Public Service Amendment Bill reignites diversity debate

The Public Service Amendment Bill arrived back in the House this week for its second reading and committee stage. The debate focused on the culture war flashpoint that is DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion).

When government bills propose alterations to the way the public service operates, it rarely attracts much attention because such changes are typically small tweaks. Even MPs and officials would likely admit that reforms in this area are more often humdrum than widely intriguing.

The legislation up for debate might sound tedious but it actually introduces some significant and contentious changes. Changes that the Minister for the Public Service, Judith Collins said will help ministries to get "back to basics", a refrain the minister used multiple times during her speech on this bill, and one that National has used this term to underpin a number of reforms across a range of portfolios.

The key changes this bill makes that go beyond tweaks include:

• Removing the requirement that the public service should 'reflect the communities it serves',
• Removing the requirement for chief executives to have employment policies recognising the importance of pay equity.
• Removing the requirement for 34 government departments to produce Long-term Insights Briefings, which focus on future trends, risks and opportunities. Instead just one (from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet) would be required.
• Requiring public service chief executives to reapply for their job at the end of their term, and for them to be appointed by the relevant minister in office.

The first proposed change has ignited the most debate, and it was also the subject of most submissions during the select committee process.

Second readings give MPs the opportunity to reflect on submissions made during the select committee process. Despite regular debating points on submission weightings, the select committee stage is not a poll. MPs seek scrutiny, advice, and expertise from submitters, whether they're industry specialists or Joe Bloggs.

"We can't have a high-performing Public Service without the right people, so how do [sic] we appoint its leaders and hold them to account matters," Collins told the House.

"This bill reaffirms the principle of merit-based appointments, clarifies chief executives' responsibilities, and improves mechanisms for performance management.

"We're strengthening the Act to make sure that the best person for the job is the one who gets it, not the most familiar or the easiest option but the person with the right skills and experience to deliver."

Labour's Camilla Belich (who chairs the committee that considered the bill), suggested that the government may be attempting to fix a problem that doesn't really exist.

"Of course we stand for merit-based appointments, but this was scrutinised in quite a lot of detail at select committee," Belich told the House.

"There was not one single example that any of the advisers could give us as to a situation where someone hadn't been appointed on the basis of merit ... Despite that, we are able to have a Public Service, to date, that largely represents the community that they serve.

"...Those two things can be true alongside each other, that we can have the best people for the job and that they can represent the diverse community that is New Zealand. This bill assumes ... that that is not the case."

DEI has become a battleground issue in some Western democracies in recent years, particularly in the United States. Whether inspired by overseas politics or not, the removal of diversity provisions in favour of strictly merit-based appointments was part of National's coalition agreement with New Zealand First.

For the latter party, public service spokesperson Andy Foster focused much of his second reading speech on stripping DEI-related language from the legislation. His leader Winston Peters has framed DEI as a winnable front in New Zealand First's broader "war on woke".

In practical terms, the legislative shift would remove the requirement for the public service to be representative of the community it serves. The current Act (Section 44c), states that the Public Service Commission must "work with public service leaders to develop a highly capable workforce that reflects the diversity of the society it serves and to ensure fair and equitable employment, including by promoting the good employer requirements in this Act".

The bill replaces that phrasing with "work with public service leaders to develop a highly capable workforce and to promote the good employer requirements in this Act", something Andy Foster endorsed.

"It is great to have a public service which is reflective of the nature of our community, but it's also even more important to make sure that we have a public service which is professional and able to do its job really, really well."

Labour's Ayesha Verrall also argued that a professional and representative public service are not mutually exclusive conditions, but that wasn't her only issue with it.

"This bill is bad. It erodes elements of our democracy that have been long standing. It removes a long-term consideration of the public interest from the purpose of the bill that governs the Public Service. It introduces a risk to our political neutrality. It removes access to long-term, considered pieces of advice, and it stops the Public Service from pursuing pay equity. I could not think of a more limited, small-minded, managerial, hopeless vision of our democracy than this bill."

The final speaker in the second reading was National MP Ryan Hamilton, who used a schoolyard analogy to illustrate what he sees as the merits of meritocracy.

"When I was at school and we'd play sports in primary school, you'd pick two captains organically amongst yourselves, and then you'd choose who you wanted on your team. You wouldn't pick the Māori boy or the Chinese boy or the girl out of diversity; you'd pick the ones that would help you win the game. That was all about merit."

On Thursday morning the House ran out of time when considering the bill within the committee of the whole stage. The Public Service Amendment Bill may be slated for completion next sitting week.

To listen to the audio version of this story, click the link near the top of the page.

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