The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is calling for a moratorium of government agency rebrands after the Ministry for Primary Industries spent $959,700 on its brand and website update.

Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “Most government agencies hold monopolies over the services they deliver. They don’t need flash branding to outshine competitors, because they don’t have any.”

“Taxpayers fund agencies to deliver services. Unfortunately, when you leave any group of bureaucrats in a room together for long enough, they’ll inevitably forget about services and turn their attention to their own logo.”

“This navel-gazing instinct is too powerful for government agencies to manage. We need to simply ban the rebrands.”

“Last year we revealed that the fire services spent $6.2 million on its rebrand – the most expensive government rebrand we’ve ever seen. Then there was CYFS, which became the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, which became Oranga Tamariki. Even local councils have jumped on the rebrand-wagon, with Porirua spending $98,000 on its infamous ‘smiley face’ rebrand.”

“Public Service Minister Chris Hipkins needs to halt all government rebrands by Ministerial diktat. Taxpayers will thank him.”
 

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