"In November 2023 a new Govt was sworn in with a promise to 'get our country back on track.' In 15 months, their highlights have been few."

"In November 2023 our new Government was sworn in ... with a promise that they would 'get our country back on track'....
    "In 15 months, their highlights have been few. ...
    "To be fair, they inherited a hell of a mess. ...
    "But the big problems remain. The health system remains a mess which has already taken a minister’s scalp. As Mayor Wayne Brown pointed out this week, the road cones remain. Despite tinkering around the edges of staff numbers, the bureaucracy continues to grow. Government debt continues to escalate and interest is now one of our top five expenditure items. ...
    "The Prime Minister has put his stock in the pursuit of a growth agenda. And he’s right. ... [But] the pace of change is frustrating to watch. ...
    "Argentine economist Javier Milei became that country’s President around the same time as our current Government was sworn in. Since then he’s eliminated 28% of government spending and reduced the number of ministries by half. He’s achieved the first budget surplus in 16 years and reduced monthly, yes monthly, inflation from 25% to 2.4%.
    "And despite the tough decisions, he ... is maintaining and building his popularity. Because the people like seeing action. ... The best thing about Trump and Milei is they are showing a new approach to political behaviour that is giving permission to other countries to follow suit. In our current state, we should be grabbing that opportunity with both hands. ...
    "When compared to similar-sized countries, we have twice as many Government departments as we need. ... We can’t afford to spend $4 million playing sperm whale noises in forests to combat kauri dieback. We can’t afford for the Department of Internal Affairs to spend almost $1m teaching 'indigenous knowledge to become change agents.' MBIE has 30 people focused on grocery prices who haven’t made a 1c difference to the cost of groceries. They have similar teams working on banking and retailing. Why?"

~ Bruce Cotterrill from his op-ed 'Time for Decisive Govt Action to Get NZ Back on Track'