• Posted on: 19/12/2023
  • 2 minutes to read

The Ministry of Works (MoW) was a stronghold of PSA membership until it was disestablished in 1988.

For more than a century, public servants working for the MoW and its predecessors provided the technical expertise and labour to build most of New Zealand’s public infrastructure – roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, and state housing.

Now an updated MoW – a Ministry of Green Works – is being proposed to address our housing and infrastructure delivery issues. A remit supporting the proposal was passed at the recent Council of Trade Unions biennial conference.

The Ministry of Green Works idea was first floated in October 2021 in a FIRST Union proposal, which attempting to address four interlinked problems:

  1. The capacity of the private sector to deliver housing (especially public housing) at scale is inherently limited by the profit motive.

  2. Contracting out hasn’t been as accountable, efficient, and innovative as promised, and has drained capacity from the public sector while generating other risks, especially in health and safety.

  3. Public sector retreat from the construction, and wood and forestry sectors has dragged working conditions backwards, creating persistent labour and skills shortages, as well as limited security of tenure and high worker turnover.

  4. Greater public sector coordination is required to tackle climate change and ensure that new housing and infrastructure help reduce long-term emissions.

The proposed ministry would have construction, design and oversight arms to develop public housing and green infrastructure. It would develop public sector capacity by progressively “in-sourcing” activities that are currently outsourced to the private sector, embedding social and environmental protections at the same time.

There are a number of PSA members working in this space who have significant expertise and experience. A survey of members working at agencies such as MBIE, Kainga Ora, Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MHUD) and Waka Kotahi showed support for the idea but uncertainty about how such as organisation might work.

Consideration needs to be given to whether “green infrastructure” work would be better performed by existing agencies (like Kainga Ora or Rau Paenga), or whether other structures (like a Crown Entity or an interdepartmental collaboration) makes more sense.

There’s also the question of what this organisation would need to do that Rau Paenga (our new national infrastructure delivery agency), or the infrastructure agency the new government campaigned on establishing, won’t do.

Workers’ voices can help answer these questions - that includes workers in the public sector, and in the largely un-unionised construction and forestry sectors and other parts of the supply chain.

Keep an eye on PSA News for opportunities to contribute your ideas in coming months. And if you have a view, let us know your thoughts at communications@psa.org.nz.

This is an opinion piece and the views expressed in it do not necessarily reflect the views of the PSA.