The spokesperson couldn\u2019t speculate on how many jobs would be lost as a result. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is too early to determine how many roles may be affected by the merger, but when bringing multiple agencies together some duplicated roles will likely be affected. Further detail will be known as organisation design work is completed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bishop, Minister of Transport and Housing, maintained the intent behind the merger was driving \u201cbetter government\u201d instead of reducing cost. <\/p>\n
\u201cOf course there will be efficiencies on the way through, we want to be efficient and nimble, so of course that will happen, but that\u2019s all for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
He acknowledged the commission had provided ministers with scenarios of a revised headcount but he refused to detail them, saying no decisions had been made. <\/p>\n
Asked about the decision to announce the merger without headcount details a week before Christmas, Bishop said he had hoped to address the months-long speculation about a merger. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe just thought better to be upfront and transparent with the people who work in the agencies and also the public around what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
He confirmed he and other ministers would be meeting with staff from the agencies to reassure them they were \u201cvery high-performing\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cUndoubtedly there\u2019ll be a mixed reaction from some, however, I\u2019m going to say to them all alongside other ministers over the next couple of days exactly what I\u2019m saying to you, which is that we\u2019ve thought really carefully about this, we did debate it for some months.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the end, we came to the view that these functions are so connected to each other and so important and we want the stream of advice to be integrated and coherent, that we decided it was worth going ahead, but it\u2019s not a decision we\u2019ve made lightly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bishop estimated setting up the new ministry would cost about $30 million with savings not derived for some years. <\/p>\n
In an earlier statement, Bishop argued the move was necessary to address complications caused by shared responsibility for various reforms. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not believe the current structures of government can deliver effectively on this strong mandate and change is required. The system is too fragmented and too unco-ordinated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Public Service Minister Judith Collins agreed the merger could be seen as a \u201ctest case\u201d in addressing unnecessary duplication. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re doing is working on this particular merger to make sure that we get it right, that we don\u2019t end up with an enormous behemoth that doesn\u2019t actually do anything really and to make sure that we do that to look in the future to possibly others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The spokesperson couldn\u2019t speculate on how many jobs would be lost as a result. \u201cIt is too early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1558,1550,48901,102564,27914,8498,266,117201,78,16841,3112,5342,28126,42677,28874,111,43,139,4061,69,1118,29056,3109,12068,2687,2552],"class_list":["post-185828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-been","tag-centre","tag-decided","tag-deny","tag-denying","tag-fixed","tag-government","tag-headcount","tag-in","tag-intended","tag-job","tag-losses","tag-merger","tag-ministers","tag-ministry","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-number","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-proposed","tag-public","tag-reducing","tag-saying","tag-service"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}