Taxpayer Talk: Roger Partridge on Unscrambling the Ministerial Maze

This week on Taxpayer Talk, Peter Williams is joined by Roger Partridge from the New Zealand Initiative to unpack his new report: Unscrambling Government: Less Confusion, More Efficiency.

Right now, New Zealand has 81 ministerial portfolios, 28 ministers, and 43 departments. That’s three times as many portfolios and nearly twice as many departments as comparable countries. No wonder things feel messy.

Roger argues this sprawling Cabinet structure makes it harder to know who’s accountable, pushes up costs, and slows down solutions to big challenges like housing, welfare, and climate change. In short: too many cooks, not enough results.