|
📌 View
Online | 🚀 Share
on Facebook
Hi
Friend,
We have bad
news if you fell for claims the Government is shrinking Wellington's
bureaucracy; good news on our Cap Rates Now campaign, plus this
month's Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll and Peter Williams sits
down with the Deputy PM David Seymour for Taxpayer
Talk.
But first –
hitting the Jackpot at the Ministry of Justice: half-a-million-dollar
garden leave courtesy of the taxpayer...
Winning
the Taxpayer-Funded Lotto 🤡🥀
Last week
we learned former Lotto presenter Russell Harrison had really
hit the jackpot.
Having
worked for the Ministry of Justice (a liaison role in the Family
Court) for only a couple of weeks, he was suspended and put on full
paid leave due to being charged as part of a major international FBI
organised crime bust.
He
was then left untouched.
For
five years.
On
full pay.
Until finally pleading guilty to smuggling gold bars to
Turkey.
And
Justice officials kept it secret... 🤫
Five years of a lavish taxpayer-funded salary is one
thing, but, to our astonishment, the Secretary for Justice Andrew
Kibblewhite did not think to tell the Minister.
And,
thanks to the ratchet clauses in public service contracts, it appears
Harrison even got pay rises while on gardening "crim"
leave!
Holding
'em to account 🪧
Here at the
Taxpayers' Union, we believe in public sector
accountability.
So, rather
than let the bosses of the Ministry of Justice shirk away and get away
with refusing to front to the media, we took the media down to the
Ministry of Justice.
With our hastily constructed "Ministry of Justice Winning
Wheel", we invited Ministry staff to 'take a spin' as they headed in
and out for their lunch break...
While the wheels of justice might turn slowly, not so the
Ministry's Winning Wheel...
Making the
serious point: no private sector employer would tolerate five years of
paid garden leave for an employee who hadn't even worked for a month
🙅♂️
Our
Executive Director, Jordan, used the stunt to hammer it home:
"There is no justice for taxpayers at the Ministry
of Justice!"
The
Secretary for Justice (the Ministry's CEO) refused to front. Despite a
cushy $649,000 salary, Andrew Kibblewhite left it to a faceless
'spokesperson' to defend the spending.
Their
excuse? Innocent until proven guilty...
Of course,
that is true for criminal law, but not civil or employment.
Once it became clear Russell Harrison couldn't do the job (on
a balance of probabilities standard) any reasonable employer would
have stopped the pay cheques.
Instead
Andrew Kibblewhite ignored the issue - and hid it from
Ministers.
Here's how One News
covered our stunt as the lead on the 6 o'clock
bulletin. 👇
Oh, and
here's the even bigger joke: Based on the mid-point of Russell
Harrison's salary band we calculated old mate "Russ" was paid more
taxpayer money on gardening leave than the value of the literal gold
bars he smuggled for the Comancheros!
🎶 There
was a reason we picked this song for our stunt... 🎶
EXCLUSIVE:
Health New Zealand was also paying Russell Harrison to 'influence'
🤦♂️
In
just the last hour, one of our young researchers has exposed that the
Ministry of Justice wasn't the only department paying Russell
Harrison.
Clearly
Russ isn't the type of crim to sit on his hands.
The
Taxpayers' Union can reveal that Health NZ has also been funnelling
money to Harrison while he was on garden leave charged with
smuggling.
As
part of a Health NZ promotion campaign, ol'
mate Russ was paid to be a community ambassador or 'influencer' to
promote childhood immunisation.
It's fair
to say Health NZ are being cagey... They're forcing us to use the
Official Information Act, rather than have their media team just
answer our basic questions. Other than confirm that it is indeed
Russell Harrison, we don't know yet the precise payment
amounts.
So more
to come on this...
37
bureaucrats walk into a lunch programme... 🥪
From one
taxpayer-funded absurdity to another.
Imagine
outsourcing a job, then hiring a small herd of bureaucrats to travel
around New Zealand supervising the people you have already paid to do
it.
That is
exactly what is happening with the Ministry of Education’s Healthy
School Lunches programme.
Now, of
course some oversight is needed. No one is suggesting lunch providers
should be left to fling sandwiches into the void and hope for the
best.
But
the Taxpayers' Union has uncovered that the Education
Ministry employs 37 full-time staff to oversee the school lunch
programme.
Not
cook, not to tender contracts, but to "oversee" the third-party lunch
providers.
It
includes 22 advisors, nine managers, and a healthy serving of
taxpayer-funded travel.
Official
Information Act documents reveal those staff spent $129,754.90
on travel in just one year.
That
includes:
- $10,265.26
for three trips to the Chatham Islands
- $17,676.95
flying the General Manager between Rotorua (where he lives) and
Wellington (where he works).
And
after all that bureaucracy, the Auditor-General found the Ministry
still “did not have
sufficiently robust mechanisms to measure, manage, and monitor” the
programme’s performance.
Is this the
same Government that was paying people to rate restaurants around the
country?
Oh yes, it
is.
We say,
too much 'nom nom' on the taxpayer, not enough prudence with our
money.
So much
for “slashing” the public sector bureaucracy 🐌
And it is
not just school lunches where the bureaucracy seems to be doing just
fine.
We
have heard plenty from the Opposition media about the supposedly brutal
public sector job cuts, to the extent you would think Wellington was
being hollowed out.
Except the latest Stats NZ figures tell a very different
story.
According
to the latest filled jobs data, total jobs rose by 7,678 in May, with
service industries doing most of the heavy lifting.
And
as Politik pointed out last week, Infometrics says the public
sector — government, healthcare, and education — is still providing
the “backbone of job growth”.
Hold
on.
"The public sector driving job growth?"
That will
come as a surprise to anyone who believed the Greens’ routine claims
that the evil National-led Government has been secretly taking a
chainsaw to the bureaucracy.
If
only... 🤤
(just
kidding)
In
fact, job gains are continuing in "public administration, healthcare,
and education". Infometrics even noted that gains in public
administration may be coming at the expense of private sector
professional and administrative services as government agencies bring
more work in-house.
In other
words, the state is not exactly withering away.
The
Government has talked a big game about getting the public service back
under control, including reducing the size of the bureaucracy to
around one percent of the population.
Good. But
these figures are a useful reminder that announcements are not the
same as delivery.
Is Labour
about to back rates capping? 🤞
Speaking of
pressure finally being applied in the right places...
Last
night, Heather du Plessis-Allan asked Chris Hipkins whether Labour
would support the Government’s proposal to cap council
rates.
This
matters because Labour MP Damien O’Connor has written to Local
Government Minister Simon Watts asking him to intervene over Waitaki
District Council’s proposed 17 percent rates hike.
Until now, Labour had ruled out supporting rates
caps.
But
last night, Hipkins left the door open.
Hipkins said Labour had not yet “formed a final
view” and suggested the party had not seen the details of the
Government’s proposal. When Heather followed up, he repeated that
Labour had not made a final call.
That is a
big shift.
After years
of councils hiking rates two to three times faster than inflation,
rates capping is not just “good retail politics”, as Hipkins put it.
It is bloody good policy.
Have a listen for
yourself:
Getting
Labour over the line to support capping council rates 🙌
I know
Jordan emailed you last night, but if you've not already, please add
your voice and email Chris Hipkins asking him to get on board and back
our campaign to Cap Rates Now.
NEW POLL:
Labour’s lowest vote share since October 2025 as country direction
lifts 📊
And the
political pressure is showing up in the numbers too.
In
the weeks following the Greens’ proposals for new wealth and
inheritance taxes launched with an $800 million mistake, and Labour’s
recent contributions to their nearly $9,000-per-household funding gap,
both parties have taken a hit this month's Taxpayers'
Union-Curia Poll.
While still
the largest party, Labour has hit its lowest vote share since October
last year. And with voters feeling markedly better about the country’s
direction this month (based on the new "right/wrong direction"), the
Coalition would still be able to form a Government on these
results.
Labour is
down 0.7 points to 31.5 percent, while National is up 0.4 points to
30.5 percent. The Greens are down 1.1 points to 10.4 percent, while
New Zealand First is down 0.6 points to 10.8 percent.
ACT is down
0.9 points to 6.9 percent, while Te Pāti Māori is up 0.3 points to 3.4
percent.
For the
minor parties, TOP is on 3.3 percent (+0.1 points), NZ Outdoors and
Freedom is on 0.8 percent (+0.5 points), and New Conservatives are on
0.4 percent (+0.2 points).
Converting
these results into seats in Parliament Labour gains 1 seat to 41
compared to last month, while National also gains 1 to 39.
New Zealand
First is unchanged on 14, the Greens are down 1 seat to 13, while ACT
is down 1 seat to 9. Te Pāti Māori also remains unchanged on 4.
The
combined projected seats for the Government parties bloc is unchanged
from last month on 62 seats.
The
combined seats for the Opposition parties bloc is unchanged on 58
seats.
So on these
numbers, the current three parties of Government would be able to form
a Government.
A
promising sign for the government? Or just optimism for the
(short-lived) Iran ceasefire? 🤔
Every month
our pollsters ask whether New Zealand is headed in the "right
direction" or the "wrong direction". The two results are then netted
out (right minus wrong).
Interestingly, the net country direction result in this
month's poll is negative 6.3 percent (+12.5 points), the highest
figure since November 2025.
39.2
percent (+5.5 points) say the country is heading in the right
direction, while 45.5 percent (-7.0 points) say the country is heading
in the wrong direction.
You can see the full
breakdown over on our website.
Is
KiwiSaver reform charging workers twice? Ruth and Simon say 'yes'
💸
The
Taxpayers’ Union believes that you,
Friend, are much better with your own money than the
Government is.
And
while reasonable minds can differ on the merits of National's proposal
to make KiwiSaver compulsory, economically the proposal would work
like a 12 percent 'payroll tax'.
Therefore, if introduced, there is a strong argument that
the Government should compensate workers with an equal sized tax
relief package. That would make it more like a tax 'swap' than a
painful tax 'take'.
Taxpayers'
Union Chair (and former Minister of Finance) Ruth Richardson, opined
in the
Sunday Star Times (requires sub). The core of the issue?
“New Zealanders do not need saving from
themselves. They need saving from a state that refuses to live within
its means.”
– Ruth
Richardson
We've republished
Ruth's piece on our website here.
And former
National Party leader Simon Bridges writing in the NZ Herald made
similar points
this week:
"Twelve per cent might make for a
stronger collective future. However, it would also make things much
tougher for a heap of Kiwis until they retire – employees as well as
for SME owners, a much-neglected collection of businesspeople, who’ve
survived – just – a torrid few years, but still aren’t finding it
easy. If it’s a choice for them between paying off bills, keeping
their businesses going, handling their mortgage repayments, or 12%
more into KiwiSaver, I reckon I know what the majority would
choose."
– Simon
Bridges
The
Simon Bridges piece is here (requires sub).
Taxpayer
Talk: David Seymour gets stuck in 🎙️
And on that
note, this week’s Taxpayer Talk digs into KiwiSaver too.
Peter
Williams sat down with ACT Leader and Deputy Prime Minister, David
Seymour.
They got
into everything from regulation and KiwiSaver to Treaty politics,
coalition dynamics, and how ACT is tracking in Government - plus
whether Seymour thinks the party can grow its vote at the next
election.
The Deputy
PM also had a few choice words for National’s new KiwiSaver policy,
warning that compulsory savings do not magically appear from nowhere.
Someone pays, and it is usually workers, mortgage holders, or small
business owners.
It is a
good, wide-ranging pre-election interview, and well worth a
listen.
You
can watch Peter’s full interview with David Seymour on Taxpayer Talk
here.
Enjoy the
long weekend,
 |
Tory
Relf
Head of Comms
New Zealand
Taxpayers’ Union
|
|
