75 working groups to advise Govt

THE Government’s tally of inquiries, reference and working groups has soared to 75 since it was elected in September last year.

The first inquiry came on October 31 when a review of Whanau Ora was announced.

The latest one was an a Criminal Justice Summit announced on Wednesday.

Among the most controversial were the Cyber Security Strategy and Action Plan and the Operation Burnham inquiry.

Costs are likely to be from about $200,000 to tens of millions of dollars, depending on the extent of the claims. An editorial in the Otago Daily

yesterday called for the end of the creation of these working and reference groups and inquiries, and urged the Government to start moving on its policy goals.

The newspaper had been researching how many groups had been formed.

The National Party did not respond to questions on how many committees or inquiries it formed after taking power in 2008.

National Party leader Simon Bridges said the Government was desperately trying to compensate for its inability to think for itself or put in the work.

After nine years in Opposition claiming they knew better, Labour, New Zealand First and the Green Party put in so little work and came up with so few ideas they were now outsourcing the job of running the country to consultants — wasting tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds in the process, he said.

‘‘There is now, after just six months, 75 different groups of people telling the Government what it should be doing.

‘‘That’s more working groups than MPs in the entire Government.’’

The Government had abdicated its responsibility to lead and showed how completely out of depth it was, Mr Bridges said yesterday.

It also showed how willing it was to waste taxpayers’ money which should be invested in areas like health and education, he said.

A spokeswoman for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in an email: ‘‘We are getting on with the business of government taking care of New Zealanders by fixing up the hospitals, getting Kiwibuild under way, helping low income working families with $75 a week more from July 1, 2018.

‘‘As part of this we are interested in listening to experts, and the public. That’s a good thing.’’

The spokeswoman noted National carried out 87 reviews in two years during its time in Government.