NZTA boss tells staff ‘it could be a lot worse’

New Zealand Transport Agency/Waka Kotahi staff were told “it could be a lot worse”, during a video update on cost saving changes before Anzac Day.

Earlier in the week, it had been confirmed there would likely be “a number of job losses” as a result of NZTA’s reduced budget and new priorities.

Chief Executive Nicole Rosie delivered an update to staff last week in an 8-minute video, on “efficiency and effectiveness and GPS (government policy statement) before you go on Anzac leave”.

At the end of the video, Rosie tells staff, “look, it is a really busy time, there is a quite a stressful environment around us for a whole range of reasons and many people have been working extraordinarily hard over the first three months of the year”.

She encouraged staff to take a good break over Anzac and to enjoy time with family.

“Most of us in our family histories will have some connection with the world wars and those of us in Australia and New Zealand with the Anzacs. Take a moment to reflect.

“We are, may be in stressful times, but it could be a lot worse,” she said.

“And certainly for those men and women that were involved in those world wars, they had a pretty tough period that they worked hard for the country for, and I guess it’s our responsibility to take that hard work forward and to make a difference for the country.”

A NZTA spokesperson said “given the timing of the update to staff, the chief executive was simply referring to the sacrifices the Anzacs have made and the importance of remembering them”.

Earlier in the video, Rosie spoke about “change processes’’ under way in five NZTA groups and the three programmes of work that were already closed – Let’s Get Wellington Moving, Clean Car Discount and elements of the Climate Emergency Response Fund.

Rosie said it demonstrated “as an organisation, we’re not going to do a big bang, not all changes are going to happen at once”.

NZTA said it was were “unable to provide definitive figures on redundancies because the change processes have not concluded”.

In the video update, Rosie said they were scrutinising project costs and going “line by line” over some programmes.

“We’re looking very hard at travel. We’re clearly focused on consultant spend, we are reducing our reliance on contractors and have actually turned a number of contractors into fixed, we’re reviewing our vendor arrangements and renegotiating on a number of our established commercial relationships ...” she said.