EDITORIAL:

Look, this one’s not going to make me popular in Wellington today, but sometimes reality doesn’t care whether we like it or not. 

Finance Minister Nicola Willis is right. 

And deep down, I think a lot of New Zealanders know she’s right. 

We cannot keep running a country where the answer to every problem is another ministry, another department, another communications team, another layer of management, another policy advisor, another taxpayer-funded office somewhere in Wellington. 

At some point, we all have to wake up and say: enough. 

Because the numbers don’t lie. 

Back in 2017, when Jacinda Ardern became Prime Minister, the public service had around 48,000 employees.  

By the end of last year, that had climbed to more than 63,600 fulltime staff.  

That’s an increase of more than 15,000 public servants in under a decade. 

And here’s the key question: are we New Zealanders genuinely getting better outcomes? 

Are the roads dramatically better? 
Is healthcare dramatically better? 
Is education dramatically better? 
Is productivity dramatically better? 
Do you and I feel government is faster, leaner, more efficient? 

Or does it feel bigger, slower, more bureaucratic and more expensive? 

Because that’s what many New Zealanders think. 

Now I understand why Wellington gets nervous when these conversations happen.  

This city has lived off the back of government growth for years.  

Thousands of jobs, entire apartment blocks, cafes, bars, retails, hair dressers, car sales, businesses, office buildings just for the public sector. 

But we cannot employ people simply to prop up the Wellington economy. 

That’s not sustainable economics. That’s avoidance. 

And the reality is, New Zealand has been living beyond its means for too long.  

We borrow too much. We spend too much. We create agencies for everything.  

We duplicate work. We layer management on management.  

Meanwhile, the private sector — the people actually generating the tax revenue — are under enormous pressure and have already slimmed down to bare bone. 

At some point the country has to slim down too. 

And yes, it will be painful.  

And yes, there will be more pain. 

Nicola Willis is reportedly preparing to reduce the number of ministries and agencies from the current 42, while also driving public service numbers back closer to the historical norm of 1% of the population. Under the Labour government it was pushed to 1.2%. 

Frankly, that idea sounds reasonable to me. 

Australia has 16 departments. The United Kingdom has 24. Finland has around a dozen. We’ve got 42. 

We have forty-two. 

And the other reality nobody wants to say out loud?  

AI and digitisation are coming whether we like it or not.  

The private sector is already changing rapidly.  

Law firms, banks, consultancies — they’re all using AI to improve productivity and reduce repetitive work. 

Government won’t escape that. 

The Government should not escape that.  

This isn’t about attacking public servants personally.  

Most are hardworking people doing their jobs.  

But the system itself has become too large, too expensive and too inefficient. 

If we genuinely want the books under control, improve productivity and rebuild the country’s finances, then this is part of the medicine. 

And tell me, have you ever taken medicine that tastes good. It doesn’t it tastes horrible. 

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