More particularly, New Zealand’s core national debt had risen from $81 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2023 (the last quarter of the departed Labour Government’s term in office), to $170 billion at the end of Q3 2024, to $182 billion at the end of Q3 2025. The annual interest cost of NZ’s debt is about $10 billion. New Zealand’s debt will top $200 billion within the next few years (that’s $40,000 for every single man, woman and child in New Zealand). Nothing’s really changed, economically, since my Substack exactly two years ago:
For the foreseeable future New Zealand is stuck with an economy blighted by poor productivity.
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Government income (mainly from taxation) is static and there’s little left to sell to reduce debt. Pāmu (formerly, and still officially, known as “Landcorp Farming Limited”) is a badly run, Government owned farm-holding company that some say could be sold for about $2 billion. But that amount wouldn’t make a material dent in New Zealand’s debt. And in any case, given Pāmu’s primary function (according to itself) is to “return land under Te Tiriti o Waitangi settlements” and the Government’s lack of stomach for race ructions, Pāmu will remain intact and in Government hands.
So what non-essential Government agencies could be chopped to save money? What bacterial blobs in the Public Petrie Dish could be eradicated, without a ripple for everyday New Zealanders?
Such extinguishments are entirely feasible. The Government snuffed out the Productivity Commission in February 2024, much to the chagrin of the last Productivity Commissioner, insufferably Woke Ganesh Nana, who felt that all secrets for improving New Zealand’s productivity lay in the Treaty of Waitangi.
Government income (mainly from taxation) is static and there’s little left to sell to reduce debt. Pāmu (formerly, and still officially, known as “Landcorp Farming Limited”) is a badly run, Government owned farm-holding company that some say could be sold for about $2 billion. But that amount wouldn’t make a material dent in New Zealand’s debt. And in any case, given Pāmu’s primary function (according to itself) is to “return land under Te Tiriti o Waitangi settlements” and the Government’s lack of stomach for race ructions, Pāmu will remain intact and in Government hands.
So what non-essential Government agencies could be chopped to save money? What bacterial blobs in the Public Petrie Dish could be eradicated, without a ripple for everyday New Zealanders?
Such extinguishments are entirely feasible. The Government snuffed out the Productivity Commission in February 2024, much to the chagrin of the last Productivity Commissioner, insufferably Woke Ganesh Nana, who felt that all secrets for improving New Zealand’s productivity lay in the Treaty of Waitangi.
But there’s an irony that – of all the useless agencies that can be chopped - it was the Productivity Commission that was killed off. Because enhancing productivity is the only true way that New Zealand will be able to harness enough wind to sail out of the economic doldrums.
What, then, are some superfluous State agencies that could be condemned to death and put down? We’re focusing here on agencies that can simply be vaporized, without having to transfer their functions and staff to other bloated bottom feeders in the sclerotic State Sector Sea.
Climate Change Commission
With the current Government quietly withdrawing from the Paris Accord, the Climate Change Commission is redundant and can be put out of our misery. The Climate Commission currently costs about $15 million per annum, with seven Commissioners headed by Chairperson Dame Patsy Reddy, a Chief Executive, and a multitude of staff the precise number of which the Commission simply refuses to disclose.
But it’s not just the $15 million per annum. The Commission continues to advocate for New Zealand to pay many billions of borrowed/taxpayer dollars to overseas climate grift outfits, for “carbon credits”. That’s the real potential cost for New Zealanders of keeping the Climate Commission alive. So it’s off with the CCC’s head, IMO.
Ministry for Pacific Peoples
According to its website, “We are the Ministry for Pacific Peoples, we connect government to Pacific communities across New Zealand”. But the Government doesn’t need any help “connecting” to humans who have Non-Maori Polynesian ancestry. Polynesians, being the first people to navigate - and populate the islands of - the Pacific Ocean, are perfectly capable of looking after themselves. They can certainly do without patronising “help” from their own Race-based Ministry.
Ministry for Ethnic Communities
Likewise for this bizarre bureaucratic beast. From its website, the Min of E. C. seems to be about helping recent immigrants to New Zealand. But certainly not helping them to integrate into New Zealand society and to understand the values that have defined, and should continue to define, New Zealand society (open democracy, the rule of law, freedom of expression etc.).
Rather, this Ministry appears to be all about enabling immigrants, especially those from cultures diametrically different and detrimental to New Zealand’s, to preserve their own cultures as outposts of their home nations. And advising the Government on how to achieve that. So it’s a firm No to the Ministry of Ethnic Communities. Off you Go.
Ministry for Women
The Ministry for Women’s website states, “Our vision is that Aotearoa New Zealand is a great place for all women and girls”. As if New Zealand isn’t already, on a global scale, a great place for women and girls.
According to the Ministry for Women, its constituents include dudes, “Manatū Wāhine represents the interests of all women, including transgender women [i.e., biological men], and we recognise the right of all people to self-identify”.
The Ministry’s website contains its own living will to be euthanized, having succeeded itself out of any good reason for continuing to exist. This, from the Ministry’s own website:
Click to view
In the timeless words of Annie Lennox (Eurythmics) and Aretha Franklin, Sister are doing it for themselves, standing on their own two feet. They don’t need their own Ministry.
Ministry for Culture and Heritage
New Zealand has its own culture and heritage and doesn’t need a Ministry to sustain and curate them. The more I looked into this Ministry, I more confused I got as to what it actually does, or pretends to do:
We lead government work in the arts, heritage, broadcasting and sports sectors and provide our Ministers with advice on legislation, policy and sector development
The website contains all sorts of weird and unwonderful claims about the Ministry’s remit, including that it has something to do with the climate:
Click to view
In reality, the M for C & H is just part of New Zealand’s network of Cultural Commissars who expend their time and energies telling us all what we should say and do, and dishing out funding accordingly:
We administer their funding, monitor their activities and support appointees to their boards of NZ On Air, Creative New Zealand, the New Zealand Film Commission and Te Papa Tongarewa.
Get out the guillotine.
What of the Human Rights Commission?
To the extent that the Ministries for Pacific Peoples, Ethnic Communities and Women fight discrimination against those they purport to represent, then the Human Rights Commission could take over those fights. But unfortunately, the Commission sees itself as far less about fighting discrimination based on colour, race, ethnic or national origins or sex and far more about promoting “positive” racial discrimination and authoritarian social engineering, based on international treaties and conventions:
A DIFFERENT KIND OF RIGHTS
John McLean 29 Oct
About three weeks ago, New Zealand’s Chief Human Rights Commissioner, Dr Stephen Rainbow, talked to Michael Laws on webcasting media channel, The Platform. You can listen to most of the interview here (in order to listen to the full interview, become a Platform Plus subscriber):
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Race Relations Commissioner Dr Melissa Derby has recently devoted herself to denigrating New Zealand on the international stage, as a country Melissa shrieks is RACIST. Her 20 October 2025 Submission to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination includes the following unpatriotic, self-flagellating and untrue “recommendations”:
Ensure adequate budget and resourcing is allocated to the Ministries for Ethnic Communities, Pacific Peoples and Māori Development, and their functions retained, to enable them to…promote racial equality for Māori, Pacific peoples, and ethnic communities.
Prioritise the development and launch of, and adequately fund the implementation of, the National Action Plan Against Racism... [New Zealand’s “National Action Plan Against Racism” is a bizarre, continuing initiative of the Ministry of Justice that claims to aim to “end racism”, while maintaining that “Aotearoa New Zealand has no agreed definition of racism”. You can check it out here National Action Plan Against Racism | New Zealand Ministry of Justice]
Implement measures to address hate crime…taking into account forthcoming Law Commission hate crime review recommendations.
Strengthen climate-resilient housing strategies for Māori and Pacific peoples.
Address racism and discrimination in the health sector through equity-focussed frameworks and community partnerships, and increase efforts to train and retain a diverse health workforce.
Affirm recognition of Māori rights to self-determination, acknowledging the relationship between Te Tiriti and the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Consistent with [United Nations] recommendations, in partnership with Māori, advance constitutional protections for Te Tiriti.
Implement accountability mechanisms for systemic racism and ableism, in partnership with Māori, survivors and other impacted communities.
The Human Rights Commission is now clearly an agency systemically infected with Critical Race Theory and every other available form of Identitarianism and wacked-out Wokery. The hope engendered by the appointments of Stephen Rainbow as Human Rights Commissioner, and Melissa Derby as Race Relations Commissioner, has withered on the vine. There is no summer wine.
So let’s hatchet the Human Rights Commission. Or at least run a Demolition Derby, rid the Commission of Dr Melissa and demolish the radical racialization of New Zealand’s once credible Human Rights Commission.
In fact, Dr Melissa Derby may not need to be removed as Race Relations Commissioner because the High Court has ruled that Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith mucked up her appointment, along with that of Human Rights Commissioner Stephen Rainbow. That’s a story for 2026…
Merry Christmas, Dear Readers.
John McLean is a citizen typist and enthusiastic amateur who blogs at John's Substack where this article was sourced.
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