Māori Crown capability
The 2025 Public Service Census found that public servants are building their capability to engage with Māori and are being supported by their organisations to do so. Most public servants (77%) understood how their organisation’s Te Tiriti o Waitangi | Treaty of Waitangi responsibilities apply to its work, up from 69% in 2021.
Many public servants (62%) were confident they could identify aspects of their organisation’s work that may disadvantage Māori. Although not all roles in the Public Service have a community engagement focus, 71% of respondents said they were encouraged and supported to engage with Māori to ensure Māori views and perspectives are considered, a higher proportion than in 2021 (65%).
Te reo Māori
In the 2025 Public Service Census, two-thirds of people (66%) said staff at their organisation are encouraged to use te reo Māori, almost unchanged from 2021 (65%). A similar number (64%) also said they were supported to improve their te reo Māori through on-the-job learning or in-house courses in 2025, up from 59% in 2021.
Among public servants, self-reported te reo Māori speaking proficiency is higher than in the general population: 11.8% of public servants can speak the language at least fairly well (up from 9.5% in 2021). This compares to 6.2% in the general population, according to the 2023 General Social Survey.
The proportion of public servants who can speak te reo Māori well or very well (can talk about many things or almost anything) increased in 2025 to 3.4%, up from 2.3% in 2021. Similarly there was an increase in the proportion of public servants who can speak te reo Māori fairly well (can talk about some things), 8.5% up from 7.2% in 2021. Still, most people who responded to the survey either can say no more than a few words or phrases (47.9%) or can only speak about basic things (40.2%).