MPI escapes the knife

Instead, Minister of Agriculture Damien O’Connor has announced that MPI will be reorganised and under its umbrella there will be four portfolio entities to cover forestry, fisheries, food safety and biosecurity.

While these discrete areas will have their own separate funding and branding, they will all come under the overall control of MPI.

O’Connor says apart from these four areas, MPI will continue to function as it has always done, except for fisheries and forestry. The Minister of Agriculture will have ministerial responsibility for agriculture including food safety and biosecurity.

While the splitting up of MPI was a talking point during the election, the words changed from ‘split’ to ‘greater focus’ as it quickly became clear that the cost and disruption of a major reorganisation of MPI would blow Labour’s budget. It’s understood that MPI came up with this compromise proposal, which saves them from a major restructuring and enables O’Connor not to lose too much face.

In announcing the change, O’Connor claims the priority is to achieve greater clarity and unity of purpose in these four areas.

“We are seeking enhanced visibility of government policy and regulatory activities and clearer lines of accountability and engagement for stakeholders. We are now looking to the director-general of MPI to work with his team to achieve this, while ensuring prudent and efficient use of taxpayer and industry funds.”

In the case of forestry, O’Connor says MPI will build up its presence in Rotorua, the home of major forestry groups including the CRI Scion.

It’s estimated that it will cost $6.8 million to establish the four new entities and an extra $2.3m annually to run them. O’Connor says ‘reprioritised’ money from the Primary Growth Partnership Fund will pay for the changes and there will be no extra cost to taxpayers.

The new entities are expected to be up and running by April 1 next year.