminal justice system down the track.

Is the Prime Minister aware that in the quarterly employment survey the number of core bureaucrats has risen from 26,200 to 36,000, which is an average of about 3,300 per parliamentary term under Labour, and will she tell the House whether that number will increase; can she confirm that under a National Government, where there will not be an increase in core bureaucrats, the savings will be over half a billion dollars, and what does she think New Zealanders would prefer: more money to be spent on front-line services and tax cuts, or more money to be spent on core bureaucrats?

Of course I cannot confirm any of the member’s figures. I can say that of the total growth in Public Service numbers, 15 percent occurred in policy departments and 85 percent was in the front-line departments and agencies. I can say, furthermore, that the slippery figures I have read about in a certain speech today do not own up to the fact that the Ministry of Education, for example, grew because the whole of the Special Education Service was brought into it, and that the Ministry of Health grew because National’s wasteful health bureaucracy, the Health Funding Authority, was done away with. Further, and finally, I can confirm that yes, the numbers in Statistics New Zealand were greater in 2006 than in 2000, because it was a census year.

If the Prime Minister values the Public Service so much, why did she blame Treasury for not letting her Cabinet and caucus know there was room for tax cuts, when her own Minister of Finance got exactly that advice in an incoming briefing, described it as ideological burp, and did not want a bar of it; is it not a situation where, under a Labour Government, if one works for the core bureaucracy, “You’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t.”?

My recollection is that Treasury said tax cuts could be afforded if we were prepared to cut expenditure in other places. That is the National Party’s policy, not ours.

Gerry Brownlee Link to this

On the question of the acquisition of ideas, does the Government intend to adopt the latest stance of the National Party on KiwiSaver—namely, to abolish it, despite this country’s serious personal debt problem, a move that every journalist is saying National has just announced today?

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It is inappropriate that Mr Peters raises spurious and, frankly, wildly inaccurate assertions in a question, and it is particularly inappropriate to do so in this question, where there is no resemblance between his question and the primary question asked by Mr Key or the questions subsequently answered by the Prime Minister.

Wilson Madam SPEAKER Link to this

The second line of the primary question reads: “got many of its ideas from”. That puts into question where the Government acquired its ideas—[ Interruption] I know it would not have acquired them from Mr Carter. He is bereft of any ideas. In fact, he is a standing joke where he comes from. But my point refers to the line “got many of its ideas from”. That is where the issue was put into question, and it is no use being embarrassed by the consequences.

The primary question was very broad, and therefore it is likely to attract supplementary questions that are broad. I ask the Prime Minister to address the question.

Gerry Brownlee Link to this

Madam Speaker, I take you to Standing Order 371(1)(b) and ask you for your ruling on that in relation to Mr Peters’ question, which makes inference, offers imputation, and is, to say the very least, an ironical expression.

Wilson Madam SPEAKER Link to this

That would probably rule out most of the supplementary questions. I ask Mr Peters to perhaps—as some of us may have forgotten what his original question was—rephrase his question in a manner that is consistent with the Standing Orders.

Madam Speaker, I would be delighted to do so. On the issue of where—and I quote the primary question—“her Government got many of its ideas from”, does the Government intend to abolish the KiwiSaver scheme, a move that today every journalist is telling me is the National Party’s latest pronouncement?

With the uptake of KiwiSaver fast approaching half a million New Zealanders, the Labour-led Government will be backing KiwiSaver all the way, not trying to scuttle it, undermine it, and eliminate it as the National Party would do.

Is it still her Government’s No. 1 priority that the fastest-growing part of the economy should be Government administration; if so, how does she reconcile that with the facts that New Zealand families today are paying very high prices at the petrol pump, have not had a tax cut for 8 or 9 years, are struggling to make ends meet, and are struggling to get by in life—do they not deserve a bit of a break after 9 years?

Hide Rodney Hide Link to this

In case the Leader of the Opposition has not noticed this, I tell him 70 percent of Kiwi families have had substantial tax relief under Working for Families. The Government’s highest priority is to grow the economy and to give a charge to the huge food and pastoral sector, which generates more than half our export earnings. The Leader of the Opposition now says he totally opposes the fund we announced yesterday and he would disband it.

In respect of the uptake of ideas, does the Prime Minister believe that a Government should accept good ideas wherever they come from if they are good, and that is why this Government supported ACT’s anti - red tape bill, the Regulatory Responsibility Bill, at least as far as its referral to the Commerce Committee?

For once, I agree with the member. If there are good ideas, we should not be embarrassed about taking them up. Good ideas are not something the Government says it has a monopoly on.