PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons called the spend a \u201ctotal waste of taxpayers\u2019 money\u201d and said the Government agency should apologise.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should never have come to this. MBIE should have listened to the union from the very beginning instead of stonewalling for nine months and dragging workers through three rounds of failed mediation,\u201d Fitzsimons said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a time when the public service is facing cuts and job losses, burning through six figures on a losing legal battle against your own workers is deeply irresponsible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Fitzsimons signalled this may not be the end of things: \u201cMBIE\u2019s replacement policy still doesn\u2019t comply with the collective agreement. We won\u2019t hesitate to go back to the ERA if they don\u2019t get it right\u201d.<\/p>\n
In response to questions from Newstalk ZB, chief people officer Jennifer Nathan said the agency \u201ctakes its responsibilities to staff and to the careful use of public money seriously\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nathan explained MBIE engaged \u201cextensively\u201d with the PSA union about their concerns, including through three rounds of mediation, but issues \u201ccould not be resolved\u201d.<\/p>\n
She added the union initiated proceedings through the ERA, which MBIE engaged with.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlongside this, MBIE remained committed to finding a resolution and subsequently undertook full consultation on a new Flexible Working Policy and Procedures,\u201d Nathan said.<\/p>\n
A new flexible working policy came into force on March 30 this year \u2013 replacing the prior policy which prompted the legal tension.<\/p>\n
Nathan said once the working from home policy had been replaced, MBIE \u201cdecided to bring the Authority proceedings to an end rather than continue litigation about a policy that was no longer in place\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said MBIE\u2019s focus remains on ensuring the updated flexible working policy is applied fairly, consistently, and in good faith across the agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cMBIE is confident that the March 2026 policy reaches the balance of providing a Flexible by Default environment, while still meeting MBIE\u2019s organisational needs and the Public Service Commission guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The proactively-released costings confirm the Government agency sourced legal representation externally, while also consulting MBIE\u2019s legal, ethics, and privacy team.<\/p>\n
The cost does not include internal MBIE staff time spent on the legal fight.<\/p>\n
Confirmation of the spend comes during another wider period of change in the public sector, expected to cut further jobs.<\/p>\n
The Government is expecting to save $2.4 billion in a public sector overhaul, which will cut about 8700 jobs.<\/p>\n
Public servants are also being increasingly asked to use artificial intelligence in their work, in what the Government has suggested will find efficiencies.<\/p>\n
Public Service Minister Paul Goldsmith has since confirmed all public agencies are expected to reduce their number of roles by 4%. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat of course means that the larger agencies will bear the largest share,\u201d Goldsmith said in Parliament.<\/p>\n
Azaria Howell is a multimedia reporter working from Parliament\u2019s press gallery. She joined NZME in 2022 and became a Newstalk ZB political reporter in late 2024, with a keen interest in public service agency reform and government spending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons called the spend a \u201ctotal waste of taxpayers\u2019 money\u201d and said the Government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[114305,26696,52687,3110,115,802,1403,9475,71,266,42,1345,13025,19136,6712,83832,130,43,90,1523,7254,5679,3109,42877,2552,148268,14040,131,40,38,41,39,4483,14638,19135],"class_list":["post-443360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-100k","tag-agencies","tag-apologise","tag-association","tag-calls","tag-costs","tag-defence","tag-flexible","tag-from","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-home","tag-irresponsible","tag-largest","tag-legal","tag-mbie","tag-more","tag-news","tag-on","tag-over","tag-policy","tag-psa","tag-public","tag-relating","tag-service","tag-sixfigure","tag-spend","tag-than","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-union","tag-wants","tag-working"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}