The major restructure of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs looks to be this Government's most significant reform in the core public service during this parliamentary term. Little wonder there is considerable interest, not only in the content, but the timing and source of Murray McCully's email leaks. John Hartevelt reports that the source was unlikely to be a Russian computer hacker, but rather 'appear to have been stolen and leaked from within New Zealand - possibly by a disaffected staff member' - see: McCully email thief could be Kiwi. Meanwhile, the No Right Turn blog questions why Ministers like McCully are using private email accounts and suggests that there should be some investigation to see if Ministers are trying to hide official emails from scrutiny under the Official Information Act - see: There is no escape from the OIA.
The Government's first term promise that public sector cuts wouldn't be at the expense of frontline staff is looking shaky as the Waikato DHB confirmed that frontline jobs could go as they struggle to save $20 million next year - see John Hartevelt's Frontline health jobs on the line as cuts bite.
Danya Levy reports that the plan to re-introduce competition into the workplace accident insurance is proving difficult, mainly because private insurers may have difficulty making it profitable. Levy says ACC Minister Judith Collins is trying to distance herself from a paper by the former minister Nick Smith which proposed forcing ACC to include a profit margin in it's charges so that private companies can compete - see: Delays in privatising ACC work account. Such a move would undermine the basic credibility of the ACC and the wider state sector reforms that are supposed to deliver lower costs and greater efficiencies.
With the Government focusing on state sector reform, it's useful to have the latest issue of Policy Quarterly released today by Victoria University of Wellington's Institute of Policy Studies. You can download the entire issue as a PDF, or look at some particularly relevant PDF articles from it, such as 'You Say You Want a Revolution'... The Next Stage of Public Sector Reform in New Zealand, and Managing for Efficiency: Lessons from United Kingdom's Efficiency Agenda 2004-2010.
With a huge amount being written lately on poverty and inequality in New Zealand, the Business Roundtable puts the case that there is actually no poverty in New Zealand - see: Talking about Poverty. Using the absolute international benchmark of $2 a day and pointing to growing obesity amongst the poor as evidence that hunger is not really a problem. As is often the case, the difference between relative and absolute measures of deprivation seems to have both sides of the debate talking past each other.
