What has been the one of the biggest drags on NZ's economic performance the past decade? Regulation and red-tape whose costs way exceed its benefits. Have our Councils, in particular, done cost-benefit analyses to assess whether many of their stupid projects, like Wellington's idiotic new conference venue, or cycle ways that are barely used, to name but a few of thousands, were value for money? No. How do I know? When John Key's government was in power, I investigated that specific matter and, at the time, discovered there was only one economist with this kind of expertise working in the entire Auckland City Council. His employer gave him hundreds of tasks to do, though was barely ever asked to devote any time to working out whether the projects the Council was embarking on were justified (by producing a net benefit for Auckland and the country). I tried screaming this outrage from the rooftops. I asked a former Chair of the Reserve Bank of NZ, Arthur Grimes, about what was going on. Arthur told me our public sector "doesn't take cost-benefit analysis seriously". The only people interested in this issue turned out to be ACT party folks, and in particular, David Seymour. The new Ministry is being done correctly. It should be staffed by a relatively small number of highly paid staff with specialized knowledge of costs and benefits of regulations. Hipkins is talking nonsense when he argues it's hypocritical to be doing so at a time when the public sector is downsized. Where's the hypocrisy in laying off the thousands of people who Hipkins hired to "work" from home, and replacing them with 90 highly skilled folks to create efficiencies in the economy? The White House in the US has an Office for Information and Regulatory Affairs which does similar things that Seymour's Ministry is going to do. It's a Federal office that Congress established in the 1980 Paperwork Reduction Act. It's disappointing even the Taxpayers Union doesn't seem to understand the necessity of the huge task Seymour is correctly embarking upon.
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