APIAPE: Agents of Private Interest, Architects of Public Erosion

Penny Simmonds: The Dismantler of Partnership

From SIT Leadership to National-Level Dismantling

An educator turned political operator — now overseeing the fragmentation of New Zealand’s coordinated vocational education system.

Current Portfolios

• Minister for the Environment
• Minister for Vocational Education
• Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment
• MP for Invercargill

Penny Simmonds is the quiet driver of loud change — a leader who frames policy dismantling as “resetting,” yet leaves communities and Treaty partnerships fractured in the process.

Her signature project, the disestablishment of Te Pūkenga, is not a measured reform. It is an ideological realignment — one that replaces coordinated delivery with fragmented regional boards and short-term corporate logic.

Simmonds’s rhetoric of “efficiency” and “decentralisation” hides what she truly delivers: a loss of unity, a weakening of Treaty promises, and a transition that prioritises cost-shifting over real educational partnership.

The Disestablishment of Te Pūkenga

Simmonds’s most visible act is the forced breakup of Te Pūkenga — the national institution designed to unify and coordinate vocational education across Aotearoa. Her bill to disestablish Te Pūkenga replaces it with a patchwork of regional polytechnics and short-lived industry skills boards. The stated goal? “Local responsiveness.” The real outcome? Fragmented oversight, weakened Treaty guarantees, and a transition phase that burdens learners, workers, and communities.

Simmonds justified this disestablishment by claiming Te Pūkenga was “drowning in debt of over $250 million,” calling it an “abject disaster” and a “financial mess.” However, Te Pūkenga’s own executives rejected this figure, saying the real debt for 2023 was only $48.7 million — with most of the “debt” Simmonds cited actually being internal transfers between Te Pūkenga’s own divisions¹. Labour’s associate education spokesperson Deborah Russell called Simmonds’s statements “misleading at best,” highlighting how she framed financial figures to justify an ideological dismantling¹.

This echoes a broader pattern: Simmonds downplays real viability challenges while exaggerating numbers that serve her agenda. Rather than address underlying issues transparently, she weaponises them as excuses for breaking apart coordinated systems — and selling the public narrative of “resetting” what is actually being eroded.

From Partnership to Performance: Undermining Treaty Obligations

Simmonds’s reforms erase explicit Treaty partnership obligations from successor bodies. Instead of binding partnership, she offers polite recognition — if it aligns with government-set targets. Māori rights become conditional, not foundational — to be respected only if they fit within performance metrics.

“She calls it ‘resetting’ — but it’s erasing Treaty partnership under a new name.”
— APIAPE, 2025

Privatisation in Legislative Clothing

The new industry skills boards (ISBs) championed by Simmonds have fee-setting powers, levy collection rights, and the authority to audit and enforce compliance — yet they are ungrounded in community representation. In this environment, vocational education is not a public good — it is a transaction. The risk? Private interests setting the terms while communities lose their voice.

Simmonds’s approach frames public education as an efficiency problem, not a cultural and community partnership — and that shift exposes learners to financial burdens and ideological capture.

Disability Cuts: The Same Logic of Neglect

Penny Simmonds’s approach is not isolated to education. In March 2024, as Minister for Disability Issues, she abruptly announced that respite care funding for families with disabled children would run out within days — claiming “the Government’s coffers are not an endless open pit,” ignoring the real impact on disabled families¹². She further justified the cuts by alleging that carers were misusing funds for “massages, overseas travel, pedicures, haircuts, for themselves” — remarks she dismissed as “absolute rubbish” when challenged by critics².

The backlash was immediate: a petition opposing the cuts gathered over 10,000 signatures in 24 hours, protests erupted across the country, and Finance Minister Nicola Willis was forced to step in to contain the fallout¹. Labour leader Chris Hipkins and the disabilities spokesperson Priyanca Radhakrishnan called the situation a “debacle” and demanded that Prime Minister Luxon remove Simmonds from Cabinet altogether, describing it as a “massive vote of no confidence” in her governance³.

On 24 April 2024, after weeks of growing outrage, Prime Minister Luxon removed Simmonds from the Disability Issues portfolio, though she remains Minister for Vocational Education and the Environment¹. Simmonds admitted her handling was “bungled” and apologised, but not before blaming everyone but herself — including Whaikaha, the previous government, and even the very carers who were losing funding³. Disability advocate Dr Amy Taylor called her comments “unacceptable,” saying, “Ms Simmonds did not show herself to be an ally for the disabled community”¹.

Luxon’s Cabinet directive to review any further disability funding changes shows that Simmonds’s erosion of trust and accountability had national consequences. Yet she remains in charge of vocational education and the environment, continuing the same logic of turning community care and partnership into a cost problem — not a social obligation.

“She calls it ‘fiscal responsibility’ — but it is a quiet violence against those who need care the most.”
— APIAPE, 2025

The Broader Agenda: Eroding Collective Responsibility

Penny Simmonds’s actions are not isolated tweaks. They are part of a coordinated political approach — dismantling community-based partnership and recasting it as compliance to ministerial logic. Her disestablishment of Te Pūkenga is not just about education — it is about changing who gets heard, who gets served, and who gets to decide.

“What Simmonds calls ‘decentralisation’ is in practice removing collective protections — leaving communities to bear the costs of her transitions.”
— APIAPE, 2025

What You Can Do

• Read the opposition to Simmonds’s bill — and see how it dismantles coordinated education and Treaty protections.
• Share this exposé: Penny Simmonds’s record of quiet erosion.
• Challenge the idea that “resetting” always means improvement — it often means removing your say and your protections.
• Refuse to be silenced by polite language. Question the motives behind every new “reform.”

References

🔙 Back to APIAPE Index