"New Zealanders pay for the public service to deliver better education, healthcare, public safety, infrastructure, and essential government services. This Government has gone some way to fixing it with the Need not Race circular, but years of previous governments embedding co-governance and race-based approaches mean there's still much more to do.
To unlock New Zealand’s potential we need one law for all, and one future together.
ACT will reset the public service around the basic principles of equal treatment, individual freedom, political and religious neutrality, and accountability for results.
First, ACT will end race-based hiring requirements by repealing section 73 of the Public Service Act. The public service should have the same employment rules as any other business. Health and safety, non-discrimination and and disability rights are already covered elsewhere in the law.
Public service jobs should go to the best person for the job, regardless of race. Hiring and promotion should be based on merit, skills, experience, and what the role actually requires.
Second, ACT will legally enforce need before race in the delivery of public services.
There is already a Cabinet expectation that services should be delivered according to need rather than race. ACT will give that principle real teeth by writing it into the Public Service Act.
Agencies will be required by law to follow the principle, and decisions that breach it could be challenged through judicial review.
If two New Zealanders have the same need, they should be entitled to the same treatment from government.
Third, ACT will separate spiritual practices from public service work.
Nobody should be expected to take part in a prayer, karakia, or other spiritual practice because they work for the Government. Taxpayers should not be required to fund staff time or other resources for employer-initiated spiritual activity either.
ACT will prohibit public service employers from initiating or resourcing cultural or spiritual practices as part of the workplace.
Public servants will remain free to practise their own religion, culture, or traditions in their own time, with reasonable accommodation where appropriate.
Fourth, ACT will remove irrelevant cultural requirements from public service jobs.
A person applying to work for the Government should be judged on whether they can do the job, not their knowledge of particular cultural concepts, values, or worldviews unless there is a genuine occupational reason for doing so.
ACT will direct public service agencies to remove those requirements from job advertisements and position descriptions where they are not relevant to the role, through a clear letter of expectations to the Public Service Commissioner and a Cabinet circular.
We will ensure a public service capable of unlocking the potential of all New Zealanders. It will be neutral, professional, focused on results, and treat every person as an individual."
To unlock New Zealand’s potential we need one law for all, and one future together.
ACT will reset the public service around the basic principles of equal treatment, individual freedom, political and religious neutrality, and accountability for results.
First, ACT will end race-based hiring requirements by repealing section 73 of the Public Service Act. The public service should have the same employment rules as any other business. Health and safety, non-discrimination and and disability rights are already covered elsewhere in the law.
Public service jobs should go to the best person for the job, regardless of race. Hiring and promotion should be based on merit, skills, experience, and what the role actually requires.
Second, ACT will legally enforce need before race in the delivery of public services.
There is already a Cabinet expectation that services should be delivered according to need rather than race. ACT will give that principle real teeth by writing it into the Public Service Act.
Agencies will be required by law to follow the principle, and decisions that breach it could be challenged through judicial review.
If two New Zealanders have the same need, they should be entitled to the same treatment from government.
Third, ACT will separate spiritual practices from public service work.
Nobody should be expected to take part in a prayer, karakia, or other spiritual practice because they work for the Government. Taxpayers should not be required to fund staff time or other resources for employer-initiated spiritual activity either.
ACT will prohibit public service employers from initiating or resourcing cultural or spiritual practices as part of the workplace.
Public servants will remain free to practise their own religion, culture, or traditions in their own time, with reasonable accommodation where appropriate.
Fourth, ACT will remove irrelevant cultural requirements from public service jobs.
A person applying to work for the Government should be judged on whether they can do the job, not their knowledge of particular cultural concepts, values, or worldviews unless there is a genuine occupational reason for doing so.
ACT will direct public service agencies to remove those requirements from job advertisements and position descriptions where they are not relevant to the role, through a clear letter of expectations to the Public Service Commissioner and a Cabinet circular.
We will ensure a public service capable of unlocking the potential of all New Zealanders. It will be neutral, professional, focused on results, and treat every person as an individual."
Hon David Seymour is the Minister for Regulation and the Associate Minister of Health, Finance, Education , and Justice. He was first elected to Parliament as MP for Epsom in 2014, at which point he became Leader of the ACT Party. This article was sourced HERE
12 comments:
Interesting that the journalist asking questions assumes that “Māori” want all this bs in their public servants too. Most maori just want to get on with life - it seems to be the middle aged white women that the public service is full of are the ones driving the bs
Why is this considered so right wing? The question is why the current government allowed these racist practices to continue when that is what they were voted in to change.
Yaaaaaaayyyyy, shouldnt even need to be discussed, JUST DO IT
It will need to be a bottom line for any coalition agreement. Also the Maori seats need to go immediately(also a bottom line). All traces of separatism need to be expunged this time around, for the good of New Zealand as a democratic country. There are many other avenues to help those who are disadvantaged, whatever their ethnicity.
No racial privileges and no mumbo-jumbo.
Is this really such an original idea? Not really - appointment procedures a hundred years ago were more meritocratic than they have been for the past decades and mumbo-jumbo was not on the "Things to do today" list for public servants. We have been going backwards and need to catch up with where we were to begin with.
No doubt this will be labelled by the media as 'racist' and 'far right', when it is the precise opposite. It is the media that are racist and far left
Admirable and a long overdue test of citizen support. However, a backlash must be expected - ACT is daring to cross a line.
If this was published anywhere else in the First World, it would be asked, why does NZ need such laws ?
The answer is that the wonderful kind sympathetic, nurturing, virtue signaling Ardern promoted the exact opposite.
Read that and withdraw Oxford University, the honorary degree you just awarded her.
MIT - please explain why you were sucked into believing Ardern was worthy of the praise you heaped on her.
And now ask why Luxon does not, will not immediately pass these policies ?
Keep chipping away at it, David. Like the Treaty Principles Bill, you'll suffer a few defeats along the way, but it you keep repeating the message, sooner or later DEI will no longer be as fashionable as it is now. And then National will no longer have to suck up to the fashionistas.
Our public service needs a much greater makeover. As a former public servant of 20 years, I confirm that the bloat is very real and wasteful. But the problems do not end there.
Of course, it has become overtly left wing when we pay for political and ideological neutrality. I would express similar concern if it had become overtly right wing.
Dreadful bullying, often of good staff out of employment, and frequently the bullying is administered by people who lack the qualifications, experience and expertise to manage genuine experts.
Here I draw attention to a very large gap between the intent of both the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 and the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill 2026 and the reality of both public and private workplaces.
Amongst other research, the 2025 Public Service Census reported workplace bullying across the public service at 12.1% of workers. In Statistics NZ’s Survey of Working Life of 2018, some 300,000 people reported bullying.
Unfortunately, some Ministries and Departments are ignoring protocols such as the Model Standards: Speaking Up and the Code of Conduct for the Public Sector. Both documents should provide protection for those who want to speak up and raise concerns. However, they do not, and the Public Service Commission will not intervene.
Finally, what of the average capability of ministries and departments when unqualified and inexperienced people move into management and then to the executive teams?
Can this be extended to end the pay equity myth and bullshit between the sexes?
Database search shows many Acts of Parliament still contain references to "the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi."
This term is not defined anywhere, so the activist judges in our courts have free reign to make things up as they go along, prodded all the while by taxpayer-funded litigants.
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