Act leader David Seymour said his party will campaign on radical public service reform at the election, cutting the number of departments from 41 to no more than 30.
The number of ministers would also be reduced under this proposal to no more than 20, all of whom would be in Cabinet.
Currently, there are 28 ministers and two under-secretaries, with only the top 20 in Cabinet itself.
Seymour made the commitment at his party’s State of the Nation speech in Christchurch.
He praised the work of his Act caucus colleagues and said that after a term in Government, things were heading in the “right direction”, but there were still “flashing lights on the dashboard” that had not been switched off, most particularly in the high outward migration numbers of New Zealanders heading to Australia.
“I want staying here to be the obvious choice for every generation, not something young people have to weigh up against better wages and opportunity overseas,” Seymour said.
“Right now, they’re not just weighing it up, the scales have tipped hard against staying, and the outward migration numbers are flashing lights on the dashboard,” Seymour said.
The New Zealand Initiative, a free-market think tank, published research in 2024 critical of the growing number of government departments and last year published a proposal to reduce them, which is similar to what the Act leader outlined in his speech. Seymour himself floated the idea of capping ministers and departments in a speech last May.
“The truth is, though, that we are still over-governed.
“Why does such a small country have such a large Government? Norway, a similar size to us, governs with 20 ministers across 17 coherent ministries, each clearly aligned to a broad policy domain.
“The whole structure is set up to preserve itself. Why are there barely fewer bureaucrats than when we started trying to cut the numbers two years ago? Because the structure is set up so nobody is completely in charge of anything.”
Seymour has himself contributed to the growth in the Government with his new Ministry for Regulation, which is larger than the Productivity Commission, which it replaced.
Seymour said his ministry had been trying to grasp the size of government.
“The Ministry for Regulation has been trying to count the number of regulatory agencies in New Zealand. Last I heard, they were up to 250,” he said.
He took aim at portfolios that still exist, including the Minister for Auckland, a portfolio resurrected by the last Labour Government but retained by the coalition.
“Labour appointed a Minister for Auckland without any actual budget, department or responsibility. I call them vanity portfolios,” he said.
“We’ll never balance the Budget, raise wages or restore trust in democracy when Government is so large, inefficient and unaccountable to New Zealanders,” he said.
Seymour said his proposal would involve no more than 20 ministers who would all be in Cabinet and would govern 30 departments, meaning most ministers would only look after a single department.
No department would answer to more than one minister and ministers would not have any portfolios. Instead, they would have departments with budgets.
“Reducing the number of ministers will save money, but it will also change the point of being a minister. No more vanity portfolios designed to appeal to a group of people,” Seymour said.
“Instead, one minister will be solely accountable for getting results for their budget of taxpayer money from their department,” he said.
He said that having a clear line of accountability between a department and a minister would strengthen the hand of ministers in contests with their ministries.
Seymour noted Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche had supported the consolidation of departments and the Government was currently merging the Ministries of Transport, Housing, and the Environment.