Why we need a strong Government
You will here many politicians and people talking about the need for less government.
What you wont here them talking about is what you lose when you have an ineffective government
They won't tell you how the country would respond in a natural disaster, how we would respond to international financial crisis, how we would be able to support in key weather events.
They won't tell you, we lose the ability to adapt, evolve and add new Laws for our protection, such as when technology changes.
Its a sound bite without substance
The importance of an effective governemnt
In the last 50 years we have had everything from stock market crashes, global financial crisis, mass floodings, droughts, earthquakes, global pandemics and more. Each time our nation is hit with a crisis we expect our government to step up and support us.
If you follow the logic of those that believe we should minimize government, then you believe in each of those situations we should let businesses fail, allow farms to be sold off in times of drought and floods if the owners don't have funds for repairs and stock management, homes to be left desolate and owners to sort it out after land slides and earthquakes, and people left to fend for themselves, however they could.
I don't believe in that...
You may not believe we are getting value or the best outcomes from our government but that is a different issue to having a strong government and governance approach. Politicians want to cloud that debate, they want to confuse you, so you don't ask what do we lose.
Our government right now has over 80 senior leadership positions for ministers, usually distributed between 30 people, cabinet holds 20 people who usually each hold 3 portfolios. That's just the start
This distribution is so that there is enough people to run all the other roles such as select and sub committees that ministers are not allowed to be apart of.
So ask yourself if one person is looking after three major departments, each spending billions of dollars, employing thousands of people. Do you think even the best person has the capacity to do a good job on all of those departments, understands the systems that make it function well, and is capable of making key decisions on how to drive and improve each department. My view is NO.
That impossible expectation goes a part of the way to explaining why we get so little tangible results from our ministers, and why when issues arise they seem to have no clue.
I take the logic it doesn't matter where good ideas come from, so unashamedly stealing from the NZ initiative (some of it)
Member of Parliament numbers to increase to 171
This means we can spread the load of management between more people so we can expect to see better oversight and governance of departments
It also aligns with international averages for the number of elected officials per capita.
The importance of the term of Government
One of the things that is becoming obvious over the last couple of election cycles is that our politicians are short sighted, planning for the future is not something they are big on.
To be fair we created that, we by international standards have a very short cycle between elections, as a results our politicians only think in three year chunks.
As a result we don't getting policies and political viewpoints that are about the long term benefit to our country. Infrastructure spending and build programs are the best example of that limited view in action.
The Fix:
Push the term between elections out to 5 years.
Build accountability into the system
At each election, the parties have to highlight in 50% of all their promotions, advertisements and campaigning 5 core KPI's
These KPI's have to be tangible and measurable as an example Nations current 500 new police officers
As part of MMP these KPI's would be part of the Coalition agreements
So traded, i.e. the main party may choose 3 and each smaller party 1 from their promoted 5.
These KPI's have to be delivered by the 2.5 year mark of an election cycle
If all these 5 agreed KPI's are not delivered at the 2.5 year mark the Governor General will call a general election to be held prior to the third full year of office.
Benefits:
For the first time in our history, Governments are finally held accountable to the promises they make us
Elections are expensive and reduces the costs
We know what the 5 key selling points of each government are in key simple tangible outcomes
If a party goes light on these KPI's they will be torn apart throughout the election campaign so we will get visibility on those parties that believe in their policy outcomes.
We get more long term thinking from our politicians