Fleur Fitzsimons: PSA National Secretary on the call to cull ministerial portfolios

A push to slim down New Zealand’s unusually large number of ministerial portfolios is being met with caution. 

A report by the New Zealand Initiative's found comparable countries have a third of our 81 portfolios and is calling for a cull. 

PSA's national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons says they don't object to a discussion around this. 

But she told Andrew Dickens it's taking place in a political context, driven by the ACT Party. 

Fitzsimons says David Seymour's been vocal about dismissing more public servants and moving to a model of privatisation. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
How many ministries is too many? Will A report out
today says we have way too many. The New Zealand
Initiative reckons we could easily cut over twenty departments and
actually make our bureaucracy run smoother. So Flur Fitzimons is
the PSA National Secretary, and she joins me. Now, Helloflur,
Then we go his first Sorry, the buttons wasn't working

(00:21):
very well.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hello Flur, good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
So we got eighty one ministerial portfolios, twenty eight ministers,
forty three departments, three times as many portfolios and nearly
twice as many departments as comparable countries like Ireland. Surely
this can be rationalized.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, look, we don't object to the discussion about this,
but I think you have to understand that it's taking
place in a political context driven by the ACT Party.
He David Seymour was very supportive of an earlier version
of this report, and he's been consistent in saying we
need to dismiss thousands more public servants and we need
to move towards models of privatization. Now, I don't think

(01:01):
that's going to find favor with New Zealanders, and I
think it would be very dangerous for the delivery of
public services. So there's a lot of red flags of
this report.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Do you really think it's just ACT Party and the
ACT Party supporters that are a bit worried about the
bloated size of our public service? Don't you think it's
much more widespread.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, when you say bloater, let's look at some of
the proposals in this report. They, for example, suggest merging
the Cancer Control Agency into the Ministry of Health. In
New Zealand, we've had cancer advocates for years calling for
an agency to hold our health system to accounts. They
finally got it in the Cancer Control Agency. This report

(01:40):
doesn't look at the value of that agency, the history
of its creation, or the importance of its work. It
simply looks at numbers. Now, when you do that, when
it comes to something like public policy, it's actually very dangerous.
But no, I don't think it's as simple as a numbers.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Whereas the go to for advocates when they say we've
got to do something about cancer to or just automatically
say well, let's have another ministry, let's have another department,
let's have another bureaucracy.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Well, I don't want to downplay the work that those
patient advocates did in the frustration that they felt with
our health system when it came to getting decent cancer treatment.
But it's not just those patient advocates. So if you
look at what happens in New Zealand where we have
a disaster or a significant event that we need to investigate,
we set up a Royal commission, so Pipe River, abuse

(02:27):
in state care, the christ Church terrorist attack. Now those
commissions look carefully at what went wrong that led to
these disasters and how we could do better. If you
look at the recommendations of those commissions, none of them
say less public services or less investment in public services.
They all say we need to do more, we need
to look more carefully. Here's how we need to set

(02:49):
up our public policy administration in New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Let's just take the money out of it. Let's take
the advocacy out of it. But doesn't the amount of
bureaucrats we currently have just lead to confusion and are
slowing down of our public service. For instance, MB currently
answers to twenty different ministers. That's confusing.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, actually, that's the kind of consolidation that this report's
asking for. More of so if that's confusing, then the
reporter is itself confusing, and I think it is. It
actually just takes a numerica in that analysis and overlays
it onto public agencies. There's no proper assessment of the
importance of, for example, the work of the Ministry for women,

(03:28):
or the work of the Ministry for specific people, their history,
the role that they play. And I think it's just
too simplistic when you look at it that way.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
All right, flirt and I thank you so much for
your time today. Flurfit Simon says from the PSAG is
the National Secretary. For more from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
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