Source: PSA
Budget 2025: Nervous wait for thousands of public service workers
Cost to New Zealand women of pay equity betrayal to become clear
Embargoed 5am Wednesday 21 May 2025
Tomorrow’s Budget will lift the lid on how much further public services will be cut and expose the cost to underpaid women from the dismantling of the pay equity process.
“Public services including our cash strapped health system cannot afford to face further cuts and job losses,” said Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi National Secretary, Fleur Fitzsimons.
“More than 150,000 women have been denied the pay rise they deserve from this disappointing decision to gut our pay equity laws with no prior notice before the election or even a Select Committee process so that New Zealand women could have their say. Tomorrow’s Budget will make the scale of the cost to women clear.
“We sadly predict Government will be starving many public service agencies and our health system of funds, just as they did last year, and that means further damage to the services New Zealanders rely on.
“And we will see how the ‘billions of dollars’ set aside to fund pay equity settlements for underpaid women, will be freed up to fund the Government’s tax cuts for landlords and make the Budget numbers add up.
“This will be a mean and nasty Budget, built on taking money from care and support workers and others who had been expecting pay equity settlements before the goal posts were shifted, existing claims scrapped, all under urgency, and without a chance for their voice to be heard.
“We call on the Government to reverse all cuts to public services, fund our health system properly and put changes to pay equity laws through a proper select committee process.
“In health, the effective hiring freeze for clinical roles is putting patient care at risk, leaving health workers over worked, stressed and facing increasing risk from angry patients poorly served by the system.
“Every day we see the price New Zealanders and communities are paying for the Government’s short-sighted and rushed cuts to spending.
“Just look at last week’s damning report by the Auditor-General into Oranga Tamariki. Savings demanded by the Government meant the agency cut funding to hundreds of community service provider contracts, with little notice, without regard to the harm inflicted on the vulnerable children they support.
“We have a meth crisis in this country – the Government slashed resources for border protection, which has only made that problem far worse.
“New Zealanders can’t afford any further cuts to public services. Too much damage has already been done.”