He iti te mokoroa, nāna i kati te kahikatea

20/2/2023

As we enter the heart of election year, I have been thinking about this whakatauki. The literal translation is that while the mokoroa is small, it is strong enough to eat through and fell the kahikatea tree. It’s a reminder that small things can have a significant impact, and it also encourages us to think big so that we may achieve big goals together.

With that in mind, it has continued to amaze and disappoint me that while communities understand that the big issues of greatest concern to them cannot be addressed by single agencies working alone, the poneketanga was unable to convince Ministers that concerted government-wide action and accountability must be the model for how the entire public service needs to work.

And at the heart of this is a results-focus that specifies a small number of outcomes at a manageable level, some related targets and elected and non-elected leaders responsible for achieving said results. It also involves using data and performance improvement information to drive action and reporting to the public and impacted communities.

Frankly, given the cost of living crisis, every senior public servant should be able to demonstrate how they are making the most significant impact with their current resources. Resources will be highly constrained for the foreseeable future, so the imperative must be on achieving results within existing resources unless there is an excellent reason not to.

So as the policies from each party start to emerge, I’ll be looking for whether and how each party can articulate a theory of governance and serve up some result areas on which it is willing to be held accountable.

Do they understand the power the mokoroa has over the kahikatea?

Time will tell.