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Insights 33: 5 September 2025
New Report: Roger Partridge on Unscrambling Govt: less confusion, more efficiency
 
NZ Herald: Roger Partridge on unscrambling New Zealand's government
 
Newsroom: Dr Oliver Hartwich on how the French powder keg may be set to explode
Who’s accountable? How to cut through the ministerial maze
Roger Partridge | Chairman and Senior Fellow | roger.partridge@nzinitiative.org.nz
When housing policy is split among more than six ministers, who is responsible when the affordability crisis drags on year after year? The Minister of Housing? Building and Construction? Local Government? Environment? Transport? Infrastructure? Each controls one piece of the puzzle, but no one has the whole picture.  

When responsibility is divided, decision-making slows, and accountability evaporates. 

Housing is not unique. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment reports to 20 ministers. Treasury answers to seven. Education responsibility is carved up between the Ministers of Education, Vocational Skills, Universities and Charter Schools.  

One former minister captured the dysfunction: “If a proposal needs sign-off from six different ministers, that’s six different opportunities for ministers or officials to kill it.” 

New Zealand’s complexity makes it an international outlier. With 81 portfolios and 43 departments, we have more than three times as many portfolios and nearly twice as many departments as peer nations like Ireland, Norway and Singapore.  

Streamlining the executive is not just good governance – it saves taxpayers money. International research shows that larger cabinets are linked to higher deficits. New Zealand’s experience suggests the same story: as ministerial numbers have grown, so has government spending. 

The New Zealand Initiative’s latest report, Unscrambling Government: Less Confusion, More Efficiency, calls for replacing today’s ministerial and departmental maze with a structure designed for accountability and results. 

The reform pathway is straightforward. Portfolio consolidation could happen immediately after an election. It would reduce our 81 ministerial portfolios to 15-20 coherent groupings. A statutory junior minister role would enable meaningful delegation without fragmenting responsibility. Departmental realignment would follow over 12-24 months, reducing 43 departments to about 20. 

Sceptics may ask whether such reform is feasible. Australia shows it is. In 1987, Bob Hawke cut Australia’s cabinet from 28 to 16 and created a two-tier system of senior and junior ministers. Departments were consolidated into 18 sector-based ministries.  

Critics predicted chaos. Instead, the reforms delivered clearer accountability, faster decisions and better coordination. Crucially, they stuck. The core principle of consolidated departments and two-tier ministerial structure endured across decades and multiple changes of government. 

If Australia could unscramble its executive, so can New Zealand. Until we do, accountability will remain as fragmented as our ministerial portfolios – and the public will keep asking who is responsible, only to receive no clear answer.  

Explore Roger's research in greater detail through our complete report, webinar presentation, and podcast discussion.​
Supermarket reform shows promise
Dr Benno Blaschke | Research Fellow | benno.blaschke@nzinitiative.org.nz
When Woolworths wanted to build a new supermarket in Christchurch, it took them four years and $3 million just to get permission. Did you know it takes an average of 18 months and costs $1 million to get permission to build a supermarket? To be clear, just to get permission – the building still comes later. Oh, and in some cases, permission took as long as four years. 
 
Well, unfortunately, this planning nightmare is New Zealand’s reality, and many councils use the rules to delay and stop new supermarkets from being built. But what this means is that they shield existing supermarkets from competition. No wonder international retailers look at New Zealand and put it in the ‘too hard’ basket. 

Now picture this: within two years, Costco announces three new stores, Aldi finally decides New Zealand is worth the hassle, and you have more choice where to shop and what to buy.  

The government just laid the groundwork for that scenario.  

Last week, Minister Willis outlined a sensible approach: tear down barriers to entry. Government will introduce fast-track processes for supermarkets that increase competition. A single building consent authority will replace the current lottery of dealing with dozens of councils. Approvals for standardised designs will be streamlined, allowing companies to build multiple stores without repeated approval processes. 

This approach will let the market determine what works. Rather than having Wellington decide supermarket numbers, investors with money at stake will figure out viability. It creates a clear opportunity for new competitors to emerge and deliver competition benefits, but only if the government’s market-opening moves are well designed.  

The New Zealand Initiative’s original proposal included overriding planning rules that ban new supermarkets from competing with existing ones. We suggested going further and including rezoning, which would provide certainty and let new entrants add value to sites. We also recommended including independent economists on panels to weigh competition benefits properly. 

Government has adopted our core logic but not the complete toolkit that would maximise success. Without economic expertise and override powers, existing Fast Track panels may struggle to weigh costs and benefits properly or to cut through all relevant barriers. 

These details could matter. Remaining barriers could kill potential entry. If entry fails because processes stay cumbersome, people will conclude that market opening does not work, potentially paving the way for heavy-handed interventions. 

We cannot afford to stick with a system that unproductively frustrates and thwarts new entrants. The minister rightly prefers market discovery to structural intervention, at least at this stage. Government must now implement its reforms carefully to preserve the logic of its approach, monitor outcomes closely, and remain ready to address emerging gaps.  
The Descendants of Ark Ship B
Dr Eric Crampton | Chief Economist | eric.crampton@nzinitiative.org.nz
Douglas Adams, despite being very highly rated, remains underrated. His Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a masterpiece.   

Every week brings new evidence that Adams got at least one important thing right. When it comes to Britain and its former colonies like New Zealand. 
We are the true descendants of the Golgafrinchams.  

That may take a bit of explaining for those who have not yet read the books.  

Humans are not actually from earth. We did not evolve here. We landed here.  

Or, rather, we crash-landed here.  

More specifically, we were crash-landed here.  

Our ancestors, widely considered useless, were encouraged to load themselves onto an Ark Ship and leave their planet, Golgafrincham. They were set on an autopilot course to this backwater of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy, to crash upon an utterly insignificant little blue- green planet. 

Upon crash landing, the survivors held endless committee meetings.  

The Fire Development Sub-Committee undertook consumer surveys about what people want from fire and what sort of image it has for them. Actually figuring out fire could wait.  

Those tasked with inventing the wheel debated instead what colour it should be.  

With that pre-amble from the Hitchhiker’s Guide out of the way, consider today’s evidence.  

This week, BusinessDesk reported that a Woolworths in Wainuiomata will be allowed to continue to have a pharmacy. It was the right decision, in the end. But consider how we got there.  

The Independent Community Pharmacy Group had sued the supermarket – and won in the High Court in 2023. The Medicines Act required pharmacist control of the pharmacy. So the grocer had to restructure its pharmacy business. Each pharmacy inside a supermarket would have a board of three directors, two of whom would be independent pharmacists.  

A two-day appeal followed in September 2024. Competitor pharmacists worried that the District Health Boards had not adequately considered risks to health equity. Expert witnesses were lined up. Whether the DHBs had acted consistently with Treaty Principles in allowing the supermarket to dispense funded medicines was also in question.  

Finally, this month, the Court of Appeal deemed that a pharmacy in a supermarket in Wainuiomata was fine – and, even better, awarded costs against the complainants. 

But it took two years of court wrangling to get there.  

The Golgafrinchams would have been proud of New Zealand’s process.  

Douglas Adams was right about our lineage.  
 
On The Record
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