America is super excited about the new Department of Government Efficiency that is being set up, headed by Elon Musk and Vivak Ramaswamy. We all know Musk - his achievement was launching a space program at about 1% the cost of NASA's space program. What had gone wrong at NASA? It had turned into a gigantic bureaucracy. As for Ramaswamy, he worked as an investment partner at a hedge fund before founding Roivant Sciences and Investment firm, Strive Asset Management. His net worth is $960 million. These guys clearly know how to work efficiently and minimize overheads. They know the cost of red-tape.
Meanwhile in NZ, we always thought that ACT was the party to do the same kind of stuff - to cut red-tape and make government work efficiently - to hand power back to the people. So let's take a look at ACT Leader David Seymour's new Ministry of Regulation. Its "senior leadership team" is made up of Wellington insiders - public administrators who've spent their careers regulating. It starts with Gráinne Moss, the new Chief Executive of Regulation. Previously she was System Lead Pay Equity at the Public Service Commission, worked at Ministry for Children, and at the UK's National Health Service, the most regulated outfit on the planet. It gets worse. Her Deputy, Andrew Royle, worked for "the Ministry for the Environment, Crown Law, State Services Commission & Department of Internal Affairs". He's a lawyer. Then there's the new Ministry's Head of Organizational Enablement (what's that?) called Paula Knaap. She's from the Environmental Protection Authority and has "led large regulatory & social policy functions at WorkSafe NZ, Ministry of Education & IRD". Another lawyer. To top off the Senior Leadership Team is Paul Delahunty, from the Social Investment Agency and Tertiary Education Commission, and Department of Conservation.
This group sounds like the first types of folks who Musk and Ramaswamy will be firing. The four members of ACT's Ministry of Regulation have between themselves created more of a mountain of red-tape than 5 million privately employed and small business-owning Kiwis combined. We wont be advising our economics students to go work there.
This group sounds like the first types of folks who Musk and Ramaswamy will be firing. The four members of ACT's Ministry of Regulation have between themselves created more of a mountain of red-tape than 5 million privately employed and small business-owning Kiwis combined. We wont be advising our economics students to go work there.
Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
Sounds like an episode from Yes, Minister.
Seymour made a big deal about this before the election so his neck's on the line to make it. If his new Ministry just adds to the waste - and based on who he's chosen to run it, that's a strong probability - then he's going to find himself "waste" deep and the MSM will smell blood.
Why didn't he recruit some fresh blood?
Gráinne Moss, the new Chief Executive of Regulation. Is she the former CEO of Oranga Tamariki, let go when they changed their name from CYF? Was too white I think. Gets around. Probably wise to the rorts and games of certain non-white public servants.
He needs to drain the swamp not re-cycle it.
This bunch of insider hacks is a sharp contrast to what Trump has already put in place for the US (DOGE). Trump will have the benefit of a four year term to implement whereas the coalition here have already run their three year clock down by a year and have so far achieved virtually nothing by way of trimming government largess, while at the same time still managing to burn what little political capital they started with. There was an outfit in NZ some decades ago which ran on the slogan "Less taxes through less government" - so obvious!
Well, this group certainly have experience, but past performance isn’t always a great predictor of future results (as economists remind us). Hopefully they have clear KPI’s, and the Govt knows what to do if they fall short.
With the appointments listed above and a complete trougher as the Public Services Commissioner it would appear that the Government haven't got a clue and/or are terrified of upsetting anyone in the Public Service.
Surely there must be someone out who could do some cage-rattling and swamp-draining? How about your good self Robert and perhaps Oliver Hartwich for starters?
Lawyers and public servants are by their nature risk averse and create red tape / backside protections. Their involvement should have been more limited. Seymour will have his work cut out reining in this lot. Time will tell but, meantime, I think the Professor is right to be skeptical.
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