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Speaker 1: The Act Party started. The Nation, of course, offered up

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Speaker 1: the idea of less government. Government departments cut from forty

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Speaker 1: one to thirty, number of ministers from twenty eight to twenty.

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Speaker 1: David Seamore's the leader and he's with us, good morning,

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Speaker 1: good morning mate. Problem with these things no bottom lines.

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Speaker 1: This isn't the bottom line? Is it?

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Speaker 2: Put it this way? Are our potential partners and government

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Speaker 2: making it a bottom line to keep the current spaghetti arrangement.

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Speaker 2: It's easy to say, well, if you don't make this

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Speaker 2: a bottom line, it will never happen. But the truth

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Speaker 2: is that everybody's got a negotiate a position. This is ours.

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Speaker 2: Let's see where others come out. Because I don't think

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Speaker 2: the current arrangement in government is sustainable. We're spending too much.

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Speaker 2: We will eventually go broke, and people are frustrated with

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Speaker 2: the results they get even for that price.

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Speaker 1: Do you think it's swings boats? This specific policy swings boats?

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Speaker 2: I think people know that if we don't start changing

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Speaker 2: course in New Zealand, then the dashboard lights that are

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Speaker 2: flashing will eventually glow so bright that we ask ourselves

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Speaker 2: as we wake up, what sort of country we are today?

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Speaker 2: You know? You only have to look at one of

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Speaker 2: the main KPIs for any country, how many people are

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Speaker 2: coming and how many people are going. We are losing

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Speaker 2: too many of our own children to say that what

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Speaker 2: we're doing now is a success.

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Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. The irony is that you have spent two

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Speaker 1: and a bit years as part of a coalition that

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Speaker 1: you could argue you promised you were going to do

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Speaker 1: a lot in the public service by way of cuts.

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Speaker 1: You actually ended up doing a couple of thousand, and

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Speaker 1: you could have done ten or twelve and taken the

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Speaker 1: same heat. So you're culpable.

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Speaker 2: Well, I actually agree with that, But there's two things

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Speaker 2: you can do when things don't go the way you want.

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Speaker 2: You can either throw up your hands or you can

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Speaker 2: ask yourself what have we learnt here? And what I've

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Speaker 2: learned from two years in government so far is that

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Speaker 2: when you have twenty eight ministers, eight of whom don't

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Speaker 2: actually go to the cabinet meetings, in charge of forty

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Speaker 2: one department one department, MB has twenty three ministers that

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Speaker 2: it answers to I'm one of very few ministers who's

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Speaker 2: not in charge of a small part of MB. Then

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Speaker 2: you ask yourself First of all, who's actually accountable for

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Speaker 2: getting results from a department for a budget of taxpayers money?

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Speaker 2: And the answer is, in a way, everybody and nobody.

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Speaker 2: And second of all, if you're the chief executive of MB,

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Speaker 2: who the hell do you actually answer to? Until we

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Speaker 2: get some clarity about who's in charge of what and

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Speaker 2: who's getting results for what budget, then it is very

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Speaker 2: difficult to make the kinds of changes that we did promise. Nonetheless,

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Speaker 2: you know, I want to see this government in for

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Speaker 2: another term and I want to see it guided by

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Speaker 2: things that we've learned.

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Speaker 1: This to the cultural leave thing shocked me last week.

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Speaker 1: Maybe I'm naive, I don't know, but I didn't realize

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Speaker 1: that nonsense was still going on. Every one of the

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Speaker 1: parties in this government promised to do something about that,

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Speaker 1: and yet you sit once again into your third year

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Speaker 1: and you haven't. Why not, Well, actually we have.

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Speaker 2: For example, I'm responsible for Farmac. When their contracts came up,

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Speaker 2: we played hardball and we got those provisions out of

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Speaker 2: the contracts. But I tell you the PSA, the Union

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Speaker 2: of Public Servants, fought bloody hard to keep it there.

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Speaker 2: And actually, if you think about it, you know we

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Speaker 2: often hear and including on this show, well you haven't

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Speaker 2: made a lot of progress. Actually, what you've got to

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Speaker 2: remember is that only two years ago this was absolutely normal.

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Speaker 2: These kinds of provisions were being put into contracts. Now

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Speaker 2: as they come up and Karen Chiu is onto it

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Speaker 2: over at Aranga Tamariki, ministers right across the government are

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Speaker 2: onto it, including what I've done in Farmac. But nonetheless

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Speaker 2: we have gone from this being absolutely normal to getting

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Speaker 2: rid of it as the negotiations come up.

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Speaker 1: Nice to talk to you, appreciate it, David Seemore, the

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Speaker 1: ex party leaders. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news talks that'd be from six am weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio