The Treasury has released its briefings to incoming ministers, but they contained very little information about fiscal and economic challenges or priorities.
While some other agencies included specific advice and contextual information, Treasury’s briefings were mostly about the responsibilities of the minister and structure of the agency.
A separate presentation on “Treasury’s view on the overall economic and fiscal context” was given to Finance Minister Nicola Willis, but was not released with the main document.
The 2017 and 2020 briefings to Grant Robertson both included a set of slides outlining the agency's strategic assessment and possible policy direction for 20 to 30 key issues.
Interest.co.nz has asked for the presentation to be released.
Revenue, infrastructure, and earthquakes
Briefings prepared by the agency for other ministers included a little more detail, although were still fairly sparse.
Revenue Minister Simon Watts was told he would receive a separate briefing on “on a number of current issues in the tax system”.
These issues included the sustainability of the tax system, emissions leakage and other environmental tax and pricing issues, and international tax issues such as “the OECD two-pillar solution”.
Minister for Infrastructure, Chris Bishop was told Treasury would discuss the need to reprioritise and re-sequence the investment pipeline which was overwhelming capacity.
“Significant levels of capital funding have been allocated in recent years and this has led to an investment pipeline larger than agencies and the market can deliver, leading to cost increases and project delays,” it said.
The delivery of large-scale investments were dependent on large Tier 1 firms which were already “at capacity”.
The Treasury also advised the Minister Responsible for the Earthquake Commission that insurance costs were climbing due to the various crises in the past few years.
“In future, the increasingly granular risk-based pricing of flood insurance, in combination with climate change exacerbating underlying flood risks, will challenge the insurability of some assets”.
In 2022, the Cabinet asked the Treasury to consult on these issues and to examine options for intervention in the insurance market.
The Commission, also called Toka Tū Ake, could become “a vehicle for a Government policy response in the flood insurance market”.
20 Comments
This happens when the advice the civil service has to give runs contrary to the stated policies of the incoming government.
Basically, this is the moment when the people who know how to run things go back to the 'well I reckon' policy platform that this coalition is based on and says sorry guys your proposals are shite and cannot work.
It's the civil service trying to avoid embarassing their new ministers by not laying out in black and white why they should have done their homework before shouting out a whole bunch of nonsense on how they were going to fix everything.
Embarassing.
Typical civil service slack work. I also skimmed the Health Briefing. Nothing was there that you could not cut and paste off the website.
Meaningless phrases that could mean anything, no data, no firm indications.
These characters think this sort of babble means they can't be accountable for what they say. ( Because it's so soft)
However I suggest the team who wrote it, and the chiefs who authorised it, should be immediately sacked. The lot. There is a saving. No loss of anything useful as a bonus.
edit -+. Once did a paper in business ethics, which turned out to be about language. examples of writing that looked good, but when circumstances changed could still claim to be true. Or - how to avoid accountability.
As I said above, they are protecting their new ministers. The real briefing happens behind closed doors. Especially if there is an awkward conversation where they have to explain to the minister that what they promised is not feasible.
I mean this was always going to happen. National's sums never added up which is why they didn't release their spreadsheet and why they attempted to bury the mini budget with Nicola's dick joke. With the other clowns policies now thrown in the mix the sums make even less sense.
The Civil Service will be conscious of this and aware putting out hard data on why their policies will not work undermines their minister's ability to take it onboard and develop an alternative response.
I think you've got it. But it's possibly more than just not embarrassing their Ministers. Thing is, there are very few Ministers who have ever been Ministers before - that includes both the top two jobs - Prime Minister and Finance Minister.
So, if I were Treasury in particular, I'd be thinking about how I could possibly skill these newbies up to a level of comprehension good enough to understand why what they think they can do, they can't do.
What a conundrum.
no good telling someone that does not want to listen or take on any advice more than basic info, im sure it's the same for each change of government they come in with preconceived agendas and what they want to do and someone telling them no is not a very good idea.
i am surprised by the amount of leaking so early by the PS to the news media though.
Worth reading, especially the letter from Chris Bishop to stakeholders;
https://eds.org.nz/resources/documents/media-releases/2024/government-r…
I interpret the letter as: we don't have the capacity to 'fix it' (the environmental management legislation) and so in the meantime we'll just govern via Ministerial dictate.
Authoritarianism does indeed make a politician's life so much easier. And as many have pointed out here, to repair the SH1 Kaikoura highway, the RMA was effectively suspended. It does make you think.
"The review by PWC was completed in September but only released to RNZ this week following repeated requests over the past three months."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/508184/health-ministry-admits-faili…
"Brunt said the ministry would hold an "integrity week" to better educate staff on conflicts of interest and integrity in general."
There was a time when you wouldn't even get a job in the PS without a clear understanding & acknowledgement of their ethics & rules - let alone keep your job if you failed to meet them.
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