John Key’s Public Service Broken Promise

John Key has broken another major election promise following reports of Government plans for a radical reorganisation of the public service, Labour’s State services spokesperson Grant Robertson said today.

The Dominion Post this morning has reported National’s plans for restructuring across a number of departments, including plans to roll Statistics New Zealand, Land Information New Zealand, The National Library, and Archives New Zealand into a mega-ministry.

“National’s changes will cause massive upheaval in the public service which goes against what the Prime Minister promised on the campaign trail in 2008,” Grant Robertson said.

“There are efficiencies to be found in a number of departments, but there is a real risk that the costs of these changes will outweigh the benefits. The plan proposes radical reorganisation which will carry a large financial cost not to mention the distraction for staff which could result in poorer services for Kiwis.

“The plan will come with high establishment costs and have a number of fishhooks around the statutory roles of the Chief Archivist and Government Statistician. Moreover it will be destabilising for staff.

“John Key himself talked of this when he told the Public Service Association Congress in September 2008 that ’Few problems are solved by significant reorganisations – in fact, many more tend to be created. It is easy to underestimate the amount of energy and inspiration soaked up by institutional change, as well as the loss of personal and institutional knowledge.

“So John Key himself agrees National’s plans could result in poorer services for Kiwis.

“The Prime Minister also told that Congress; ‘a new National Government is not going to radically reorganise the structure of the public sector’. National has again shown their campaign promises are worthless.

“Just like he broke his promise on hiking GST, John Key has broken his promise on the public service. John Key said ‘there will be no wholesale reorganisation or restructuring across the public sector,’

Grant Robertson said the fear now is that National’s plan to form a Mega-Ministry is just the tip of the iceberg.

“Sources are telling me that other public service departments are in line for similar wholesale changes. This is not what Kiwis were promised.

“What is clear is that National’s strategy for the public service was to make promises it knew it wouldn’t keep.

ENDS

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