Labour’s plan to hire ‘language police’ to scrutinise how bureaucrats communicate with the public is utterly ridiculous, National’s Public Service spokesperson Simeon Brown says.

“The Labour Government’s capacity to create wholly unnecessary and costly bureaucrats out of nowhere is astounding.

“Even after hiring an extra 14,000 bureaucrats since 2017 at the cost of an additional $1.8 billion in wages every year, Labour is returning to the well of taxpayer money to establish language police in every government department.

“The Plain Language Bill will mean that ‘plain language officers’ are running around in every government department making sure other bureaucrats are using plain language in public documents.

“Let’s not forget – this is a Government that has already overseen a 46 per cent increase in communications staff to cover the cracks in its failure to deliver improved outcomes. Aren’t all these additional spin doctors already able to ensure that departments are speaking ‘plainly’?

“Our public service should be laser-focused on delivering better outcomes for Kiwis, not spending millions of dollars on language police who will just be arguing about commas and grammar.

“Labour is completely addicted to spending taxpayers’ money, but this example of waste is one of the most egregious yet.”