Public Service Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Public Service Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Jenny Salesa): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I move, That the Public Service Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 1 December 2025.

This bill marks an important step forward for our Public Service as it strives to get back to basics and deliver value for money to taxpayers. The changes in the bill are about sharpening focus, clarifying responsibilities, and lifting performance, all of which will better equip the Public Service for the challenges it faces both today and in the future. One way it does this is by refocusing the statutory purpose of the Public Service to get it back to basics. Delivering services and outcomes for taxpayers while supporting constitutional and democratic Government, political neutrality, serving the Government of the day, and providing free and frank advice are enduring principles of our Public Service and our democracy. This Government is unreservedly committed to these imperatives, and they are retained unchanged.

The bill will give a clear reaffirmation of the role and responsibilities of Public Service chief executives and an increased focus on performance. Chief executives are entrusted with significant taxpayer funding and have a critical leadership role in delivering the priorities of the Government of the day. This bill provides greater clarity around those responsibilities to ensure they are better understood, better structured, and better aligned to the core purpose of the Public Service.

A high-performing Public Service starts with people, and the way we appoint Public Service leaders matters. This bill reaffirms the longstanding Public Service principle of merit-based appointments and strengthens appointment processes. This means selecting the best person for the job, not the most familiar name, not the candidate of least resistance, but the person with the right skills, the right experience, and the right leadership qualities to deliver results.

Strengthening the Public Service Act in this regard is particularly important given the recent Public Service Census found 30 percent of public servants surveyed were not confident that appointments in their organisation are being made on merit. It’s simply not good enough. To support this, Public Service chief executives will no longer be automatically reappointed when their term is up. All future reappointments will be subject to a contestable process. This important change will ensure the Government of the day can draw on the widest possible pool of talent and get the right person for the job.

The bill will also reintroduce key positions, allowing the Public Service Commissioner and other system leaders to be involved in the appointment and performance management of key back-office positions such as finance or digital leadership. This will ensure that we have the right people leading key functions across the Public Service to drive better performance overall.

The Government, on behalf of New Zealanders, also has a legitimate interest in how the commissioner is driving performance across the Public Service. This bill will strengthen the provisions around chief executive and agency performance management, requiring input from appropriate Ministers when the commissioner is setting and reviewing performance expectations and key performance indicators. This will increase the robustness of the process and drive confidence and transparency for Ministers and for the public.

The bill also removes unnecessary duplication in chief executives’ responsibilities. It removes specific provisions relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion from the Act. Why? Because most of these objectives are substantially provided for explicitly and implicitly under other laws, including the Human Rights Act, the Employment Relations Act, the Equal Pay Act, and the good employer obligations already embedded in the Public Service Act. I also consider that these objectives are somewhat more appropriately addressed through the Government of the day’s Workforce Policy Statement.

The emphasis on the Act itself should be on an unbiased, merit-based appointment process. Let me be clear: removing these provisions does not remove our commitment to fair and proper treatment of all Public Service employees, which Public Service agencies will still be required to uphold in their employment policies and practices, as they should.

The Public Service must serve with integrity and maintain the trust and confidence of the public. We must have zero tolerance for inappropriate behaviour and wrongdoing. This bill will require agencies to report to the Public Service Commissioner annually on Public Service misconduct. Increased oversight and transparency will give New Zealanders confidence that the Public Service is upholding the high standards expected of them.

We also find ourselves in an environment of heightened strategic competition and risk, and the Public Service must be better prepared to manage this. While the Act will still allow the Public Service to adopt new technologies, products, and services, this bill will empower the Public Service Commissioner to protect the Public Service from malicious or disruptive actors by restricting access to certain products, services, or vendors. Innovation, technological adoption, and service improvement must not come at the cost of New Zealand’s national security.

This bill is about restoring purpose, discipline, and professionalism to the Public Service. The Public Service is funded by taxpayers to deliver the services needed for a well-functioning society, and it should always remember that. This bill restores that clarity of purpose while preserving the Public Service’s constitutional role as a politically neutral and professional institution. It supports chief executives with clearer mandates; it ensures leadership roles are filled competitively and on merit; it refocuses the Public Service on delivering results, not processes; and it puts the needs of taxpayers—as the people who fund and rely on these services—front and centre. These reforms will not hinder the Public Service’s ability to give free and frank advice or to operate impartially. In fact, by sharpening its focus, it will enhance these fundamental principles.

The Government believes in a strong Public Service. The Public Service is confident and capable of delivering. The Public Service understands its role not as a passive bureaucracy but as an active partner in implementing the policies of the elected Government and delivering better services and outcomes for all New Zealanders. This bill delivers necessary, practical changes. It does not rewrite the foundations of our Public Service; it reinforces them. It is focused, deliberate, and aligned with the expectations of the Government and the hard-working taxpayers of New Zealand.

With these reforms, we will have a Public Service that is clearer in its role, stronger in its leadership, and better focused on its core mission to serve taxpayers with efficiency, professionalism, accountability, and integrity. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Now, I wish I could say that it was a pleasure to be talking on this bill, but, unfortunately, the Government has once again put a bill before this House which takes New Zealand backwards. This is very disappointing and a missed opportunity, I think, from the Minister for the Public Service to build on the incredible work that our Public Service has done for the last 110 years, in which, in all of those years, they have been focused on engaging people on the basis of merit, and there has been little to no evidence produced—apart from a Public Service census, which the Minister was heavily involved in drafting—that there has been any challenge to the fact that people are appointed on merit in the Public Service.

We do not accept that these changes will achieve the goals that the Minister has set out, many of which are goals that we can agree with in terms of making sure we have an efficient Public Service, in terms of making sure that the Public Service is leading on public productivity. These are the things that the Minister came to our select committee and made public statements about this bill bringing into place. Unfortunately, what we see is the reduction of rights for people in relation to two key areas that I want to make sure that I mention in this short, five-minute call.

The first thing is the removal of the requirement for chief executives to work on pay equity and make sure that they get rid of gender bias between male and female employees. Now, the Minister said that this is something that could be more better placed within the Workforce Policy Statement, but when you read the bill, you see that the matters to be included have specifically withdrawn pay equity from the Workforce Policy Statement, so that, unfortunately, just does not stack up.

This is another bill which is walking back New Zealand’s commitment—and in the Public Service, it has been since 1960—towards leading pay equity and gender fairness within New Zealand. It is shocking and, I think, a terrible thing to include that within a bill that could have been an opportunity to really move the Public Service forward.

We don’t object to looking at this legislation. It’s been five years since it’s been put in place. There could have been things that we could have worked together on, but taking New Zealand backwards from its position—especially in the Public Service—as a leader on pay equity is just shocking.

It doesn’t end there. There is also a move backwards in relation to making sure that the Public Service reflects our society. Now, I don’t know why this is a controversial statement. Of course we should have a Public Service that reflects the society that we’re a part of, and, yes, it is possible to have that and employ people on the basis of merit, and that is exactly what our Public Service has been doing for the last 110 years. Putting that in this bill is simply virtue signalling towards those who think that diversity inclusion is something bad and it takes New Zealand backwards. Well, the opposite is true: having a diverse workforce takes the Public Service forwards.

The last main criticism that I wanted to make sure that I covered in my contribution today is the fact that some of these provisions in this bill, unfortunately, move, in my view, away from what has been a bipartisan, agreed position on the neutrality of the Public Service, and I want to mention two examples of that. There is the fact that now there will be an incentive for when chief executives in the Public Service are employed to make sure that they are fitting very, very clearly with the policies and the politics of the Government of the day. Now, of course they have to deliver for the Government of the day—of course that is the job of a neutral public service. But what this will do is it will mean that chief executives who are doing a good job, who are delivering, and who may have worked for successive Governments now have a direct incentive to make sure that their politics and policies match those of the Minister. I hope that that is something that we can improve in select committee, because I don’t think it’s in the interests of anyone in this House to see that moving that way.

Also, another point to that concern around the politicisation of the Public Service is the fact that the people who are employed in the policy advisory group in the parliamentary office that advises the Prime Minister will now be put on fixed-term appointments. These are senior public servants, they do an excellent job, they are seconded in there because of their expertise, they are non-political, and they work in a bipartisan manner. Putting them on fixed-term contracts means, essentially, that they will be more towards serving the Government of the day, rather than providing the Prime Minister of the day—whoever that is—with the free and frank advice that they deserve. This is of huge concern for us, and I hope that it is also something that can be changed within this bill to make sure that the standards of having a free Public Service that provides free and frank advice are upheld.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is with pleasure that I rise to oppose this bill. This is yet another bill that takes us backwards. This is yet another bill that’s a pointless distraction. This is yet another bill that fails to accomplish the objectives that the Minister has set out for it.

Now, what are they trying to distract us from? No wonder they have distraction bills like this, because if you open your eyes, you’ll know that things are getting worse out here in Aotearoa. Unemployment is the highest it’s ever been, homelessness is skyrocketing, and the jobs and opportunities are fleeing to Australia.

Hon David Seymour: What about the bill?

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: So this bill is a distraction. It’s culture war nonsense that seeks to blame the ills of modern society on the so-called DEI—diversity, equity, and inclusion—policies.

Now, it’s pointless, because as we have questioned the Minister for the Public Service during the hearing process in the Governance and Administration Committee, when we asked her specifically if there had been evidence that the Public Service was not hiring on merit, she said that there was no evidence—no evidence—that the Public Service wasn’t hiring on a merit basis.

Now, the Minister talks about the benefits of this bill and how it’s going to create a high-performing Public Service. Unfortunately, none of the advice or the analysis that she’s brought to the table actually stacks up with that. If you actually read the regulatory impact statements, it says that the costs of the bill are low but they’re definite, but it says that the benefits of it are uncertain. Now, why are we wasting time debating and putting forward a bill to this House when the Minister’s own advisers aren’t even sure it will actually do anything? It just seems like a pointless waste of time—virtue signalling, if you will.

But what are the costs of it? Now, the costs of it are very real, and some of them have already been articulated by the previous member to speak, Camilla Belich. We do know that this will weaken the existing framework for pay equity. We do know that this will potentially lead to a less representative Public Service—one that’s supposed to actually reflect the communities that it’s supposed to serve.

This is something that the Government doesn’t actually, theoretically, have a problem with. I mean, in their announcement for the Waikato medical school, one of the things that they trumpeted in the media release and the announcement was that how it would lead to a more diverse workplace. So, again, they don’t really have a principle-based objection to the idea of diversity, equity, and inclusion; there’s just sort of a pick and choose.

Another concerning aspect of this bill is how it demotes and weakens the provisions and requirement for the Public Service to operate in the spirit of service to the public. Now, that is concerning, because what is the Public Service for if not for the spirit of service? This bill—and that is something that the previous member already articulated as well, although she probably wouldn’t put it in these terms—puts New Zealand on a pathway towards an American-style politicised Public Service, where every administration they—you know, there’s a lot of churn in the public sector across the different terms of Government.

Look, this is a Government that does love the Americans. They’ve just invited the American Government to set up an FBI outpost here, so this is a Government that is increasingly skewing us towards becoming a vassal state of America. So why not copy their policies in the first place? If they’re setting up colonial outposts here, an FBI outpost here, just bring them here.

Now, let’s talk about—

Andy Foster: What a fabrication of the truth.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: Yeah, yeah—I hope I’m bulletproof. You know what those Yankees do to countries that don’t obey them.

It talks about high-performing public services. But how do you actually get high-performing public services? Well, everything this Government has done has been antithetical to the goal of a high-performing Public Service. They’ve sacked 10,000 jobs from the Public Service. They’ve gone through hundreds and hundreds of redundancy processes. That’s not how you get high-performing services. The changes that they’ve made, the slash and burn cuts that they’ve imposed on the Public Service, have led to doctors doing admin and cleaning jobs in the hospital instead of doing valuable mahi serving their communities. It’s led to an explosion of meth in our streets, as the Customs agencies and border agencies fell. It’s led to Statistics New Zealand repeatedly delaying statistical releases.

We won’t get better public services with this Government. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Just for the people watching at home, that last speech is what can happen if you don’t prepare before giving a speech. You end up standing up and giving a grab-bag of things that you’ve recently read on Twitter. Now, there are some people who want to ban social media for under-16s; I think it’d be good to ban it for that member, Francisco Hernandez, so he could focus on delivering on his actual speech.

Now, I want to take a call on this bill because I think it is so important. In the previous iteration of bringing together this Government, the ACT Party negotiated that the Government would amend the Public Service Act 2020 to clarify the role of the Public Service to drive performance and to assure accountability to deliver on the agenda of the Government of the day. There will be people out there who would think, “Isn’t that what the Public Service is supposed to do?” Shouldn’t the law say that if you work in a Government department, your job is to serve the people that the public elected to run the Government and have people put in jobs to do that because they’re the best person to do it? There’d be a lot of people who would be surprised that this was even necessary, until they heard the speeches from the Opposition, who seem to think that this is some terrible catastrophe. We even heard the Green member say that the bill requires the Public Service to serve the public and—quote—“That’s a problem.”

To understand what has gone wrong here, the previous Government, in the Public Service Act 2020, decided that instead of serving the elected Government of the day to deliver quality services efficiently and affordably for the taxpayer—so you can get your healthcare and get your education and get your infrastructure—they decided that, actually, the Public Service would be a vehicle for a whole lot of other internal political projects. There are some people out there who call that diversity, equity, and inclusion. In other words, they decided that the identity politics of the Government was more important than serving the elected Government and delivering the services that taxpayers paid for.

That’s why I’m proud to be standing for a bill that is going to make those very obvious things that people probably thought that Government departments were already supposed to do—to actually put them into the law. It’s also the solution to a riddle, a considerable riddle. You see, over the six years of the previous Government, they managed to take Government spending from $86 billion a year up to $138 billion a year. They managed to spend an extra $60 billion, almost an 80 percent increase in Government spending. They took the number of people in the Public Service from 47,000 up to over 60,000. If you went back in the days of 2017 and asked an ardent left-wing voter: if we were to increase spending by 60 percent and increase the size of the Public Service by another 15,000 people, increasing the Public Service by about a third, would that solve all the problems? Would that get rid of poverty? Would that put people in houses? Would that get the infrastructure built? I mean, surely for another $60 billion we could solve all the problems.

The amazing thing is they spent all that money and, actually, they didn’t solve all the problems. In fact, for many of them, whether it’s school attendance, whether it’s the state of infrastructure, whether it’s the state of the healthcare system, they actually managed to spend more money and make things worse. Part of the reason for that is revealed in the need for this legislation, that we had a Labour Government—predominantly, with some outriggers—who decided that using the Public Service as a vehicle for identity politics mattered more than delivering for the people who paid the bill and paid their taxes by serving the elected Government of the day.

Today, with this legislation, we bring the answer to the riddle. It is part of a movement that I believe is spreading around the world—that people are just sick and tired of being told that what happens in your life was determined long before you were born, that you’re either a victim or a villain written in a script that you have no control over. Instead, the tide that is coming in right around the world is the simple idea that each of us are deserving of equal dignity to use our time on earth to make the most positive difference that we possibly can for ourselves, those we care about immediately around us, and our wider community. This bill is just a little part of that movement to hire on merit, to deliver for the democratically elected Governments of the day, so that people can choose to use their time on earth to flourish in their own self-chosen way. I commend this bill to the House.

It’s a pleasure to rise to speak to this bill. Under Labour, the core Public Service grew by some 34 percent, from 48,000 to over 63,000, costing about $6.1 billion a year in salaries alone, and I think most New Zealanders would say that services went backwards as a result of that. This bill is about ensuring, amongst other things, driving improvements in the public sector performance, about reducing silos, about increasing transparency, and about reinforcing political neutrality and professionalism, which is quite the opposite of what the Green Party was saying.

Can we be very, very clear that most of our public servants—in fact, I think all of our public servants—get up in the morning to do a great job. The title of “public servant” should be one of the most honourable that there is, being able to get up in the morning and go and serve the public of this great country. The officials that we see here serve this country really, really well—they provide us with great advice, great knowledge, and they work very, very hard. The staff who look after us here, likewise. But they are often let down by the system.

At the Governance and Administration Committee, recently, it was a breath of fresh air to have the Minister, the Hon Judith Collins, come in with the commissioner, Sir Brian Roche, and talk about a culture that they wanted: a culture that is creative, courageous, and customer-focused. Because I’ve been asked to keep it short, I’m going to truncate some of those bits there, but what I would say is that this bill is about delivering that kind of aspiration.

I want to focus on one specific thing, and that is diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The Public Service run a survey every so often, and in 2024, the Public Service survey had extraordinary feedback: 44,737 core public servants responded—that is 68.5 percent of all our public servants; that is up from 63.1 percent in 2021. There were some great numbers in there: 80 percent believe they deliver value for taxpayer money, 87 percent believe they contribute to better outcomes, 90 percent care about their agency’s use of taxpayer money, and 96 percent say it’s important that their work contributes to the common good.

However, the system so often gets in the way, and in this survey—and Radio New Zealand reported this earlier this month, and they’re not usually on the side of the Government—public servants say poor staffing is their biggest barrier to performance and just 44 percent are confident that their colleagues are appointed or are hired on merit—44 percent. That is the public servants saying, about their colleagues, that they don’t believe that most of them are hired on merit. That is not us saying that. That is the public servants responding to this survey saying that. Wow—that is condemning.

As I said, that is not from any political party but from the public servants themselves. That is the result of DEI—diversity, equity, and inclusion. All of those are really, really good things in themselves, but if they take away from appointment on merit, what that means is that they prevent the Public Service from doing the job that it should do, as well as it should be doing it, for the people of New Zealand. That is why this bill is there and is making the change that it is making.

The Government and the commissioner have been clear. Being a public servant is an important role. It needs the best people for the job. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are all important, but being capable of doing the job and doing it well is the most important—our public servants themselves say so. Our taxpayers deserve the best. Our public servants deserve the best. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It gives me pleasure to rise and speak in support of the Public Service Amendment Bill. This will drive improvements in Public Service performance and ensure that the Public Service can efficiently and effectively serve the Government to deliver value for money for all New Zealanders. I commend it to the House.

I want to use my speech to draw attention to an aspect of this bill that has been glossed over—glossed over by the Minister, glossed over in the regulatory impact statement, hidden away in what is supposed to be a streamlining change. But is actually quite a significant change, and it’s the change around long-term insights briefings.

Now, the previous Government introduced the concept of a long-term insights briefing. It said: our public servants are an extraordinarily diligent, well-educated, thoughtful group of people who spend years grappling with some of the problems that this country faces, that have a whole lot of knowledge to bring to that, but all too often, they are not able to bring that knowledge out, because they are responding to the very immediate needs of the Government of the day. More to the point, all too often, too, they can’t put stuff out because it doesn’t fit with the Government’s political programme. Now, that’s fair enough; they are there to serve the Government of the day, but that means that there is a huge untapped resource of knowledge and insight.

Our Government said that, actually, we want to give those superb public servants a chance, every three years, to focus on a particular issue of their choice, to consult with the public, to analyse it, and to present us with a long-term insights briefing. Each Government department was going to be able to do that. This bill removes that from individual Government departments and concentrates it all in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC). It says—and it’s quite well hidden, actually, in the bill. Sitting in the Minister’s legislative statement, there is an analysis that says that clause 45 streamlines the requirements for long-term insights briefings, requiring DPMC to coordinate one briefing every three years, and to issue guidance to support agency capability for long-term thinking.

It’s about streamlining, according to the Minister’s legislative statement. But in actual fact, it’s not just streamlining. It is removing the capacity for individual departments to make a decision about what their briefing will be about; about how they will go about developing that briefing; about how they will report it to their Ministers. It turns out those briefings are often not particularly convenient to the Government of the day.

So—and I can only speak in terms of the revenue portfolio here—in the last term of the Government, the first Inland Revenue long-term insights briefing was produced, and, much as the Minister of the day wanted it to focus on the overall fairness of the tax system and the taxation of capital and how that relates to the taxation of income, Inland Revenue went their own way as independent public servants and produced a report on whether our tax settings affect our productivity. That was not very convenient to us as a Government, but it was a great report to get. Then the current long-term insights briefing being prepared by Inland Revenue is actually around the taxation of capital—not very convenient to the Government of the day, but a fantastic long-term insights briefing to have.

These long-term insights briefings may not be convenient, but they add so much value to our country overall. So I thought, well, surely the regulatory impact statement would have some assessment of this, but no; sitting in the regulatory impact statement is a little tick saying that it was exempt from the regulatory impact statement. And why is that change exempt from a regulatory impact statement? Because the Ministry for Regulation—in other words, David Seymour’s little pet toy—granted an exemption for it, but no reason was given for it. There is no cost-benefit analysis on whether losing these long-term insights briefings and concentrating them just in the department of DPMC will make a difference—no cost-benefit analysis, no assessment of the impact for the long-term future of this country.

Now, this is something we pride ourselves on in our Public Service—that they are independent; that they do serve the Government of the day; that they are capable of working between one Government and another; that they give of their best. This Government is working directly against that.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Reinforcing the core principles of political neutrality, appointment on merit or positions and professional competence is something that I actually support. When that side of the House introduced a tick-box exercise of including diversity, equity, and inclusion, it did not actually improve public service. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s not a pleasure to take a call on this bill, because many of the things that it does really undermine the role that the Public Service play in serving the Government but specifically serving New Zealanders, which is what they are there to do. Can I just acknowledge the many public servants across New Zealand, particularly those going through difficult times at the moment in terms of restructures and having their work, in many cases, changed in a way that I know is frustrating many of them. I just want to acknowledge the many hard-working and loyal public servants that we have in New Zealand.

I also want to talk briefly about the long-term insights briefings, but before I get there I want to talk around the changes being made to the role chief executives play in terms of pay equity. I want to talk to that briefly, because what we’ve seen from this Government is a Government that doesn’t value the pay of women. Just this year, we had a bill rammed through the House that changed the rules around pay equity, that removed a significant number of pay equity claims that were on the table. We’ve got pay offers for nurses of 2 percent this year, 1 percent next year, and a pay offer for teachers of 1 percent. Many of these workforces are female dominated, and instead of genuinely trying to find other ways to achieve the importance of pay equity for women, this bill actually makes it worse again.

What it does is it repeals section 73(3)(i) and (j), which removes the requirement for chief executives to have employment policies that recognise the importance of pay equity between female and male employees and that ensure decisions about remuneration are free from bias, including gender bias. We’ve just heard from speakers talking about not making decisions based around gender. There are policies in place in the Act that say remuneration decisions have to be made free of bias from gender, and that has been taken away—

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Crazy.

RACHEL BOYACK: —and claims are being cancelled. It is crazy, Dr Webb. It is reinforcing the very decisions being made by this Government to undermine the pay of women in New Zealand.

When I read that in this bill, I was shocked, actually, because I thought this was a National Party in particular trying desperately to show the public why they still support women being paid well, but everything we are seeing from this Government—the scrapping of pay equity claims, the shocking offers made to nurses and teachers, and now the plan to remove pay equity policies from the role of the Public Service chief executives, who have so much influence over what employees are paid—is an absolute shocker.

I also wanted to talk briefly about long-term insights briefings, because in the previous term of Parliament I sat on the Governance and Administration Committee, and we were the receivers of all of these briefings before they were sent to committees for their observations and their thinking. We put together a couple of reports around long-term insights briefings, and those reports, I’ll be frank, did have some criticisms that perhaps there were too many—having 40 every three years was perhaps too many; that perhaps some agencies didn’t necessarily do a good job of choosing the right topic that genuinely was a long-term issue that New Zealand had to grapple with; and there could’ve been more collaboration between agencies to come up with topics that worked across multiple agencies. So I am not personally opposed to some changes to how many, but going from 40 to one that is only driven by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, in my view, is a missed opportunity, and it actually goes against what was a cross-party, unanimous report that included members of the National Party as well when we wrote our reports on long-term insights briefings.

I would encourage the members of the National Party to go away and read the reports of the Governance and Administration Committee, because there could be some changes made, but this is going far too far. It takes away the ability of the Public Service to think long term for New Zealanders, which is one of its roles. I do not commend this bill to the House.

Excellent—thank you. It is a great honour to rise in support of the Public Service Amendment Bill in its first reading. I do just acknowledge the previous speaker, Rachel Boyack, who did acknowledge that change was needed. This is about driving improvements in our Public Service performance, ensuring that our Public Service can efficiently and effectively serve the Government to deliver value for New Zealanders. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the Public Service Amendment Bill be considered by the Governance and Administration Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

Instruction to Governance and Administration Committee