February 23, 2009 5:38am by David Farrar

A change in culture

Finance Minister Bill English has a blunt message about Government spending as he prepares his first Budget.

“Restraint is permanent,” he says.

That is what he wants New Zealanders to realise, and it is what he told a group of department heads last week.

“For the rest of their careers, there isn’t going to be more money or more people,” he said.

National has been left a decade of deficits. Every dollar in extra spending we are having to borrow, leaving the debt to future taxpayers. Restraint is indeed permament.

“What we know is there will be further deterioration,” Mr English said.

“And it is going to be larger in scale than any move we can make in the short term on savings.”

That was why he was having a “containable, quick” round of Budget planning before going on to a more thorough long-term look at how to deliver better and “smarter” services through innovation.

That shift in thinking would have to come from Government departments themselves.

Rather than the Treasury working out where to cut spending, he wants the departments to change the way they think.

“We will get them doing it. They are going to have to own this,” he said.

Bill is talking about a fundamental change of culture.