The vital work of members during the pandemic was highlighted in the PSA’s evidence to the Royal
Commission into the Covid-19 response.
The extraordinary work of PSA members saved lives, ensured vital services continued, and was essential
to New Zealand’s response, which protected health, society and the economy.
Capacity of community and public services vital
The pandemic response would not have been successful without the capacity of our public and
community services. Building on this expertise and experience will be vital in dealing with other emergencies, such as the increasing number of severe weather events.
During the pandemic, some services, such as testing and vaccine delivery, had to scale up in an unprecedented way. Testing and vaccinating were supported behind the scenes by workers developing new systems, engaging with the public, managing logistics and supply chains, running training, and working on modelling, health and safety, and policy development.
Some of our members had to quickly change processes. The pandemic response would not have been possible without Ministry of Social Development workers, as one example, quickly pushing through new policies to ensure New Zealanders received financial assistance during lockdowns.
Other members ensured that essential services continued, from health care and home support, to rubbish collection.
Staying in touch with communities
Our evidence highlighted the importance of functions written off by the Government as “back office”
were essential to the COVID response, such as communications. The Unite Against COVID-19 campaign, which relied on communications capacity across public services, was a key plank in the response.
Our evidence noted that while the pandemic response, including communications, was strong, it was unequal. Staff within agencies with expertise in communicating with different population groups, such as Māori, Pacific Peoples and Disabled people should have been listened to more. The COVID-19 response highlighted the importance of the public service having the ability to engage and communicate with all communities in New Zealand.
Government departments such as Te Puni Kōkiri and the population-based agencies, including the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the Ministry for Women and the Ministry for Pacific Peoples have close relationships with communities. Their expertise building community engagement with public services is essential for effective emergency responses. As smaller agencies, their ability to deliver will be disproportionally impaired by public service cuts.
It is a backward step that Te Aka Whai Ora, set up to address health inequities, has already been
disestablished. Te Aka Whai Ora and a national health service (Te Whatu Ora) could have overcome
some of the hurdles experienced operating across multiple DHB decision making processes, had they
been in existence at the time of the pandemic.
Learning from experience
The pandemic response was built on previous experience dealing with events such as the Canterbury
and Kaikoura earthquakes and its lessons will inform future emergency responses. The capability that underpinned the pandemic response needs to be invested in, not cut, at a time of increased likelihood of further pandemics and the growing need to respond to adverse weather events.
New Zealand’s increased exposure to storms, high winds and floods is illustrated by the statistics for declared state of emergencies over the past two decades. In 2003, and again in 2013, there was one declared state of emergency. In 2023 there were 18.
The value of well-funded public and community services
Not only are the effects of climate change going to get worse, New Zealand is prone to natural hazards like earthquakes and tsunami. Increased travel, urbanisation, and climate change make global pandemics more likely. Our evidence highlighted the value of well-resourced public and community services to help our nation respond effectively to these massively disruptive events.
The PSA's evidence to the Royal Commission was given on 28 February 2024 by Kerry Davies, National Secretary, Janice Panoho, Kaihautū, and Tracy Klenner, who had taken a lead in organising our response.
