Last week, Barbara Allen and I published a piece in The Conversation on Aotearoa New Zealand’s Public Service AI Framework (Te Kawa & Allen, 2026). We suggested, perhaps a little provocatively, that it exemplifies a kind of “Pollyanna policy”: a governance instrument that names all the right principles but issues them without the armour that would convert…

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.