Andrew Barr has announced his plans to give more money to the community sector organisations so they can pay the same sorts of salaries as government employees.
For those coming in late the whole thing is one hell of a way to run a railroad.
A Government concerned by the cost of service delivery asks notionally non-profit organisations (one man’s profit can look a lot like another’s executive salary) to tender to deliver the services.
Traditionally those orgs have found cheaper ways to do things by delivering inferior more efficient services or finding staff willing to work for less.
But now the orgs are having to pay staff at government levels the government is going to pay extra money for those staff costs.
Which seems like a hell of a way to go about paying lots of extra CEO salaries for little gain.
On the other hand in the event of an egregious cockup a contract can be terminated rather than a minister resigning.
So that might be a big part of the appeal of the arrangements.