What it does
The Government Sector Employment Act 2013 (GSE Act) is the foundational statute governing employment relationships across the NSW government sector. At its core it replaces the fragmented pre-2014 arrangements under the Public Sector Employment and Management Act 2002 with a single legislative envelope that applies to the Public Service, the Teaching Service, the NSW Police Force (administrative staff), the NSW Health Service, the Transport Service and prescribed Crown entities (s 3(1) definition of “government sector”).
The Act performs five interlocking functions. First, it imposes a statutory ethical framework (Part 2) comprising four equally weighted core values—integrity, trust, service and accountability—each supported by detailed principles (s 7). These values are not merely aspirational; the Public Service Commissioner is given an express function to promote and maintain them (s 8(1)), and a code of ethics and conduct adopted by Gazette order under s 8A(1) is mandatory for all government sector employees. Breach of the code can constitute misconduct for the purposes of s 69.
Second, the Act creates institutional machinery. It establishes the Public Service Commissioner (s 9) and the Public Service Commission Advisory Board (s 18). The Commissioner’s principal objectives (s 10, as substituted in 2024) now expressly include building public confidence and ensuring merit-based recruitment. The Commissioner’s general functions (s 11) extend to strategic workforce leadership, equity and diversity, ethical compliance and executive employment arrangements. The Commissioner may make government sector employment rules (s 12), issue binding directions to agency heads (s 13) and require reports and information (s 16). The Advisory Board sets the Commissioner’s general policies and strategic directions (s 19(1)(a)) and advises the Premier on government-sector performance (s 19(1)(b)).