The department is overseen by ACT leader David Seymour. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The new Ministry of Regulation is paying its staff an average salary of more than $150,000 and will eventually employ more than 90 people, new figures reveal.
That is despite the coalition pledging to slash back-office spending across the public sector and attacking the former government for creating massive bureaucracies.
The anti-red tape department is overseen by ACT leader David Seymour, who secured its creation during coalition negotiations last year.
Figures obtained by the Green Party - and first reported by The Post - reveal a median salary at the agency of $154,500, well above the public service median of $84,800.
The mean, or average, salary is $152,034, compared to $97,200 across the wider public service.
Other documents outline the ministry's proposed structure, including three deputy chief executives earning up to $350,000 each.
Green MP Francisco Hernandez said the coalition's hypocrisy was galling given the deep cuts being felt across other parts of the public sector.
"The government has a double standard: one for its pet ministries and its pet ministers, and the other for the wider public service which is actually doing really useful things."
Hernandez said the "ideology-driven agency" was merely duplicating work and should be defunded, with the money spent instead on real frontline services, such as Oranga Tamariki or health.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins told RNZ the latest figures were "absolutely absurd" given the government's purported goals.
"Having a ridiculously large number of people being employed on over $150,000 a year when other public servants are being laid off shows what a hypocrite David Seymour is."
The Taxpayers' Union also issued a statement in response to the news, decrying "bureaucratic blob" and calling it a test of Seymour's credibility.
"This upstart ministry seems to be running in completely the wrong direction," executive director Jordan Williams said.
"Seymour needs to lead by example, and has now set himself a tough task to demonstrate value for money from his new gold-plated department."
Speaking to RNZ at Parliament on Wednesday afternoon, Seymour dismissed the "sensationalist" reporting and denied any double standard, pointing out that more than 6000 people across the public service were paid $150,000 or higher.
Of those, more than 200 people were in "tier two roles", earning between $250,000 and $350,000, Seymour said, with just three of them at his department.
Seymour said, furthermore, it was "not surprising" that a policy-focused ministry would have higher-than-average salaries.
"Let's just put in a bit of perspective here. People get very excited about 91 people."
He said the team would be taking on the $5b cost to the country of needless red tape, as highlighted in a 2015 report: "That's good value for money."
Seymour said he expected the average salary to drop as the ministry became more established and temporary roles were replaced with permanent ones.
He had previously indicated the department would be much smaller, but he said the size of the problem had since grown.
"The idea that we'd just lift 10 people out of the Treasury and 20 people out of the Productivity Commission turned out to be an underestimate of how much good we can do."
Asked by RNZ whether such salaries were appropriate, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis declined to weigh in, saying only that she would measure the agency's performance each year based on its results.
"It's important that [David Seymour] show and that ministry show that it's delivering value for money."
Ahead of the election, ACT campaigned on axing the Productivity Commission, and its 20-odd staff, and instead setting up the Ministry for Regulation.
The new department is tasked with assessing red-tape across a range of sectors and "clearing out laws that are sapping Kiwi ingenuity", Seymour has said.
Since taking office, the government has directed savings be made across ministries, agencies and departments.
RNZ has tallied a net loss of more than 6500 roles to date.
