Submissions

To: Governance and Administration Select Committee
Date: August 2025

Purpose

This submission opposed the Public Service Amendment Bill 2025 arguing that it strips away crucial protections for disabled public sector employees and other accountability requirements. Crucially, it ends the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) requirements where government employees are chosen on merit with the goal that the public service workforce should be representative of the diversity of New Zealand’s population. Pay equity requirements for the public service are also removed.

Summary of DPA submission

Recommendation:

DPA recommended that the select committee not proceed with the bill.

Supporting Statement 1:

The Bill’s emphasis in Part 1 on the public service needing to achieve value for money and efficiency will compromise its ability to deliver specialist or tailored supports to disabled people and their families whānau. Services regarded as too individualised due to being too resource intensive are likely to be further deprioritised with the push for greater efficiencies.

Supporting Statement 2:

Stripping away the DEI clauses will make it harder for disabled job applicants to overcome discriminatory barriers when seeking employment within the public sector. Official statistics show that disabled people already experience high rates of unemployment and underemployment compared to non-disabled people. Ending the requirement for the public sector to fairly consider hiring disabled people will not do anything to reduce the disability employment gap.