Policy Quarterly

Call for Papers. Addressing Capability Challenges in Public Management

2024-08-15T22:15:36+00:00

Policy Quarterly is pleased to announce a call for papers for a special issue entitled ‘Addressing Capability Challenges in Public Management’. The New Zealand public sector faces challenges that are common internationally: rising demand, limited resources, and growing complexity in a more volatile, challenging and uncertain world, as well as polarisation in broader society. It also has some unique characteristics, including the contested role of the Treaty of Waitangi, a reset after a post-Covid 19-induced spending boom and a recent change in government.

Democracy and te Tiriti

2024-08-15T22:25:08+00:00

Ko te wai e hora rā, ko Raukawa-moana. Ko te marae e takoto rā, ko te Whare Pī. Ko koutou āku rangatira kua pae nei i te pō nei, tēna
koutou, tënä koutou, tēnā tātou katoa. My thanks to the School of Government for their very kind invitation. I guess I ought to feel at home here in the shadow of Parliament, because, as they say, in politics it’s dog eat dog, whereas in academia it’s precisely the reverse. It’s a good recipe for humility, in any case.

In this lecture in honour of Sir Frank Holmes, with his exceptional contributions to both academia and politics, I’d like to offer some thoughts, well researched I hope. It’s not a matter of ‘laying down the law’, but of sharing ideas about matters of national importance.

Revitalising New Zealand’s Democracy From the Bottom Up

2024-08-15T22:56:22+00:00

Established democracies across the world, with few exceptions, are grappling with the issues of growing distrust in public institutions and declining democratic participation. Governments have responded in multiple ways: by, for example, implementing strategies to address regional social and economic disadvantage, such as the United Kingdom’s levelling up programme, and reforming electoral systems to address perceived unfairness, such as limits on political donations. There has, however, been little attention given to the role that local government plays, or could play, in a strong and resilient democracy. Councils play at least three major roles: namely, promoting active citizenship, building social cohesion, and strengthening community voice and choice. This article examines the first of those roles, promoting active citizenship, and sets out the reasons why it needs to be a priority for New Zealand councils.

Eroding Trust: how democratic deficits have undermined the public’s confidence

2024-08-15T22:31:53+00:00

While political trust has declined in democracies the world over for several decades, New Zealand historically defied this trend. However, since 2021, New Zealand’s political trust has also been on the decline. According to the Acumen Edelman Trust Barometer 2024, it now sits below the global average. This article explores the decline in political trust in New Zealand and argues that placing limits on the use of parliamentary urgency is one action we can take to rebuild it. Constraining the use of urgency will not fix our trust problem outright, but it constitutes a good place to start.

Reviving the Proposal For a Parliamentary Budget Officer

2024-08-15T22:34:26+00:00

The 2019 proposal that New Zealand create a parliamentary budget officer should be revived, but with certain changes. First, the parliamentary budget officer should not be asked to estimate the cost of political parties’ electoral platforms, since that is not a proper function of an officer of Parliament, and the political sensitivity and resource intensiveness of such costings could interfere with the officer’s ability to help Parliament hold the executive to account. Second, the parliamentary budget officer should have a broader scope to comment on public finances than was envisaged in 2019. Third, the creation of a parliamentary budget officer should be accompanied by consideration of other ways of strengthening Parliament’s effectiveness in scrutinising public finances, such as having a member of the opposition chair the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

Fiscal Accountability to te Tiriti o Waitangi

2024-08-15T22:21:15+00:00

This article investigates possible models for strengthening fiscal accountability to te Tiriti o Waitangi. We utilise the spheres of influence framework set out by Matike Mai Aotearoa (2016), with a rangatiratanga sphere, a kāwanatanga sphere and a relational sphere. We outline tax-like practices in the rangatiratanga sphere and how the kāwanatanga sphere resources itself. We then explore expectations and protocols for accountability within the respective spheres, before proposing three possible models to strengthen fiscal accountability in line with te Tiriti o Waitangi. These models include a Māori tax commissioner, a Waitangi Tribunal kaupapa inquiry into or including fiscal authority, and an independent Māori tax authority.

Assessing The Potential for School Lunch Programme Ka Ora, Ka Ako to Enhance Education, Sustainability and Health Goals

2024-08-15T22:57:58+00:00

The Ka Ora, Ka Ako school lunch programme introduced in 2020 provides nutritious lunches to around 220,000 students in low-advantage schools. While the food security impacts of this programme have been well documented, its potential to enhance outcomes in other areas of public policy is underappreciated. We conducted a policy analysis to map the programme’s intersection with current public policy agendas in education, sustainability and health in Aotearoa New Zealand. We conclude that Ka Ora, Ka Ako can be a powerful platform to effect broad societal outcomes through alignment with school curricula, concerted effort to reduce
carbon emissions, and commitment to delivering highly nutritious foods to all students in qualifying schools.

Creating Flood Disasters

2024-08-15T23:02:41+00:00

Using a three-part framework to evaluate choices for adjusting to floods in New Zealand, factors influencing floodplain policies and practices since 1950 are identified. Each change came after severe regional flooding. Early emphasis was on enlarging channels and raising stopbanks, and on post-disaster relief. These responses enhanced urban floodplain development, and disasters when systems failed. Periodically, attempts to improve land use planning and building management, including requirements for flood hazard maps, met stiff resistance from developers, property owners and growth-oriented local politicians, resulting in changed legislation. Policy and practice thereby oscillated several times in response to prescriptive/coercive and devolved/co-operative mandates. Underpinning all has been poor understanding of flood frequency statements on the part of at-risk people.

Navigating Choppy Waters: why are we always arguing about risk and uncertainty in marine multi-use environments and what can we do about it?

2024-08-15T22:45:31+00:00

Arguments about risk and uncertainty are prevalent in marine decision making. Different, often invisible, starting positions of those involved – regarding world views, academic disciplines and positionality – are often responsible. Broadly agreed collective outcomes depend on uncovering these influences. In this article we prioritise navigating multiplicity and plurality rather than constraining them. An iterative cycle of reflection and an openness to make changes are central. However, such a cycle must consider how risk assessment tools open or close possible futures, how evidence is best presented to decision makers, and how mātauranga
Māori is reshaping risk perceptions and is the decisive intervention in creating improved decision-making spaces.

Automated Traffic Congestion Charging Systems

2024-08-15T22:41:28+00:00

New Zealand is considering implementing congestion-charging technologies to improve traffic flows and reduce emissions in city centres. This article reviews current congestion-charging technologies against New Zealand’s Privacy Act 2020 and identifies varying privacy risks with these technologies. In particular, using global navigation satellite (GNS) systems and an on-board unit can pose a risk of collecting data that exceeds congestion management requirements. Additional issues arise from data processing for purposes other than congestion charging. Overall, the findings indicate the need for stricter control over who can process what type of personal data and the use and retention of such data.

Evidence-based Policy: Reinventing the Wheel

2024-08-15T22:06:53+00:00

The phrase ‘reinventing the wheel’ is used to suggest someone is wasting time inventing something that has already been discovered, but perhaps sometimes there can be value in reinventing things. Ironically, the wheel is the perfect example of this – there are many forms of wheel and continuing innovations in its design. I have personal experience as a road cyclist and see the significant difference between a standard road bike wheel and a modern carbon wheel, which is lighter and can be shaped to be more aerodynamic.

Review of Policy Quarterly

2024-08-15T23:10:56+00:00

Policy Quarterly was first published in 2005 by the Institute of Policy Studies to inform policy debate in New Zealand; to engage readers with a style that was lively, well-argued and readable, and to showcase some of the interesting thinking in Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Government and its associated research centres. From 2012 the Institute of Policy Studies became the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies (IGPS), with it and Policy Quarterly largely funded by an endowment.