Ahakoa he iti kete, he iti nā te aroha
01/07/2017
Kia ora, and welcome
I’m starting a blog. I’m as surprised as you are.
This is a place to jot down my evolving thoughts about public administration, policy, and delivery in Aotearoa: beneath the surface and between the relays of elected and unelected officials.
It will be about the undercurrents. Not the tired critiques or the glossy promises, but the patterns, tensions, compromises, blind spots, and quiet successes that shape public work here.
Aotearoa’s public sector is a national asset. But it is also fragile, stretched, and uncertain. This is a space to explore that complexity without losing hope.
This won’t be a platform for outrage. It won’t be party-political. If anything, I am pro-kāwanatanga (just a proportionate, right sized and effective one), to the extent that it enables rangatiratanga. I lean towards communitarian responses but am also fine with capitalism, most days.
It won’t always be a comfortable read.
It will be honest, reflective, and sometimes challenging: if only for myself.
Thank you for reading.
Te Rā Whakamana: Operational Capac …
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E te whānau. A longer Loose Thread this week, prompted by a moment in Beijing that has sent half the commentariat scrambling for their Thucydides. Graham Allison is having his moment in the foreign policy sun. But the Allison I want to talk about is the one almost nobody remembers. This post starts with his trap, notes who was already using it, and then turns to an argument about gover...
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