Sowry Roger: State Sector Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Sowry Roger: State Sector Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7314] 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (Deputy Leader—NZ National) 
: 
 Part 1 as introduced was a relatively straightforward part. It contained the commencement date of the Act and the purpose. It was relatively straightforward given that the bill was introduced a couple of years ago. But with the passage of time the Minister of State Services has really abandoned the bill. He has wandered off and decided that he does not really have the heart to follow it through. 
What has happened in that period of time of course is that there have been some departmental mergers. The Government decided it did not like the culture in the Department of Work and Income. It was a culture that forced beneficiaries to front up and meet their obligations. So the Government merged that department into a much softer Ministry of Social Development. The Government has decided it does not like the stand-alone Department for Courts. I do not know exactly what the department has done to offend the Minister and the Government but clearly it has done something and it is going to be rolled into the Ministry of Justice. Of course we see the potential—and the Government is already talking about it—for a whole lot of other smaller departments to be rolled into some of the larger ones so that their voices will not be heard. 
We have a Supplementary Order Paper that is longer than the bill. In it we are being asked today to deem that with regard to the Department of Work and Income and the Ministry of Social Development parts of the bill came into force on 1 October 2001. So here we are 2 years later passing some retrospective legislation to say that we deem that all of this came into force 2 years ago. That is because the Minister might well face some sort of challenge in the courts. He rushed through his ideological change to that department and never bothered about the details. His attitude was just to bully everybody into place shout loud enough look like he was going to be tough enough and it would all hang together and it kind of does. The Minister nods because that is the way he operates; he thinks it is fine. But now he has to come to the Chamber to say that he wants Parliament to rubber stamp this and say that all of this came into force a couple of years ago. 
The irony is that the Minister is going to get there with the votes of the United Future party which was not in Parliament 2 years ago. The United Future party is going to vote to deem that those provisions became law at a time when it was not here. That party is going to support that. [ 
Interruption 
] One of its members was here but a whole lot of others were not yet they are going to vote for this measure as if they were here. 
The other great irony is that the purpose of this bill is to allow the Minister and the Government to roll up a whole lot of departments they do not like. They do not like some of the advice they get from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and from the Ministry of Youth Affairs. Those Ministers are a risk to them so if the Minister of State Services and the Government can roll those ministries into a bigger department then that is fine. Those Ministers will not lose their salaries and perks. They can become Ministers of State. The Government is very adept at keeping Ministers on high salaries with chauffeured cars and Ministers’ houses—the whole works—but without their having a job. So the Government will just roll up some of the ministries into bigger departments. I predict we will now see a whole lot of Government departments being either rolled together or under the threat of being rolled together. That is the sword that hangs over a chief executive’s head. Should he or she deem to give advice that the Minister might not like? If the Minister does not like it or if the Minister is not competent the department could just be rolled into one of the bigger departments. That shields some of the more junior and incompetent Ministers from questions in the House shields them from any real accountability but protects their salaries and their perks. That is what this provision is about. 
I was thinking back to the time when State sector reorganisation was going on in the early 1990s. I was thinking of some of the speeches that Labour members used to give in which they opposed technical redundancies. They used to rail against them.