Ele Ludemann: Lots of little bits saved add up

The Broadcasting Standards Authority received $859,000 from the government in the year to June last year.

The previous year it received $759,000.

Those aren’t large sums in the big picture of government spending but the Authority’s secret decision to claim jurisdiction over internet media has led for calls for it to be disbanded and leave dealing with complaints to the Media Council.

This begs the question of how many other entities funded in full or part by the government have passed their best-by dates because their work could be done by other organisations or is no longer needed at all.

The government’s fiscal restraint is beginning to show results:

• Deficit dropped from $8.4b to $4.4b
• Spending as a % of GDP dropped from 42.9% to 42.1%
• Core crown expenses down from 33.1% to 32.5%

There is still a long way to go to reduce the burden of government and get crown accounts back into surplus, and lots of lots of little bits saved will add up to bigger bits.

Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.