Opinion: A culture war?

04/12/2023

I wrote an opinion piece for e-tangata. It is based on a series of pre-and-post election briefings I provided a small number of clients. This particular opinion piece summarises my views on the coalition agreements, and the likely implementation risks the government will need to be actively managing if they are to have any sort of success.

I have received alot of positive feedback about the article, for that I am grateful. For those of you who said I was brave, just a reminder I’m not a public servant, and as Audre Lorde said:

“My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences.”

We cannot hope to be the nation we aspire to be or build the communities we need to sustain us if we don’t use our words to connect.

Use your words. He mana tō te kupu.

A culture war? Te ao Māori is ready

Te Rā Whakamana: Operational Capac …

Schick, then Ryan and Gill (2011), and Tenbensel et al (2026) This week, the series reads three pieces of local implementation scholarship alongside one another, written across the better part of three decades and from quite different vantage points. There is Allen Schick’s 1996 review of the reforms, and the warnings it carried. There is Bill Ryan and Derek Gill’s later account, written i...

Administrative Burden: The Woman …

When the State Designs for a Person Who Does Not Exist This is the fourth post in a series about what it actually costs to navigate the state. Last month, I examined how burdens fall hardest on the least resourced. I also introduced the research on “deservingness”. Today, I turn to gender. The hypothesis that the unpaid labour of navigating the state falls disproportionately on women, and ...

Loose Threads: The Other Allison

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...