Grant Robertson

Wellington, March 9 NZPA - Plans to merge Archives New Zealand and the National Library into the Department of Internal Affairs put at risk vital elements of our historical and democratic infrastructure, Labour's associate arts, culture and heritage spokesman Grant Robertson said today.

Cabinet is likely to make decisions next Monday about merging several government agencies in an exercise that seems sure to lead to job losses.

Prime Minister John Key said yesterday it wasn't an ideological move, it was driven by the need to improve efficiency and deliver better services under tighter cost constraints.

"What we do know is that when you have large fragmentation, you have duplication," he said.

"And taxpayers pay for that duplication."

Mr Key wouldn't speculate on job losses and said work was still being done on the details of the mergers.

But he didn't dispute reports that they are expected to include rolling the National Library and Archives New Zealand into the Department of Internal Affairs, merging the Food Safety Authority with MAF, and amalgamating the Foundation for Science, Research and Technology with the ministry of the same name.

Mr Robertson said the Government was winding back the clock by putting Archives and the National Library under the control of Internal Affairs, after extensive work was done to separate them only a decade ago.

"The reasons for the separations were clear. For Archives the important role of ensuring transparency in the activities of government requires statutory independence.

"The Chief Archivist needs to be in the position to enforce the law that requires other government agencies to keep and deposit their records. That will be compromised with a re-merger into Internal Affairs.

"When the National Library was administered by Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Education it struggled to have a voice. The separation allowed protection for the iconic Alexander Turnbull Library, and a place for library users to have a role in its management. None of this can be guaranteed with a re-merger."

When asked about these issues earlier in the week, Mr Key said if any proposed mergers caused such problems then they would not proceed.

PSA national secretary Brenda Pilott said she had no more detail than the rest of the public in terms of what effects mergers might have on employees, and was not likely to get any until shortly before next week's announcement.

"That's a very long way from the kind of consultation that we think ought to be happening," she told Radio New Zealand.

Ms Pilott said there were many people with interests in the departments and there was no reason for the Government to keep plans under wraps.

"The talk seems to get around about where restructures are, but possibly not as accurate as it could be if they were open about it."

She said the PSA was not against restructuring, but questioned whether cost cuts could be achieved.

"There are times when mergers make sense, but they need to be really clear what the problem is that is trying to be fixed, and I don't know what the problem is trying to be fixed by bringing the National Library and Archives together under an operational department like Internal Affairs, I can't imagine what the logic of that is."

There would be job losses, she said, and those two agencies alone had over 350 PSA members who would be concerned about their futures.

Mr Key said New Zealand had more government agencies and departments than countries of a similar size and looked out of place as a result.

The state sector consists of 41 departments and ministries, 84 statutory Crown entities, 11 Crown entity companies, 17 state-owned enterprises, 31 tertiary education institutions and numerous "schedule four entities" such as the Lottery Grants Board.