Listen Now: 
Download AudioThe Public Service Association’s kaihautu says she’s disappointed with the way some state sector heads have embraced the Government’s anti-Māori agenda.
Janice Panoho says so many specialist Maori roles have been stripped, there are concerns about how agencies will get advice in future – and where those people will find another job.
A wide range of programmes and servics have been axed as departments struggle to meet Finance Minister Nicola Willis’s cost savings targets.
Ms Panoho says relationships developed over years, including those that helped the public service respond effectively to Covid, have been torn up by chief executives of departments and agencies keen to get on the right side of their ministers.
“They’ve had no instructions from ministers to do this but they’ve take it upon themselves to make these cuts. We have to question what is that and they said ‘we need to play our part,’ and I’m thinking ‘you have not been given a directive to do this and you have chosen to do this,'” she says.
Ms Panoho says.
RELATED NEWS
