A National Government will reduce Labour’s wasteful spending on contractors and consultants by $400 million a year, National’s Public Service spokesperson Simeon Brown says.

“Labour has created a gravy train for consultants through its obsession with working groups, wasteful spending and expensive public sector restructures that are not delivering better results for Kiwis.

“Under National, this will stop. National will restore discipline to government spending. We’ll spend your money like you would – carefully and with respect, knowing how long it took you to earn it.

“National will reduce spending on consultants and contractors, saving taxpayers $400 million a year across a range of government departments and Crown entities.

“To achieve this, National will direct public sector agencies to end the culture of relying on contractors at a premium cost to do the regular jobs of public servants, stop enacting the costly and unnecessary restructures and mergers that Labour is obsessed with, and slashing the endless working groups and task forces that are synonymous with this Government.

“Under National, public sector agencies will also be required to report their spending on consultants and contractors every quarter.

“In 2018, Chris Hipkins as Public Service Minister promised to cut spending on contractors and consultants. Instead, this spending has exploded. The latest data shows Labour’s annual spend has skyrocketed to more than $1.7 billion across core and non-core public sector agencies.

Examples of Labour’s consultant spend up include:

• Light Rail - $53m
• Auckland Bike Bridge - $51m
• Let’s Get Wellington Moving - $47m
• Health restructure - $72m
• TVNZ-RNZ merger - $10m
• Three Waters - $26m
• Vocational education reforms - $21m
• Hillside Rail workshop - $8m
• Kāinga Ora – up $39m to $76m
• Ministry of Education – up $95m to $237m
• Department of Internal Affairs – up $54m to $112m
• Ministry of Social Development – up $47m to $116m
• NZTA – up $30m to $76m

“In 2016, Chris Hipkins attacked the previous National Government over consultant spending at the Ministry of Education. On his watch as Minister of Education, spending on consultants has increased by nearly $100 million.  

“New Zealanders deserve a government that will deliver better outcomes for their hard-earned taxpayer dollars.”