Administrative Burden: The Woman …

I look at how the unpaid labour of dealing with the state falls for the most part on women, drawing on Herd and Moynihan’s theory of gendered burden and on what raising a child in Aotearoa demands of mothers. 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, and I introduced the r...

Panel: The Māori Crown relationshi …

The Māori–Crown relationship: The why, the who, and the howPublic Sector, Spring 2026 I joined Helmut Modlik, Chief Executive of Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira, and Steven Sutton on a panel at the Hāpai Public Aspiring Senior Leaders Masterclass, a workshop for tier three and four managers on the relationship between Māori and the Crown. I argued that for nearly 200 years Te Tiriti o Waitang...

Public Comment: Hāpai Public and m …

Public Sector, Spring 2026, by Kathy Young In the third of four anniversary articles, supporters of Hāpai Public recalled their favourite memories of the organisation. Mine was partnering with the central agencies, on behalf of Hāpai Public, to run three seminars on the Performance Improvement Framework. I said that these events gave us a rare chance to connect with people working in the mid...