The Free and Frank Series: Mapping What People Think Without Telling Them What to Think
16/05/2026
The Problem This is the nineteenth instalment in a series exploring what free and frank advice means in Aotearoa. Last week, I explained why studying a concept that no one has defined requires an interpretive approach, and why that approach needed to be extended through Ata to accommodate the constitutional plurality that Te Tiriti o...
Article: Polyanna policy: Is NZ’s framework for AI use in government overly optimistic?
12/05/2026
Barb Allen, Head of School, School of Government, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, and I argue in a piece for The Conversation that while the Public Service AI Framework names the right principles, it probably leans more towards optimism than accountability.
The Free and Frank Series: How Do You Study What Nobody Has Defined?
02/05/2026
This is the eighteenth instalment in a series exploring what free and frank advice means in Aotearoa. In the last post, I drew together the two movements of the series so far, the public administration scholarship and the political theory, and offered a hypothesis: that the persistent failure to define free and frank advice is not...
The Visitation and the Ghost This is the sixteenth instalment in a series exploring what free and frank advice means in Aotearoa’s constitutional and institutional arrangements. Over the previous four months, I have slowly worked through two bodies of literature: the public administration scholarship that describes the institutional machinery within which advice operates, and the...
Public Comment: Hāpai Public Has Been Supporting the public sector for 90 years
24/03/2026
To mark Hāpai Public’s 90th anniversary, I spoke with Kathy Young, editor of the Public Sector Journal, about the importance of Hāpai Public and some of its most significant contributions.
The Free and Frank Series: The Relational Substrate
21/02/2026
This is the fifteenth instalment in a series exploring what free and frank advice means in Aotearoa’s constitutional arrangements. Over the past three posts, I have tested the advisory relationship against three traditions of political theory: consent, public reasoning, and non-domination. Each illuminated a different dimension of the space within which free and frank advice...
The Free and Frank Series: A Non-Domination Guardrail?
07/02/2026
This is the fourteenth instalment in a series exploring what free and frank advice means in Aotearoa’s institutional arrangements. Having tested the advisory relationship against consent theory and rationalism and found both insufficient, I turn this week to a third tradition: civic republicanism and Philip Pettit (1997)’s (1997) concept of freedom as non-domination. By the...
The Free and Frank Series: The Expert’s Dilemma and When Knowing Better Isn’t Enough
17/01/2026
This is the thirteenth instalment in a series exploring what free and frank advice means in Aotearoa’s constitutional arrangements. Last time, I showed that consent theory cannot resolve the tension at the heart of the advisory relationship. This week, I turn to a second tradition: rationalism, which locates legitimate authority not in democratic consent but...
The Free and Frank Series: Mapping What People Think Without Telling Them What to Think
16/05/2026
The Problem This is the nineteenth instalment in a series exploring what free and frank advice means in Aotearoa. Last week, I explained why studying a concept that no one has defined requires an interpretive approach, and why that approach needed to be extended through Ata to accommodate the constitutional plurality that Te Tiriti o...
View articleArticle: Polyanna policy: Is NZ’s framework for AI use in government overly optimistic?
12/05/2026
Barb Allen, Head of School, School of Government, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, and I argue in a piece for The Conversation that while the Public Service AI Framework names the right principles, it probably leans more towards optimism than accountability.
View articleThe Free and Frank Series: How Do You Study What Nobody Has Defined?
02/05/2026
This is the eighteenth instalment in a series exploring what free and frank advice means in Aotearoa. In the last post, I drew together the two movements of the series so far, the public administration scholarship and the political theory, and offered a hypothesis: that the persistent failure to define free and frank advice is not...
View articleThe Free and Frank Series: Where We Have Been
18/04/2026
The Visitation and the Ghost This is the sixteenth instalment in a series exploring what free and frank advice means in Aotearoa’s constitutional and institutional arrangements. Over the previous four months, I have slowly worked through two bodies of literature: the public administration scholarship that describes the institutional machinery within which advice operates, and the...
View articlePublic Comment: Hāpai Public Has Been Supporting the public sector for 90 years
24/03/2026
To mark Hāpai Public’s 90th anniversary, I spoke with Kathy Young, editor of the Public Sector Journal, about the importance of Hāpai Public and some of its most significant contributions.
DownloadThe Free and Frank Series: The Relational Substrate
21/02/2026
This is the fifteenth instalment in a series exploring what free and frank advice means in Aotearoa’s constitutional arrangements. Over the past three posts, I have tested the advisory relationship against three traditions of political theory: consent, public reasoning, and non-domination. Each illuminated a different dimension of the space within which free and frank advice...
View articleThe Free and Frank Series: A Non-Domination Guardrail?
07/02/2026
This is the fourteenth instalment in a series exploring what free and frank advice means in Aotearoa’s institutional arrangements. Having tested the advisory relationship against consent theory and rationalism and found both insufficient, I turn this week to a third tradition: civic republicanism and Philip Pettit (1997)’s (1997) concept of freedom as non-domination. By the...
View articleThe Free and Frank Series: The Expert’s Dilemma and When Knowing Better Isn’t Enough
17/01/2026
This is the thirteenth instalment in a series exploring what free and frank advice means in Aotearoa’s constitutional arrangements. Last time, I showed that consent theory cannot resolve the tension at the heart of the advisory relationship. This week, I turn to a second tradition: rationalism, which locates legitimate authority not in democratic consent but...
View article