u/ChinaCatProphet

Election 2026: Act’s public service ‘reset’ includes removing ‘good employer’ requirements, enshrining ‘need, not race’

According to the legislation, to be a “good employer” is to have a policy “containing provisions generally accepted as necessary for the fair and proper treatment of employees in all aspects of their employment”.

These are listed as including “the impartial selection of suitably qualified people for appointment”, “good and safe working conditions”, and “an equal employment opportunities programme”.

It also mentions recognising the “employment requirements” of certain groups, like Māori, women, and people with disabilities. The need for “greater involvement of Māori in the public service” is also listed.

A similar section found in the Crown Entities Act would also be repealed if Act got its way after the November 7 election.

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.”

The party says these changes are an “immediate start”, but the problems with the public service legislation “go deeper”.

It is suggesting there could be a “future rewrite” or a “wider reset of the Public Service Act to ensure neutrality”.

The Herald asked Seymour how that desire for a neutral public service squared with Act’s policy to allow ministers to appoint chief executives and remove them for specified reasons, like non-performance or policy misalignment.

He said that in terms of political neutrality, a minister could “abuse that”, but they would “face a consequence” for doing so.

It was in a minister’s interest to “appoint someone that will be effective, just like another employer”, Seymour said.

“If you’re a minister appointing a chief executive and you appoint someone that you like, but is not good at the job, then you are going to very quickly get in trouble as a minister.”

However, when it came to “cultural and spiritual neutrality, right now there is no safeguard for a worker who wants to just go and do their job and not be forced to affirm beliefs or participate in rituals that they don’t actually want anything to do with”.

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.”

The party says these changes are an “immediate start”, but the problems with the public service legislation “go deeper”.

It is suggesting there could be a “future rewrite” or a “wider reset of the Public Service Act to ensure neutrality”.

The Herald asked Seymour how that desire for a neutral public service squared with Act’s policy to allow ministers to appoint chief executives and remove them for specified reasons, like non-performance or policy misalignment.

He said that in terms of political neutrality, a minister could “abuse that”, but they would “face a consequence” for doing so.

It was in a minister’s interest to “appoint someone that will be effective, just like another employer”, Seymour said.

“If you’re a minister appointing a chief executive and you appoint someone that you like, but is not good at the job, then you are going to very quickly get in trouble as a minister.”

However, when it came to “cultural and spiritual neutrality, right now there is no safeguard for a worker who wants to just go and do their job and not be forced to affirm beliefs or participate in rituals that they don’t actually want anything to do with”.

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EDITORIAL: The prime minister’s failure to recommend to the Governor-General, Dame Cindy Kiro, that she dismiss his foreign minister demonstrates that Christopher Luxon now holds his job in a de jure sense only.

With Winston Peters able to remove Mr Luxon from his job at any time, but Mr Luxon having proven himself unable or unwilling to assert authority in the other direction, the charade is unveiled: it is Mr Peters who is the de facto prime minister and controls the government, and may have done from the moment the coalition agreements were signed on November 24, 2023. Politically, Mr Luxon is completely impotent.

On several occasions since Wednesday, the prime minister has publicly described as racist his foreign minister’s comments about a Green Party backbencher, Lawrence Xu-Nan, a New Zealand citizen who has lived here since 1994 when he was eight years old.

Mr Peters said that Mr Xu-Nan had arrived in New Zealand “five minutes ago”. He told his fellow citizen and parliamentarian to “go back to your own country” by which he presumably meant the People’s Republic of China where Mr Xu-Nan was born. If so, according to our foreign minister, China, our largest export destination by far, is a country “where they lie like a flatfish”.

The comments have been criticised by the Chinese government, whose embassy in Wellington made a formal protest to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. They have also caused great offence to other New Zealand citizens and residents who were born in or are otherwise connected to China. More broadly, Mr Luxon’s judgment, that Mr Peters’ comments were “racist” and “offensive”, is likely shared by the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders.

But, in terms of Mr Luxon’s exercising his constitutional role as prime minister, that is ultimately irrelevant, one way or the other. What matters is that he, Mr Luxon, regards Mr Peters’ comments as racist, and that ministers serve only at his pleasure as prime minister, who alone decides whether or not their behaviour is compatible with holding a warrant.

Despite the political realities of our electoral system and the current coalition’s governing arrangements, it goes without saying - or ought to - that a foreign minister cannot retain that office if their prime minister believes their public statements to be racist. Most previous prime ministers would have likely judged that an MP they believe makes racist comments should not be part of the executive at all.

Mr Luxon has sought to differentiate Mr Peters’ roles as foreign minister and leader of another political party. That will not wash. It is not certain that Mr Peters was in fact speaking “only” as leader of NZ First, especially as the controversy escalated to involve a foreign government. In any case, the quasi-constitutional Cabinet Manual, which the prime minister and his Cabinet could have amended if they did not believe it describes the true constitutional position, makes clear that a minister is always a minister, regardless of what other hat they may simultaneously be wearing.

Lest Mr Luxon has forgotten the relevant section of his Cabinet Manual, it is 2.56:

“In all of these roles [ministerial, political and personal] and at all times, Ministers are expected to act lawfully and behave in a way that upholds, and is seen to uphold, the highest ethical and behavioural standards. This includes exercising a professional approach and good judgement in their interactions with the public, staff, and officials, and in all their communications, personal and professional. Ultimately, all Ministers are accountable to the Prime Minister for their behaviour.”

Mr Peters continuing to hold a ministerial warrant - let alone the one responsible for representing us internationally and to foreign representatives domestically - can only be interpreted politically as our prime minister believing that publicly making racist comments is compatible with serving in his Cabinet at his pleasure.

The Post has enough respect for Mr Luxon as a person to doubt that is truly his view, in which case he is obliged to make the necessary recommendation to Dame Cindy that she dismiss Mr Peters. Alternatively, if Mr Luxon will not fulfil even this most basic function of the prime ministership, the National Party caucus will need to impress on him his constitutional role as the ultimate standard-setter in government when it meets at 10 o’clock this morning.

Should it fail to, the National Party caucus collectively can only be assumed to believe that making comments that it believes to be racist about fellow parliamentarians and citizens - and those of our biggest economic partner - is acceptable behaviour for our country’s most senior leaders.

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The Post

https://deadline.com/2026/08/vincent-pastore-dead-the-sopranos-star-big-pussy-1237015282/

RIP Salvatore...just a fucking kid