Proposed department merger 'a recipe for disaster'

The government’s rushed plan to merge four government departments is a recipe for disaster, says Labour’s Economic Development Spokesperson David Cunliffe.

“The new Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is combining four departments that currently do separate jobs. That’s a bit like combining a butcher’s shop, a toy shop, a candy store and a childcare centre. It may sound great to an accountant, but there are likely to be serious practical difficulties in the real world.

“Let’s be really clear about this: the government isn’t creating this new ministry in order to be more efficient or save the taxpayer money. It is being created so that the Government can provide fewer services to taxpayers. One of the main ways that fewer services will be provided is by firing key staff within the existing departments.

“Regardless of what the Government claims, these firings will simply mean there are less people to serve the public,” David Cunliffe said.

He predicts that the Government will also privatise many of these departments’ services.

“Over the last few years the Government has fired many civil servants, saying they cost too much money. Yet this same Government can find tens of millions to pay for private consultants that do the same job as the civil servants, but charge far more.

“There is a legal term called ‘due diligence’, which means, essentially: checking the facts add up before proceeding with the deal.

“The Government has so-far refused to release the State Service Commission’s ‘due diligence’ report on the proposed new department. This suggests that the government has something serious to hide. What’s in the State Service Commission’s report that it doesn’t what the public hear about?

"Am I the only person to see the irony in a move supposedly designed to create growth and jobs beginning by cutting 130 of them?" David Cunliffe said.