Have advocacy ministries gone past their use by date? - Richard Prebble

Carmel Sepuloni, Labour’s deputy leader, has slammed the proposed staff cuts at the Ministry for Pacific Peoples.

OPINION

The Public Service Association claims the staff of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples is to be cut by 40 per cent. The union says: “The Government is after these savings to finance $3 billion worth of tax cuts”.

The Finance Minister is determined to deliver tax cuts. Using the National Party’s election tax calculator a Pacific Island couple earning the medium wage with three children will receive a tax cut worth around $42 a week.

Carmel Sepuloni, Labour’s deputy leader, has slammed the proposed staff cuts but few of her Pasifika constituents value the ministry enough to pay higher taxes.

This is more than tax versus services or even as Christopher Luxon says “right-sizing the civil service”. It is whether the ministry is Government overreach.

The only effective way of reducing Government spending is for the state to stop doing things. Is the Ministry for Pacific Peoples something the Government should stop doing?

Sepuloni is the former associate minister. Such a tiny ministry having two ministers indicates that under Labour the ministry’s primary purpose was propaganda. In election year the ministry spent $53,000 on several breakfasts to promote the budget. The ministry also spent $42,000 in taxpayer dollars farewelling its chief executive.

I am a former and first Minister for Pacific Peoples. We had a staff of 10 in a surplus ministerial house. Now the ministry is in a high rise, 101-103 The Terrace, with a staff of 156.

The union says the ministry promotes housing, employment, and culture. There are already government departments promoting housing, employment, and culture.

A new report by Max Salmon for the New Zealand Initiative “Cabinet Congestion: The growth of a Ministerial Maze” says that there are 41 government departments and 27 Crown agencies reporting to 78 ministerial portfolios and 22 associate portfolios, held by 28 ministers. The result is duplication, waste and confusion.

Advocacy ministries have contributed to this duplication and confusion.

Forty years ago, there were no Pasifika members of Parliament and no senior Pasifika civil servants. Creating the portfolio gave me the status to ask how a policy would affect the growing Pasifika community. Departments had never given it any thought.

The departments then asked my ministry to develop policy. I would say “That is your job. We will help you consult”. Today the ministry has fallen into the trap of doing the work of other departments.

Consultation is vital to ensure government services are meeting real needs.

When I consulted the Pacific Island community, they told me that they had come to this country to give their children a better education. I called a meeting of all New Zealand Pacific Island students at Auckland University. They told me they were all there. It might have been as few as 30. I realised there were more Pacific Island students from the Pacific at Auckland University, often on New Zealand government scholarships, than there were New Zealand-born Pasifika students.

My status as minister enabled me to persuade corporate New Zealand not to ignore this talent pool and to provide scholarships and cadetships to New Zealand Pasifika students. We employed the Pasifika university students, including a young All Black student called Michael Jones, armed them with a magazine containing the scholarships and cadetships. They visited schools to encourage other New Zealand Pasifika students to go to university. They were very successful.

There are now many New Zealand Pasifika university students, but it is likely that a secondary school pupil in the Islands is getting a better education than a Pasifika pupil in Otara. The New Zealand schools have better equipment and teachers but in New Zealand today around half of all Pasifika secondary school pupils will be absent. It is hard to get an education if you do not go to school.

A search of the Ministry for Pacific People’s website, reports and briefing to the new minister did not reveal any concerns over this educational disaster.

The ministry is promoting victimhood with multiple references to the Dawn Raids of half a century ago. Police did make mistakes such as falsely arresting Māori. Police knocked on my door. But it is wrong to exaggerate what happened. Overstaying is illegal. As minister, no one asked me for an apology.

Have these advocacy ministries passed their use-by date? We now have Pasifika, ethnic and women MPs.

Advocacy ministries are one reason the civil service grew by 14,000.

In a Westminster democracy advocacy is the role of an MP. Parliament is not called the House of Representatives for no reason. It is also an MP’s job to represent all their constituents. With 120 MPs there are many MPs keen to advocate and represent.

It is going to require a huge effort from the Ministry of Education, schools, parents, and the community to get pupils back to school. It is never going to be achieved by an advocacy ministry in Wellington. It requires leadership. Carmel Sepuloni, instead of championing jobs for civil servants, why not champion getting our children back to school?

Richard Prebble is a former leader of the Act Party and a former member of the Labour Party.