4. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) Link to this
to the Minister for Social Development and Employment
What savings, if any, have been made in her portfolio since she became Minister, in light of the Government’s aim to improve the value for money of the Public Service?
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) Link to this
This Government has an unrelenting focus on delivering better outcomes for taxpayers. The Minister is working with chief executives to achieve greater efficiencies within her ministries, and expects that savings may be made in the process of the Budget round.
Is one of the savings under consideration the delaying or freezing of the roll-out of full funding to non-governmental organisations over the next 3 years, which was part of the Pathways to Partnership programme brought in by Labour and funded over those 3 years?
I understand that the department is in discussion with non-governmental organisations over a range of issues, particularly the problem arising for many non-governmental organisations where private sources of funding are drying up.
I will take that as a yes, and ask the Minister: how can this Government, which campaigned on public-private partnerships, be believed if the first casualty of its razor gang will be the non-governmental organisation sector—a sector that already provides services to New Zealanders in a partnership arrangement at bargain-basement cost to taxpayers, yet will be squeezed first, even though the Government can find money to give to business?
The member should start her questions with a question word instead of a statement. The Government is—[ Interruption] I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member did not start the question with a question word and should be asked to ask it again.
Mr SPEAKERIn this place the member well knows that things go tit for tat. The Minister did not exactly answer the question the member asked, and therefore she assumed an answer. The Minister then, in answering a further supplementary question, invited interjection because of the way he started to answer the question. I think it is about all square, and I invite the Minister to answer the question.
The Government has sent a clear signal that taxpayers’ money should be spent effectively and that spending will be restrained over coming years. We are working, in constructive partnership, with a whole range of groups that will be affected by the change in the external environment, and they are all being much more constructive than the Opposition.
Todd McClayWhat programmes has the Minister seen that demonstrate the previous Government’s approach to delivering value for money?
I can inform the member that the Minister recently visited a programme set up under the last Government where children were taken out of school for 6 hours a week to pat dogs in the animal shelter, providing animal therapy—whether to the children or the dogs, I am not sure. The parents and the children involved were as mystified about the outcomes of that Government-funded programme as the Minister was. I can assure hard-working New Zealanders that under a National Government such spending will not continue.
Is one of the savings a directive to the staff of Work and Income not to use the 7.5 kilometre Northern Gateway Toll Road unless there is an emergency, thereby spending $6 in additional travel costs to save the $2 tolls—not forgetting the extra travel time? Applying that approach to the Minister’s value-for-money exercise, would it result in even greater expenditure?
I can assure the member that the Ministers have given no such direction. They are focused on the substantial job of cleaning up the mess left by the Labour Government, and ensuring that the $1 billion now spent on running the Ministry of Social Development and the grant programmes will be spent effectively over the next 3 to 5 years.