State of Nation: ACT leader David Seymour pushes radical plan to slash ministers and merge departments

Sunday, 15 February 2026

ACT leader David Seymour wants to cut the number of ministers to 20 and consolidate the public service into no more than 30 departments.

In a State of the Nation speech on Sunday, Seymour said the current system of 28 ministers governing 41 departments was bloated and inefficient, calling for a fundamental overhaul that would see each department solely the responsibility of a single minister.

He argued this would increase accountability as it would be clear who was responsible if something went wrong, while trimming waste.

'Why does such a small country have such a large government?' Seymour told the audience.

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“Norway, a similar size to us, governs with 20 ministers across 17 coherent ministries, each clearly aligned to a broad policy domain.”

Under Seymour's proposal, no department would answer to more than one minister, and traditional portfolios would be abolished in favour of ministers managing departments and their budgets directly.

All Ministers would be inside Cabinet.

Alongside consolidation, this would likely require the break-up of a “mega-ministry” like the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, which has 20 ministers and covers a huge range of issues including employment, energy, immigration, standard-setting, and building quality.

Seymour said his idea, which he has floated earlier, had broad traction - pointing to a report from the right wing think tank the New Zealand Initiative.

But his proposal goes beyond the recommendations made by the New Zealand Initiative in a March 2024 report, which called for consolidating portfolios and departments but did not propose eliminating the portfolio system entirely or mandating a strict one-minister-per-department structure.

The direct savings from such a restructure may be modest. Of the $141.7 billion in core Crown spending in 2024/25, just $2.65 billion went to directly to running government departments themselves - less than 2% of total spending.

Seymour said the benefits would extend beyond direct cost savings, as a smaller government would free up time for businesses, while larger cost savings would be easier to achieve with one minister directly accountable for each budget line.

“With a smaller government, a small business owner will spend less time and money battling paperwork and bureaucracy - an immediate productivity boost,” he said.

The Government has already moved to merge several departments, with plans underway to combine Environment, Housing, Local Government and Transport into one ministry, a move Seymour cited as evidence the consolidation approach is gaining traction.

Seymour criticised “vanity portfolios” with no departmental responsibilities such as the Minster for Auckland - a position created under Labour but kept by the current Government.

Seymour himself holds portfolios across many departments, including Health, Justice, Education, the Treasury, and his new Ministry of Regulation.

Seymour’s State of the Nation speech comes as ACT have faced some decline in polls. The party sat at around 10% party vote support at the start of last year in polls released by the Taxpayers’ Union and Curia, but have dropped to 6.7% in the most recent poll.

Seymour said the Government had done much but warning lights were “flashing” as so many young Kiwis sought better lives overseas.

New Zealand lost about 40,000 citizens in 2025, and 44,000 the year prior.

“It is a great failing that New Zealand does not meet the expectations of its own citizens. Many are prepared to give up their family, their friendships, and their sense of place,” Seymour said.

“Making brave voyages is in our DNA, but it can just as easily work the other way if we don’t get on top of these deeper challenges.”

Seymour said his party had “lost the vote but won the argument” on the controversial Treaty Principles Bill and promised his party would campaign on “equal rights for all citizens”.

“People are told they are guests even though they were born here. Instead of being a country founded on ideas, where anyone can be a citizen if they follow the laws, they tried to make us a country based on identity, where you can only really be a New Zealander if your ancestors settled first.“