$230 million in four years

The cost of running the Government has soared in recent years. The lack of basically any fiscal restraint has seen staff numbers in the bureaucracy explode, with subsequent flow on effects on property prices in Wellington – both commercial and residential. One property investor told me that thanks to Labour has had made $400 million since they came to office, as the demand for more office space has sent rents up up up.

Now Gerry Brownlee has done a release on a great example – the Electricity Commission. This was set up by Labour. We didn’t use to have one. We survived many decades without one. Policy was done in the Commerce and now Economic Development Ministry. But a standalone body was needed to help with better planning. Never mind that every second year we are having “one in sixty years” power shortages.

So how much is this small little quango costing? Well in the last financial year it now costs $80 million a year. Want to know why power prices keep going up? Part of it is to fund the Electricity Commission – around $50 a household.

Another great example is the Tertiary Education Commission. For many years we never had done. The universities were basically self managing, and the Ministry of Education had maybe a couple of dozen staff in the tertiary sector. Labour set up the TEC and its initial years can only be deemed a miserable failure. Rorts involving low quality near worthless courses cost the taxpayer close to a billion dollars – and all on TEC’s watch.

And what has TEC cost? In the year to 30 June 2007 it was around $60 million. So these two new bodies are costing $140 million a year. Now this is not to say there is no value in what they do. But what has been so woefully missing is a hard tough look at value for money. A new Government should take a zero based approach to some Government spending and make sure existing spending is necessary, before even considering additional spending.

And no that is not some mad far right slash and burn policy. It is exactly what Labor PM Kevin Rudd is doing in Australia. Sadly it has been sorely lacking here.