Luxon sets nine targets

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says there is “no apology” for his CEO-like approach to executing nine “ambitious” targets for the Government to hit by the end of the decade.

Yesterday, Luxon delivered nine public service targets, or nine “big rocks” to get the Government “turned-around”, in his corporate-speak, across health, education, crime, and climate by 2030.

In setting the targets, Luxon is blending a familiar National Party policy with his corporate mentality. He has re-branded the prior Labour government’s “implementation unit” as a “delivery unit” – a idea originating from Tony Blair’s UK government that has gained currency across the world – tasking it with focusing on the nine goals.

“I’m coming from a CEO background, I make no apologies about that, because it hasn’t worked for us the last six years, having career politicians isn’t delivering results or improved results for New Zealanders,” Luxon said.

Some are plainly as “ambitious” as Luxon proclaimed, such as a 75% reduction of households in emergency housing. Others were more modest, such as reducing the number of persistent children and youth offenders by 15%, and having the country “on track” to meet its existing 2050 net-zero emissions goal.

In talking up the ambition of the goals, Luxon has hedged his bets. If his government fails, success would be any improvement. If the goals are reached by 2030 – two elections away – he can claim success at achieving what the prior National government struggled to do with its own “better public service” targets.

“We need to set some ambition in this country,” Luxon said.

“These are the nine big rocks that we think actually for New Zealanders, sitting out there in New Zealand, that that matter the most to them ... education, housing, health, the environment, law and order.

“Of course, there’s lots of other things the Government will be doing. We want to focus the public service, we want to focus our Cabinet and our ministers, and we want a focus for the New Zealand people, to say ‘this is the thing that you should be judging us by and holding us account to’.”

The targets include having 95% of patients admitted, discharged or transferred from an emergency department within six hours, and 95% of people waiting less than four months for elective treatment. As of September, the emergency department figure stood at 68%, and 62% of patients waited less than four months for an elective treatment.

The Government counts 1100 children and young people as demonstrating “serious and persistent offending

behaviour”. It now aims to reduce this number by 15%, or by 165 children and young people,, which Luxon said was “a pretty serious goal”.

Labour took issue with Luxon setting a target to reduce the number of people on the jobseeker benefit, including people on the health condition and disability jobseeker, by 50,000 people. The Government has routinely criticised the Labour government for allowing the number of people on jobseeker to increase by 70,000 people in six years.

To ensure the Government delivers on the targets, Luxon has asked the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to refashion its “implementation unit” into what it’s calling a “delivery unit”. “Go look at Singapore, go look at Estonia, go look at New South Wales State Government, for example, that run things in very similar ways and had great success focusing their public service and their resources on delivering these goals.”

He said the delivery unit was not “what we saw before” under Labour. He could not remember how many staff the unit would have.