Written By:
- Date published:
1:29 pm, March 24th, 2026 - 30 comments
Categories: act, Brooke van Velden, david seymour -
Tags: covid-19, NZCTU, pay equity repeal, Road cone hotline, Union busting, Workplace Safety
“I’d be happy to tell you what I meant, Jack”
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister, plus Deputy Leader of the libertarian ACT Party was on Q&A with Jack Tame when asked about her now infamous statement that she felt NZ put “too high a value on human life” during Covid.
Her answer reflected the media training she has received, stalling for time even as she appeared to reconfirm that in essence, she felt NZ had put too high a value on human life.
van Velden’s attitude to “life” ultimately followed her into the significant portfolios her mentor and friend David Seymour attained for her in the right wing Coalition government: Workplace Relations and Safety & Internal Affairs.
In her portfolio, she ignored significant risks to worker safety and lives brought about by deadly silicosis particles faced by tradies, By the time van Velden was in government, Australia had banned the product and talked about it for months. In early 2024, in a live interview, van Velden claimed that she had just learned of the issue and “needed time” to investigate it. She also pleaded that it was important to care about employers and worker safety was important because, well employers needed them!
As of today – 2 years later, with her resignation announced, van Velden has not moved on the silicosis issue in any meaningful way apart from committees.
Her lack of empathy with workers was also made clear by ACT taking credit for van Velden being the brains behind the Coalition’s pay equity repeal stunt, which the government kept secret for well over a year while plotting it in the background and refusing to issue a standard Regulatory Impact Statement on the issue (a substantive component of any legislation in New Zealand). They also redacted all human rights impacts, and passed the law under urgency within a couple of days from the announcement, stunning applicants, many of whom were at the end of a years long, painstaking process.
National, NZ First and ACT’s pay equity repeal impacted hundreds of thousands of Kiwis, primarily women in often lower-paid roles. They canceled 33 active pay equity claims in progress, affecting teachers, support staff, nurses, hospice workers, cleaners & caregivers – and leading to warnings about hospice care breakdowns, as well as losing professional skilled staff to Australia.
Today, in her resignation announcement, van Velden remained defiant. When asked if she had any regrets about her role in pay equity, the Workplace Minister said:
“I don’t linger on bad emotions, I believe that leads to a miserable life.”
That says it all.
But van Velden will also be remembered for diverting already understaffed Worksafe resources from workplace health and safety to manning a much panned road cone hotline that cost $150,000 for 6 months and appeared to fail in extraordinary fashion as the government finally conceded it would be discontinued. The cost of removing one road cone under ACT’s plan was $750 according to the Green Party but van Velden defended that as money well spent.
She was also a stand out in refusing to meet with unions, and extraordinarily only agreeing to engage with business groups, breaking a years long tradition of Workplace Ministers liaising with NZCTU.
History will judge van Velden on her merits, and for now she leaves with a view to a more lucrative role in the private sector, having learned her skills and speech patterns from right wing lobbyist David Seymour, having engaged in a professional relationship with him since the age of 22.
Ciao and I think I speak for many of us in saying, we won’t miss having van Velden in charge of anything at all.
She and her pink suit will merge invisibly with the blancmange world of Atlasian misinformation. She'll swim, like a pink shark, below the surface, taking the legs of hapless swimmers as is her style.
Gone, but not forgiven.
Is Ms van Velden reading the tea leaves and seeing a multi-term sojourn in Opposition in six months as a distinct possibility? Be interesting to see how many others want 'to spend more time with their families' or 'pursue other opportunities'.
Regrettably in this world she is on her way to upward accelerated glory.
Hopefully in some other part of the Atlasphere, a long way away from these shores.
As being more inHuman AI than ChatGPT? Locked in. Its the eyes. Such a giveaway…
Good riddance BrookGPT
Tens of thousands of workers lives blighted. Job done!
Ruth Richardson would be proud.
http://en.people.cn/n3/2022/0331/c90000-10078380.html
Interesting the decision came very soon after the fallout from the pay equity debacle.
She was deservedly rounded on by the media and her parliamentary colleagues for the deceitful subterfuge, the grotesque dismissal of collaboration and compromise, and the robotic stonewalling. Especially critical were women, van Velden infamously referred to as a c**t in an opinion piece. Un-redacted at that.
The weight of realising that most of the country thinks you are pretty evil must take its toll. It must also have dawned on her that ACTs supposed business-friendly, anti-worker policies are in fact taking the economy and country backwards, and the voters know it.
Combining these, she must have concluded she and her ideology are just not very good for people and politics.
There's no way a politician gives up all the power and the glory of such a high position so early to toil away in some run of the mill private sector role without there having been some serious misgivings about what it is she has to offer.
If that's the case it's perhaps the first time she's ever been honest.
A few months ago those of us that live in Tamaki electorate were surveyed by ACT, fishing for talking points. There were some more open questions though, and I wonder if there was negative feedback re BVV. I know she doesn't reply to emails.
Can say alot of things about her, but from a political viewpoint she's been a very effective politician… nicked a safe national seat and in one term in govt pushed through more legislation in favour of her funders and voters than plenty of career politicians manage.
Be nice if we had a few more on the left that were as brutally effecient.
Not sure that "nice" and "brutally efficient" go well together.
"Cleanly effective", perhaps?
She leaves a bitter legacy. Not just Pay Equity, but also employment law changes which consigns contractors to the boss's will forever, enables fire at will, and punishes workers for their "behaviour" in a personal grievance. Right now, in select committee, hearings on her Health & Safety Bill are beginning tomorrow. I'm told the two women from Pike River (Sonya and Anna) are submitting at 9.45 and have been given 10 minutes. 10 fucking minutes for 29 lives. Coming up her holidays act changes ; which will disadvantage thousands.
Spray and walk away.
Undoing the changes by her as Minister would have to be a vote winner.
Maybe she is fleeing the scene?
Then onto Industry Awards, FPA.
Maybe a nice, handsomely remunerated talking head job in a right-wing junktank? Though preferably something a bit classier than Jordan Williams' dodgy little outfit. Causing human suffering at a distance is much less discomforting than doing it up close.
"talking head job" – sums her up nicely.
Ciao??
ciao, arrivederci
She said she would be back… sadly. Possibly as a Nat!!
"Her answer reflected the media training she has received, stalling for time…"
I disagree. Her answer reflected exactly what she said: “I’d be happy to tell you what I meant…"
We may not like the fact that she thinks the govt's Covid response put too high a value on human life (and I don't, and wouldn't vote for her), but it's just a fact that some government agencies have to put a value on a statistical human life and if they were to bloviate stuff like "The value of a single human life is infinity dollars!", a sensible govt would sack the staff of that agency and replace them with people who have at least some grip on reality.
Which means there's a legitimate political disagreement to be had about the value whoever's in power places on saving a statistical life when deciding on a pandemic response. If van Velden had been of the opinion that the Ardern govt had undervalued a statistical life, there'd be a lot less outrage but her dispute with government policy would effectively be the same: a dispute over valuations. The bottom line is that people who don't feel capable of prioritising the national interest in decision-making about such valuations shouldn't seek national political office.
This must be the most perfect example of a straw man argument I've ever seen on this forum. Invent something your opponent never said in order to defend your ally.
In this case your opponent is the progressive left and the ally you defend is Brooke van Velden.
We see you.
You're NZ's version of John Fetterman, the Democrat congressman who after a brain injury began voting alongside Republicans.
How is it a straw man? Some agencies have to put a dollar value on human life and that dollar amount can therefore be disputed. If van Velden arguing the amount was estimated too high is portrayed as inherently an evil thing to say, that's an implied argument that there's no such thing as "too high."
As a matter of political marketing, a politician whose message is "The problem with the previous government is that it put too high a value on human life" is spectacularly bad at politics and she's probably well advised to quit. I've mocked ACT for it myself. But what's good or bad in terms of political marketing isn't the same thing as good or bad in a moral sense. Her trashing the pay equity claims process was the real moral failure.
For a great discussion on the value of human life, watch Michael Keaton in Worth.
From IMDB
"Following the horrific 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Congress appoints attorney and renowned mediator Kenneth Feinberg (Michael Keaton) to lead the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Assigned with allocating financial resources to the victims of the tragedy, Feinberg and his firm's head of operations, Camille Biros (Amy Ryan), face the impossible task of determining the worth of a life to help the families who had suffered incalculable losses. When Feinberg locks horns with Charles Wolf (Stanley Tucci), a community organizer mourning the death of his wife, his initial cynicism turns to compassion as he begins to learn the true human costs of the tragedy."
Sure it gets a bit shmultzy in way the American movies do, but the premise is fascinating.
please post the link
Worth
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8009744/?ref_=fn_i_1
The best comment I have seen was to the effect that ironically in the "private sector" she will be almost certainly paid less than her male counterparts… 🤗
However, that wee joyful thought doesn't lessen my contempt for her lack of empathy, lack of ability, total focus on destroying as many people's equitable work & safety environments & ability to earn, etc etc. Some people have redeeming qualities but if she has them they are well hidden so I have to assume she is either ashamed of any human feelings or else doesn't have them 🤷
According to UK author B S Johnson (writing in 1973), a human body could be valued at £1.30, based on "the commercial value of the chemicals contained therein". I'd be interested to learn how this compares with BVV's computation – allowing of course for 50-odd years of inflation.
Our Deputy PM will miss van Velden, but opinions are divided.
Still, Brooke's not finished yet.
https://thestandard.nz/ciao-brooke-van-velden/#comment-2058887
Working people who are even more expendable at the hands of parasites like Van Velden will wait and see who is appointed the next Minister of Labour in either of the two neoliberal led governments after November 7th.
" Her departure marks the end of a ministerial career defined less by service to ordinary people than by a consistent commitment to policies that weakened the position of the working class while strengthening the hand of corporate interests. In a political moment where inequality is deepening and wages continue to stagnate, van Velden’s legacy is not one that will be fondly remembered by those who bore the brunt of her decisions "
" In many ways, van Velden’s departure is symbolic of a deeper political shift. The old neoliberal certainties that once dominated New Zealand politics are losing their grip. People are increasingly aware that decades of market-driven reforms have not delivered the prosperity they were promised. Wages have stagnated, housing has become unaffordable, and inequality has widened. Against this backdrop, a minister whose signature achievements involved making life harder for workers was never going to be celebrated "
https://nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com/2026/03/workers-wont-miss-brooke-van-velden.html