David Seymour’s new ministry, the Ministry of Regulation, is looking for staff while other government agencies are being forced to make cutbacks.
A number of ministries have outlined their plans to reduce staff numbers, including the Ministry for Primary Industries which is planning to cut 384 roles, and 188 staff are expected to go from the Ministry of Health.
Seymour told Newsable, Stuff’s daily news and current affairs podcast, regulation is an area where there’s been little effort to improve policy, indicating it was therefore worth the investment.
“We certainly won’t be hiring people if they can’t directly affect better outcomes for New Zealanders,” he said, going on to say he believed there was scope to hire people who would “make a big difference in the future.”
Seymour said some staffers would also come from the disestablished Productivity Commission, as well as Treasury employees whose main focus was working on regulation, and from the government’s own regulation group, too.
Staff are still in administrative mode, he said. “ We haven’t really got to the stage where they can actually go out and start searching and destroying bad red tape and regulations.”
Stuff
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