Judith Collins: Public Service Minister on Crown board members' pay being increased by up to 80%

More money's discreetly finding its way into the pockets of public sector board members.  

A quietly released Cabinet document reveals governance board chairs could now be paid more than $160 thousand.  

Annual fees had previously been capped at about $90 thousand.  

Public Service Minister Judith Collins told Mike Hosking these people are often responsible for large sums of money and assets.  

She says if we want good people to reform the public service and get Crown entities humming, we have to pay for it. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's a claim the government kept it a bit on
the old d LO. But the Crown boards are in
for some very large fee increases, some of them up
to eighty percent. So chairs of some of the big
boards are going to be earning eventually about one hundred
and sixty thousand dollars a year. Judith Collins, public Services Minister,
is of course with us, Judith morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
I've good morning now.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
There is logic in us watching the Prime Minister of
post Cab yesterday, there is logic it got weight. How
did it all get out so out of line that
we need this sort of readjustment.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, there wasn't any increase. It's about the last decade,
apart from a ten percent increase the previous government to
in twenty two twenty tweeny two. And I think the
problem is that governments basically lost the bottle to actually
say we can't have our chair people of these organizations
that many cases are responsible for hundreds of millions or

(00:49):
thousands of millions of dollars of assets being the poorest
people paid people in the room. Because that's basically what's
been happening. And if we want to get good people
to come and help us to reform the public service
and to if you get these crown duties really going
and coming as they should have been, we are going

(01:10):
to have to pay for that. And so this is
not a right across the board increase. It's saying these
are the free ranges, so that we can, for instance,
you know, from of these criny entities the moment the
chairperson of that board, we paid forty thousand dollars. If
you're a busy lawyer or a busy accountant, or you're
a busy business person, you're sitting there thinking, why the

(01:30):
hell would I do that? Take all the political risks,
take all their hits for forty thousand dollars. And by
the way, I'm not doing my own business in that time.
And if you're in Wellington and you're otherwise, you live
in Auckland, your workers in Wellington, that's a whole day,
two days, three days maybe taken up on it, and
why would you do it? So in those cases direct

(01:51):
their profit sector equivalents about seventy thousand for those sorts
of same jobs. And you know, we just we can't
keep putting people into job obviously they're not qualified for.
But also we can't just run this like some sort
of tim pop outfit, which is what I'm sorry to
say some of the previous government did.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, I was going to say, I don't want to
be too unfair, but if you look at the health
in New Zealand, I mean there were some unusual people
on there that needed to be moved on.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Look, if you choose people on a merit, you're going
to get the right people for the job. And that
doesn't mean to say you go through a little box
and say can I tick off this number of ethnicities,
this number of genders, this number of whatever. You just
get the right people for the job. And those right
people the people who really know how to do this job.
And I've done this job in the past before I

(02:42):
came into politics. It's hard. They're not going to do
it if they've frankly insulted and they're told good time,
stop worth anything.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
They couldn't agree more. Put your ag hat on just
really quickly your opinion on the voting changes. How hardline
are you on that has the government your ag view
made a serious error or we can debate this well.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
I've taken a position of not longly discussing these section
seven reports. But I can say this I am as
the Attorney General. I'm deptually bound by the rulings that
have already happened and the law as it has developed.
And given that the previous voting restriction on prisoners received

(03:31):
a Section seven report by the former Attorney General for Nason,
and there's been court cases since the impruding Supreme Court,
I am surbound by the law as it is, not
as the law might be in the future. So I
just give my advice for government based on it all
as it is.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Got it well said, Appreciate it. Judith Collins, the Attorney
General and Public Service Minister. By the way, in New
Zealand chairs on two seventy Fletcher Building, cheers on three
point forty Health New Zealand one twenty five, so you
can still even they're still again. For more from the
Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to News Talks at B
from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.