The NZ Labour party claimed in 2024 that the contractor count at Te Whatu Ora had an ...

"... increase in People and Communications functions, the bill for which grew from $8.5 million to nearly $30 million – an increase of 243 percent."

https://www.labour.org.nz/hypocrisy_as_te_whatu_ora_contractor_bill_balloons

$30 billion on communications people, yet according to the outgoing Ombudsman quoted by MediaWatch, they're worse at responding to OIA requests than almost any other public entity. How?

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What if at least 50% of TWO communications funding had to be spent on health reporters? Hired and managed independently by newsrooms, like the reporters under the Local Democracy and Open Justice programs. So for every $1arse-covering upper management spend a spin, $1is spent on transparency.

In fact, this could be a blanket communications requirement, across both public agencies, and any company or NGO that has contracts with one.

#PolicyNZ

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