Hayes John: State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hayes John: State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6933. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
: 
 Clearly that last speech from Andrew Williams was not delivered by anybody who could have been elected to this Chamber by the people of New Zealand—absolutely impossible. I have never in my life heard such a long string of meaningless clichés that meant nothing. 
 When I think about it I can understand also why the people down in the South Island got rid of that member who was speaking before Clayton Cosgrove and moved him from the electorate category to a list member of Parliament. What he had to say was absolutely meaningless in the context of the job of a member of Parliament which lasts for much much longer than 1 hour in a select committee when Mr Cosgrove or I or another member in the select committee might get some questions to ask. This is a much more comprehensive package of opportunities for members of Parliament to do their job to read their papers to ask questions and to release press statements. There are all sorts of ways of keeping the Government in a position to account and Clayton Cosgrove and the last speaker Andrew Williams were both way off beam. 
I would like for the benefit of these members of Parliament who do not have a sense of history or an understanding of our public sector to just go back to the end of the Second World War. What we saw happen as a feature of all OECD economies after the Second World War was that the public sectors grew from about 25 percent to about 45 percent of GDP. When they talk and wring their hands across the other side of the House and say “Oh but all these services are being cut.” actually they are paid for by taxpayers with the money coming out of their pockets. We are now in a situation here in New Zealand where our Public Service consumes about 39 percent of GDP. That money comes from people’s pockets and it is too much. 
We have not tried in any way to decrease the amount of money going out on welfare payments. What our reforms are about is improving the efficiency of the public sector. I see my colleague Mr Ryall sitting in front here and I would say to him and to this House that the health sector is the standout example of achievement of reforms and higher outcomes and they are the sorts of reforms that this legislation is endeavouring to provide. After the Labour Government got into the extensive privatisation and selling of State assets during Mr Cosgrove’s watch we got into a situation where privatisation was an attempt to instil market forces and also drop transaction costs across the Public Service. 
This legislation that we have in front of us now is an omnibus bill. It might be 120 pages but it is amending a range of legislation. Why are we wanting to do it? Because we are wanting to follow the example set by Mr Ryall and we want to deliver better services to New Zealanders. That was a very clear National Party priority at the last election. 
This bill amends the State Sector Act the Public Finance Act and the Crown Entities Act. What we are trying to do is to provide legislation in a way that will allow us to give more legislative grunt to deliver better public services. I think that the amendments will create a range of public sector management tools. Yes they will enable the Prime Minister to give direction to the chair of the State Services Commission because that will foster an innovative efficient public sector that will deliver better-identified results for New Zealanders. 
If we think about the last 5 years of Government the public sector increased under the Labour administration by 30 percent—by 30 percent. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: How much did the economy grow by? 
JOHN HAYES 
: Well you can speak about this Mr Cunliffe but if you think about the expansion of the size of the foreign ministry and embassies created in all sorts of odd places the numbers increased exponentially. The aid programme increased exponentially. All of this is coming out of individual people’s pockets. Every time we have tried to improve the quality and efficiency of the public sector the Opposition parties have said: “No you can’t do it. We want to increase the size of the public sector we want to increase the cost to Government and we want to take more money out of people’s pockets.” That is what the Opposition is wanting to do. 
So as Mr Williams—I think his name is—said we are trying to strengthen the role of the State Services Commissioner and we are trying to give the Prime Minister for example direction to do it because the public sector must follow the Government’s direction—it must follow the Government’s direction. 
I believe that this is a very good bill. It is a very sensible bill and I thoroughly commend it to the House for further consideration.