Sexual Harassment Review: September Update

September 2025 update - A message to all Corrections staff from Deputy Chief Executive (DCE) People & Capability Rebecca Powell

Kia ora koutou,

Welcome to my second update on our work to eliminate sexual harassment at Corrections. This mahi is deeply important, and creating a safe workplace is something we all have a role in shaping.

Change starts with us - in every moment, every interaction, and every choice. This principle underpins our approach, and we are laying the foundation for the culture we want to build together.

Our response is guided by four key shifts:

We have a range of work underway, aligned with each one of these shifts. To get a clear overview of what’s planned and already underway, I encourage you to check out Our Plan to Eliminate Sexual Harassment PDF, 514.2 KB.

This provides a strong snapshot of the work we’re developing and delivering. The plan has been designed by our working group, and we’ve shared it with our reference group and union partners from CANZ, PSA, NZNO and NUPE – and all of this input has helped us have confidence that our focus is on the right activities to lead to change.

Understanding and responding – your invitation to participate

One of the key insights from the Litmus review was that, as an organisation, we have a limited understanding of what sexual harassment is, the harm it causes, and how to recognise or respond to inappropriate behaviour. Many staff told us they’re unsure how to speak up safely or support others.

That’s why we’re prioritising education and awareness across our workforce.

We are now offering a 90-minute MS Teams workshop, delivered by our colleague Alice Best, called Understanding and Responding to Sexual Harassment. These sessions are open to all, and designed to help our people understand what sexual harassment is (and isn’t), its impact, how to raise concerns, how managers should respond, and what support is available. These sessions are a platform to build awareness and facilitate discussion, and we’ve received excellent feedback from almost 200 participants so far.

You’re invited to join any of the sessions, and I welcome your feedback to help us improve. Your feedback will help to inform the development of more formal training for our people which will help foster a safer and more inclusive workplace. Please speak with your people leader to find a time that works for you, your team, and your site.

Strengthening our systems

We know that education alone isn’t enough. To truly support our people, we need to ensure our systems and structures reflect our commitment to safety and respect. We are continuing with work to strengthen our policies and guidance. We’ll also be exploring what different complaint response and resolution models could look like, including who is best placed to ‘case manage’ complaints when they arise. We want to ensure staff feel as safe and supported as possible when raising concerns.

We are also taking steps to eliminate sexual harassment from the very beginning of the employee journey. This involves increasing the focus on sexual harassment in our Ara Tika induction for new starters, so that everyone joining our Corrections whānau understands our expectations, policies, and procedures from day one.

Engaging our people

Since my last update, we’ve met with our Sexual Harassment Reference Group. This is a network of over 50 staff from across the organisation who’ve expressed a strong interest in supporting this mahi. The group will provide a valuable space for the Working Group to test and refine ideas to ensure they will resonate with our people.

It was a great opportunity for me and members of the Working Group to introduce ourselves and share our key workstreams and outline how we’ll be engaging the Reference Group going forward.

On Tuesday of this week, I spoke to over 100 of our senior leaders about our plan to eliminate sexual harassment. My message to them was clear – our plan to eliminate sexual harassment will fail unless we are prepared to challenge inappropriate behaviour, intervene early, back our people when they speak up and model the standard. Our plan outlines a clear focus on supporting our leaders to do this confidently.

A shared responsibility

As I’ve said before, eliminating sexual harassment isn’t the responsibility of any one person — it’s up to all of us to create the workplaces and culture we want to be part of. For more information on how to report a concern or access support, please visit our Sexual Harassment Tātou page

If you haven’t already, I also want to encourage you to watch Jeremy’s statement on sexual harassment, where he sets his expectations as Chief Executive on sexual harassment in our workplaces.

There is much more work to do on our path to eliminating sexual harassment, and I’ll continue to keep you updated as this work progresses. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me directly. Your safety and wellbeing is my highest priority as we continue with this important work.