A sticky mess for Jones
It’s hard not to sympathise with Regional Development Minister Shane Jones’ view that the public service is a ‘‘treacle-ridden’’ system that slows down the delivery of government policy. Jones is by no means the first newly elected minister, full of pent-up frustration from years in opposition, and in a hurry to effect change, to find himself battling through a maze of red tape. It’s almost a situation guaranteed by our system of government: ministers have just three years to prove to voters that they’ve done something useful, while public servants have a lifetime in which to prevent impatient politicians from doing something foolish.
Jones’ proposed solution is a radical one: politicians should appoint the chief executives of a handful of key ministries, whose jobs would be to implement ministers’ wishes. In his own inimitable words, he said: ‘‘I know we have this separation of governance and the bureaucracy, but I’m really attracted to the idea where the Aussies have softened that line, and key ministers bring in their shit-kickers to get things done. That’s always been my preference.’’
We have yet to find out whether that’s a preference shared by either his prime minister or his party leader. NZ First has long railed against the soulsucking Dementors of bureaucracy, but the idea of interfering with the role of an independent public service may be a step too far for Winston Peters.
There are good reasons for that independence, and it has served Westminster-style democracies well. Good government needs not only to get things done, but to be seen to do it with integrity and transparency. Public servants need to be free to offer their advice without fear or favour; they cannot do that if they feel pressure to temper their advice to the demands of a government-appointed ‘‘shit-kicker’’.
It may be true that the current system, of ministry chief executives appointed by the State Services Commission, wastes time. Public servants, however senior, independent and impartial, are inevitably affected by their relationships with ministers, and some may well spend more time second-guessing them than they should. A chief executive appointed by a minister would cut that out. But it would not lead to better governance, and could easily take us down the path to the cronyism and pork-barrel politics that we rightly deplore in the United States. New Zealand’s international reputation for low levels of government corruption is one that should be vigorously defended.
Corruption can take many forms, not all of which stem from a deliberate conspiracy to deceive. The $3 billion on offer from Jones’ Provincial Growth Fund between now and 2020 – that’s $20 million a week for the entire term of this Government – offers myriad opportunities for wasted money and political embarrassment. This has already become clear on the West Coast, where a man initially awarded funding for a feasibility study into a waste scheme is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.
Jones has airily described such mistakes as ‘‘cases where the wheels on the fiscal cart get a bit wobbly’’. The best safeguard against further speed wobbles is a fearlessly neutral public service carrying out proper checks on the use of taxpayers’ money – even if this means the cart proceeds a little more slowly.
It could easily take us down the path to cronyism.