Kerre Woodham: I don't think it's unreasonable to have a co-analysis of any government programme

With less than five months to go ‘til the election, the leaders of all parties are ramping up the rhetoric.

Christopher Luxon, leader of National, spoke to Auckland's Chamber of Commerce yesterday, outlining a trio of new policies aimed at transparency and government finances.

Now you would have thought after six years of the most open, honest and transparent Government in history, there would be no need for such a call.

Everything would be written large for us all to read, but apparently, there is.

They want to include annual reports by Treasury on the performance and results of major programs in health, education and social development and the like.

That would require the collection of data to monitor programs and more importantly, monitor the efficacy of the programs.

The taxpayer receipts I'm a little less enthusiastic about. I tend to agree with critics that it's a bit gimmicky.

If we want to see what the government spends its money on those figures are readily available to the public. What's more opaque is just how efficient that money being spent is, how hard is that money working for you and me?

And National also wants to see performance pay for public sector bosses. Chief executives and their deputies in the public sector would have their pay linked to achievements of targets.

This was a policy that National had, but that was scrapped by Labour in 2018.

Christopher Luxon says everyone responsible for spending a taxpayer dollar needs to be accountable for that spend.

And I totally, totally get that. Regular listeners will know that this lack of accountability is what riles me up most about this Government.

They can spend. Boy, can they spend? They have good ideas, lovely ideas, well-meaning ideas, but do they work?

Hey, let's leave badly behaved tenants in their Kāinga Ora homes, despite the fact that the wait for a public house is longer than it has ever been.

Let's just leave the worst behaved ones there and deal with the outfall of their appalling behaviour because. We have a theory that if they see goodness in action, they themselves can be good. Does it work? Who knows? We've tried to find out and nobody knows. Nobody even knows what the target is.  

I don't think that's unreasonable to have a co-analysis of any Government programme.

It is absolutely fine to try new initiatives. If something hasn't been working, then cool, try something new. But there must be accountability. And if something is not working, do not go throwing good money after bad.

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