Public service cuts put 330 Manawatū-Whanganui workers at risk, PSA warns
The Government’s plan to cut one in seven public servants nationwide will put about 330 workers in the Manawatū-Whanganui region at risk, the Public Service Association says.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced a public service overhaul in her pre-Budget speech, including cutting 8700 roles by mid-2029 to “improve services” and “lift productivity”.
Willis said it would reduce the number of government departments, ramp up AI and save $2.4 billion.
The cuts applied only to the core public service, which would not include frontline roles such as teachers, police, defence force or Health New Zealand staff, she said.
The PSA said about 55% of public servants worked in communities outside Wellington, and impacts would be felt across the country.
National secretary Duane Leo said the 14% cut could put about 330 of the 2357 public service workers in the Manawatū-Whanganui region at risk of losing their jobs.
Most of them were employed by the Department of Conservation (DoC), Oranga Tamariki, Work and Income, Justice, Corrections, New Zealand Transport Agency and Ministry for Primary Industries, he said.
These workers were already stretched over a large area, Leo said.
“These cuts are not about trimming fat. They are about taking away the services that communities and the local economy in Manawatū-Whanganui depend on.”
All services were vital, and cuts would slow down support to people in need and erode services that kept vulnerable young people and their communities safe, he said.
“It claims AI will pick up the slack. That is fantasy. AI is not going to check a farm for fruit fly. It’s not going to help a family find emergency housing. It’s not going to maintain a walking track or respond to a natural disaster.”
Leo said people in the Manawatū-Whanganui region deserved to know exactly which services would be affected.
Whanganui MP Carl Bates said while no cut decisions had yet been made, they would be done by the chief executives of each public service, independent of the Government.
“Between 2017 and 2023, the size of the public service expanded from about 47,000 people to more than 65,000,” Bates said.
“That was nearly three times faster than the overall labour force, and back-office roles grew significantly faster than the frontline.”
Bates said the savings would go towards more health services, educational outcomes, building infrastructure and strengthening the defence force and police.
Teachers, nurses, doctors, police and front desk workers at Work and Income and Kāinga Ora made up the largest number of public service staff in and around the Whanganui electorate, he said.
Corrections Association of New Zealand president Floyd du Plessis said while the details were not determined, he did not expect any potential impact on Whanganui Prison, which had 253 fulltime staff this February.
“In fact, at the same time as these cuts are happening, there’s actually been an increase in the number of frontline staff in prisons.”
The cuts would only affect administrative and support Corrections roles within national or regional offices, predominantly the Wellington office, he said.
“National office has ballooned and grown exponentially ... The main office is Wellington-based.
“And we’ve seen no improvement out of national office. So we struggle to understand what those roles are doing.”
Leo said any further cuts to DoC’s workforce would “severely undermine” its conservation work.
This included management of the region’s extensive native forests, wetlands, tourism sites and Whanganui National Park, running predator control programmes and protecting threatened birds including whio and kiwi.
Leo said MPI staff operated from the Palmerston North office, but supported Whanganui farmers and growers.
They managed biosecurity threats such as bird flu and M. bovis and assisted with storm recovery across Whanganui, he said.
Public Service and Digitising Government Minister Paul Goldsmith said in the pre-Budget announcement the overhaul was about ensuring a “modern, focused, productive and financially sustainable” public service.
The cuts would be achieved through digitisation, mergers, system and process simplifications and natural attrition, he said.
“Progress will be monitored regularly, with agencies expected to demonstrate improvements in productivity, delivery and value for money.”
Noam Mānuka Lazarus (Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara) is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle.