Election asks: Community and public Services

We asked political parties about using community and public services to improve the lives of everyone in Aotearoa.

These are the questions we sent. When we get responses from the parties, we’ll add them to this page.

Will you…

Commit to not capping or cutting the numbers of workers in the public service?

Reform the research, science and innovation system to provide more stable funding for public good research, and less competition between Crown Research Institutes?

Support the implementation of Te Mauri o Rongo – the health charter?

Treat home-based care and support as a core part of our public service provision that is delivered publicly not privately?

Introduce universal free primary health care, including dental?

Make public transport free?

Assess the impact of the budget on people’s wellbeing as well as on the government’s books?

How will you…

Reduce the reliance on contractors and consultants in the public service and build public service capability to do that work?

Ensure safe staffing in the health sector?

The results are in

Here's what the parties had to say

Question	Greens	Labour	National	Act	Te Pati Maori
Reduce the reliance on contractors and consultants in the public service and build public service capability to do that work?	We will introduce standardised career progression, pay, community secondment opportunities, and training across the public sector to improve staff retention and skills development, and ensure equal pay for equivalent roles. We will improve training in te Tiriti o Waitangi and te reo Māori for all public servants.	Our public service is respected around the world. Its people are motivated by a strong spirit of service to New Zealand. When we became Government, we removed the cap on core public service numbers so that the public service could re-build their in-house capability and invest in permanent and long term staff, rather than spend millions on temporary contractors enable more in-housing of services. We’re committed to returning contractors to pre-COVID-19 levels. We will continue to fund our public sector properly to support that to happen, now that we’re past the temporary increase in contractor and consultant expenditure during COVID-19, with vaccinators and care in the community providers.	National will reduce reliance on contractors and consultants in the public service - saving $400 million per year. We will stop enacting costly and unnecessary restructures and mergers within the public service and will reduce the number of government working groups and task forces. National will ensure that funding and resources are prioritised towards the frontline where it will have the most impact for New Zealanders.
Will you commit to not capping or cutting the numbers of workers in the public services?	Yes	Yes	No. National will continue to support our frontline public service workforce and will focus the public service on delivering measurable outcomes for New Zealanders on the frontline.	No
Will you reform the research, science and innovation system to provide more stable funding for public good research, and less competition between Crown Research Institutes?	Yes	Yes	National has already committed to modernising regulation of biotech solutions by ending the effective ban on genetic editing and GM. We expect to see better co-operation between CRIs and Universities and to put New Zealand’s interests first in decision making.
Will you treat home-based care and support as a core part of our public service provision that is delivered publicly not privately?	Yes	No	National will deliver health with public and private providers where health outcomes can be achieved alongside efficient use of taxpayer funds.
Introduce universal free primary health care, including dental?	Yes	Free dental for people under 35	No	No
Will you make public transport free	Yes	No	No. National will not make public transport free, however, will retain subsidies to regional councils to operate public transport networks. Public Transport subsidies for Gold Card holders will remain unaffected Regional Councils operating public transport services will continue to be supported to provide concessions for students and young people, consistent with public transport subsidies prior to recent changes in Budget 23.	No
Assess the impact of the budget on people’s wellbeing as well as on the government’s books?	Yes	Yes	Yes. Assessing initiatives based on the impact they will have on New Zealanders has been, and will continue to be, standard practice for all governments.
Support the implementation of Te Mauri o Rongo – the health charter?	Yes	Yes	National supports a health charter that has the goal of timely access to quality care underpinned by the principle of distributing health resources based firstly on health need.
Ensure safe staffing in the health sector?	Yes A strong health system depends on the wellbeing of its healthcare workers. Our vision is of a diverse, sufficient, resilient and collaborative health workforce which is supported to meet patient needs, with appropriate training, skills and expertise. We will: • Ensure that the workforce is properly valued and supported to stay in the job, including Māori who provide essential care for whānau, hapū and iwi • Ensure all healthcare workers have fair wages, and workload and conditions that support their wellbeing and the quality of care of their patients • Increase entrants into health professions, the retention of practitioners in the workforce, and placements for on-the-job learning	Yes Significant progress has already been made to improve our health workforce recruitment and retention over the past year, including 8,000 Nurses registering for the first time in 22/23, increasing medical student places and significant pay rises for Nurses and healthcare assistants. We’ve also changed immigration rules to make New Zealand one of the easiest places in the world for health workers to come to and gain residence. The Te Whatu Ora workforce plan emphasised the need to reduce our reliance on the global market and focus on the domestic and rural pipeline. Progress will take time but we are laying the foundations for change in safe staffing.	Increasing the health workforce through recruitment and retention will be priorities for National. We will deliver more nurses and midwives through more competitive immigration settings and paying up to $22,500 of nursing graduates’ student loans in return for working in New Zealand for 5 years. We will also build a third medical school in Waikato and increase training places at Auckland and Otago medical school.