Nicola Willis: Finance Minister on the public service reform, experimenting with AI to streamline tasks

Another swathe of Government agency job cuts and public sector reform. 

Finance Minister Nicola Willis says they want to return the public servant headcount to 1% of the population by mid-2029, culling about 8,700 jobs. 

Government agency operating budgets will again be reduced – 2% now, increasing over following years. 

Willis says they will also thin out the ministries, pointing to savings it'll bring. 

She says they expect to hire more nurses, Police officers, and others in critical frontline roles. 

Willis says AI is “incredible” at slashing the amount of time needed for mundane tasks, revealing her staff used it to write a report on public service reform. 

She told Mike Hosking the Government was streamlining agencies and embedding AI and digitisation, and asking the public service to "get out of the 80s". 

She was experimenting with AI in her own office. 

“Instead of one of my analysts spending half a day coming up with a document, they said to AI, ‘Have a look at public service reform around the world, tell us who's done what, what seems to have worked well, what hasn't’. 

“And 10 minutes later, you've got a beautiful document with some guidance and some advice.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The public service gets another going over, this time eighty
seven hundred jobs to be reduced, two point four billion
dollars saving planners to get to one percent of the population.
It'll take years, though they're aiming for this time in
twenty twenty nine. Nicola Willis, Finance Minister, back, Well, this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good morning mate.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Any regrets you should have done this properly two years ago,
shouldn't you?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
No, we've made great progress since we came to office.
We've had the number of policy analysts, administrators, managers that's
come down considerably. We've got better results out of the
public service, with violent crime down, educational achievement, art, health
waiting lists reducing. So we're making progress. But we've got
to double down and go harder. To make the public

(00:38):
service deliver the results that you expect, that the public expect.
It needs to modernize.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
So why only two thousand a couple of years ago
and nine thousand now.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Well, because to get fundamental changes, we need to completely
restructure the system.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
That's my argument.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, we were initially doing line by line reductions has
been very effective. We've exerted a lot more fiscal discipline.
We've stopped the growth which was remember, rocketed up from
forty seven thousand people when Labor was elected to sixty
three thousand.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
I get all that you're giving me history. What I
want to know is why do we need nine thousand
now when we didn't need nine thousand? Day one? You
had the license to get in there and rip into it.
You didn't, Well, we did, we two thousands, not nine thousand.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, we're putting a sinking lid on, Mike, and we're
doing fundamental changes. We're streamlining the agencies, we're embedding AI
and digitization. We've put that sinking administrative budget cap on
to make sure that the efficiencies and savings are released.
And we're saying to the public service, let's get out

(01:45):
of the eighties, let's make us fit for today. And
they're up for that challenge.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Do you reckon? You know what AI can do? Well,
as everyone just goes I, we'll do some AI. I
mean most people don't have a clue what that means.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Well, I've been experimenting with it my office recently and
it's incredible. So instead of one of my analysts spending
half a day coming up with a document, they said
to AI, have a look at public service reform around
the world. Tell us who's done what, what seems to
have worked, well, what hasn't, And ten minutes later you've
got a beautiful document with some guidance and some advice. Now,
normally that would take hours of human time. Then you

(02:19):
put a human over the top and you think about
it a bit more kerefully. So it reduces mundane tasks
to mere minutes.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Okay, Singapore runs sixteen ministries, is that what you're ultimately
aiming for.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Well, we want fewer than we have now, which is
around thirty nine. Singapore has sixteen, the UK has more
like twenty four, Australia has fewer as well. We'll see
what the logical groupings are because a lot of this
is about who they're serving. So if you think of
that example of MSERT, which has brought together housing and
transport and environment, a lot of what they do is

(02:53):
engage with local government, and local government instead of now
having to go to multiple different government departments, goes to
one place and that makes sense for them. Now we
want to have the same approach to the mergers elsewhere.
Who are you trying to serve? How do we make
it easier for them?

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Given it's over three years. Is anyone actually getting laid off?
I mean, given the chur and you're going to lose
that many people in that period of time, aren't you.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Well, we've set that target of getting it back to
one percent of the population, which is fifty five thousand.
That will require steady progress. So first we have to
stop the growth and then we have to bring it back.
And so we'll be reporting on it every three months
and I would expect that you'll be seeing attrition, you'll
set be seeing reductions, you'll be seeing changes regularly. It's
not something you can do overnight on the eve of

(03:37):
the target coming on.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
All right, appreciate your time. Nikola will As Finance Minister.
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