Crown owned Airways New Zealand has spent nearly $35,000 on Rainbow accreditation, certification and related activities over three financial years, despite having no assessment to justify the expenditure.

Documents released to chrislynchmedia.com under the Official Information Act reveal the state owned enterprise spent $32,712 on Rainbow Tick and Pride Pledge programmes between the 2024 and 2026 financial years.

A further $2,200 was spent on sponsorship and Rainbow workplace events, bringing the total disclosed expenditure to $34,912.

The spending increased sharply in the latest financial year, with Airways paying $15,682 for Rainbow Tick and Pride Pledge, compared with $8,640 the previous year.

Airways said the increase was caused by overlapping costs as it moved from Rainbow Tick to Pride Pledge certification.

However, when questioned about who authorised the spending and what assessment had been undertaken to ensure taxpayers were getting value for money, Airways confirmed no formal business case or assessment had been completed.

Airways did not provide a specific assessment demonstrating the expenditure represented value for money.

The organisation said individual business units had discretion over spending decisions, while its executive leadership team and board were aware of the programmes.

Airways said it received no direction from the Government, ministers or Crown ownership monitoring agencies to participate in the accreditation schemes.

The organisation was asked to provide measurable evidence that paying external organisations for accreditation had improved recruitment, staff retention, employee wellbeing, productivity or overall performance.

It couldn’t, instead, Airways pointed to an increase in overall staff engagement relating to diversity, which rose from 74 percent to 79 percent over three years. It provided no evidence establishing that the increase was caused by Rainbow Tick accreditation.

“While we do not require candidates or employees to disclose whether they identify as Rainbow, we have received anecdotal feedback from candidates that our public support of Rainbow was a key factor in their application with Airways.”

The spending also included $1,000 sponsoring Lil Gay Out, which Airways said was aligned with its long term recruitment strategy.

Another $1,200 was spent on Rainbow Employee Led Network events at its Christchurch and Auckland offices.

Airways said the events were open to employees and had been well received. The organisation disclosed seven hours of Rainbow related meetings and events over the previous 12 months, involving a network of eight employees and an executive sponsor.

Airways defended the expenditure, arguing that external certification helped it attract workers in an industry facing a global shortage of air traffic controllers and qualified technicians.

It said accreditation offered independent benchmarking and helped identify improvements beyond existing employment policies.

Pride Pledge certification examines seven areas of workplace practice, including employee wellbeing, engagement and inclusion.

But when asked why Airways needed to pay external organisations rather than rely on its existing employment policies and management practices, the company maintained that accreditation provided additional benefits.