Yesterday Minister Steven Joyce released the  NSSI and called for submissions (deadline 22 August). One useful feature is that it explains the current system.
It has become clear that huge changes have been made to the science funding system in the last few years. There have been some very worrying developments, such as the removal of the NZST postdoc scheme, the appallingly cronyistic way the National Science Challenges have been run, the disorganization of MBIE (look at their website sometime!), etc. The sheer amount and rate of change is perhaps the worst problem. It is surely time that some kind of multi-party consensus on science funding be forged, so such large changes don’t happen so often. Without high quality input from the sector, I don’t see that happening.

I urge everyone in the research sector (and maybe others) to consider participating in a submission. It is annoying that we seem to have to spend so much time on non-core business these days, but this is important enough (in my opinion) to be an exception to the apparent rule that one should ignore such ephemera and concentrate only on one’s own research.