No private sector board would accept this for a week. New Zealand’s government has accepted it for nearly four decades.
Under our system, the Public Service Commissioner appoints all chief executives of government departments. Ministers have, in practice, no power to hire, fire or replace them.
The chief executive serves a fixed term, renewable by the Commissioner, and answers to the Commissioner for career purposes. The minister sits in the Beehive, away from the department, working through staff who were assigned rather than chosen.
Those staff are part of the problem. New Zealand gives its ministers fewer senior officials than virtually any comparable democracy. A European Parliament study drawing on OECD research found just eight per minister in New Zealand. Germany has 106. The United Kingdom has 169.
That does not mean we need a bigger bureaucracy. It means our ministers are drastically under-supported. In my experience, ministerial advisers are paid well below their public service counterparts, so even senior ministers end up relying on junior or early-career staffers who lack the seniority and institutional weight to challenge a department of thousands.
A minister who cannot choose the chief executive of their ministry must at least be able to surround themselves with capable people. Our system denies them even that.
MBIE reports to twenty different ministers across roughly 233 appropriations and budget categories in 23 portfolios. Nobody is clearly in charge. A Treasury review in 2024 confirmed what anyone looking at those numbers would suspect: coherent management is all but impossible.
The system rotates chief executives between departments as though running the Department of Corrections were interchangeable with running the Ministry of Primary Industries. A chief executive can be halfway through a five-year term, still learning the basics, and already thinking about their next posting.
In any private company, a board that treated institutional knowledge as dispensable would not last long. In government, it is standard practice.
None of this was designed on purpose. The state sector reforms of 1988 put chief executives on fixed-term contracts to make them more accountable to ministers. Instead, it made them more accountable to the Commissioner, who controls the reappointment process.
Each subsequent reform insulated the bureaucracy further. Governments of all stripes have struggled with the consequences, but none has fixed the underlying problem.
France, Germany, Sweden, Italy and the United Kingdom all give their ministers a say over who leads their departments. Elected ministers need people at the top who are committed to delivering the government’s programme.
New Zealand is the odd one out, not because we made a deliberate choice but because we never revisited one made in 1988.
In Germany, ministers appoint their top officials from a qualified pool. Ninety per cent of these appointments come from within the career service, not from party backrooms. When a new government takes office, the incoming minister replaces the officials at the apex. Everyone else stays.
The career service below is protected by statute, with permanent tenure and promotion based on merit.
Germany adds a safeguard that New Zealand lacks. Career officials have a statutory duty to raise concerns when they believe an instruction is unlawful. The duty comes with defined escalation steps and legal protection against reprisal.
Officials cannot be punished for speaking up. It is written into law, and German courts enforce it.
Australia tried giving ministers appointment power without that safeguard. Officials could be hired and fired but had no duty to raise legal concerns and little real protection when they did.
The result was Robodebt, a scheme that illegally raised debts against more than half a million people. Officials at every level either went along with it or looked the other way. Without guardrails, appointment power bred complicity rather than accountability.
In my new research note, Who Runs the Country?, I examine three international models and argue that a version of Germany’s approach fits New Zealand best.
Ministers should appoint their chief executives from a qualified pool, with the career service protected by statute beneath them. Officials need a legal obligation to raise concerns when something is wrong, and legal protection when they do.
No company would let an outside commissioner choose its CEO, staff its leadership team with generalists on rotation and expect the board to deliver results from a building across town. Yet that is precisely what we ask of our ministers.
Voters did not elect the Public Service Commissioner. They elected a government, and they are entitled to expect it can govern.
Dr Oliver Hartwich is the Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative think tank. This article was first published HERE
The chief executive serves a fixed term, renewable by the Commissioner, and answers to the Commissioner for career purposes. The minister sits in the Beehive, away from the department, working through staff who were assigned rather than chosen.
Those staff are part of the problem. New Zealand gives its ministers fewer senior officials than virtually any comparable democracy. A European Parliament study drawing on OECD research found just eight per minister in New Zealand. Germany has 106. The United Kingdom has 169.
That does not mean we need a bigger bureaucracy. It means our ministers are drastically under-supported. In my experience, ministerial advisers are paid well below their public service counterparts, so even senior ministers end up relying on junior or early-career staffers who lack the seniority and institutional weight to challenge a department of thousands.
A minister who cannot choose the chief executive of their ministry must at least be able to surround themselves with capable people. Our system denies them even that.
MBIE reports to twenty different ministers across roughly 233 appropriations and budget categories in 23 portfolios. Nobody is clearly in charge. A Treasury review in 2024 confirmed what anyone looking at those numbers would suspect: coherent management is all but impossible.
The system rotates chief executives between departments as though running the Department of Corrections were interchangeable with running the Ministry of Primary Industries. A chief executive can be halfway through a five-year term, still learning the basics, and already thinking about their next posting.
In any private company, a board that treated institutional knowledge as dispensable would not last long. In government, it is standard practice.
None of this was designed on purpose. The state sector reforms of 1988 put chief executives on fixed-term contracts to make them more accountable to ministers. Instead, it made them more accountable to the Commissioner, who controls the reappointment process.
Each subsequent reform insulated the bureaucracy further. Governments of all stripes have struggled with the consequences, but none has fixed the underlying problem.
France, Germany, Sweden, Italy and the United Kingdom all give their ministers a say over who leads their departments. Elected ministers need people at the top who are committed to delivering the government’s programme.
New Zealand is the odd one out, not because we made a deliberate choice but because we never revisited one made in 1988.
In Germany, ministers appoint their top officials from a qualified pool. Ninety per cent of these appointments come from within the career service, not from party backrooms. When a new government takes office, the incoming minister replaces the officials at the apex. Everyone else stays.
The career service below is protected by statute, with permanent tenure and promotion based on merit.
Germany adds a safeguard that New Zealand lacks. Career officials have a statutory duty to raise concerns when they believe an instruction is unlawful. The duty comes with defined escalation steps and legal protection against reprisal.
Officials cannot be punished for speaking up. It is written into law, and German courts enforce it.
Australia tried giving ministers appointment power without that safeguard. Officials could be hired and fired but had no duty to raise legal concerns and little real protection when they did.
The result was Robodebt, a scheme that illegally raised debts against more than half a million people. Officials at every level either went along with it or looked the other way. Without guardrails, appointment power bred complicity rather than accountability.
In my new research note, Who Runs the Country?, I examine three international models and argue that a version of Germany’s approach fits New Zealand best.
Ministers should appoint their chief executives from a qualified pool, with the career service protected by statute beneath them. Officials need a legal obligation to raise concerns when something is wrong, and legal protection when they do.
No company would let an outside commissioner choose its CEO, staff its leadership team with generalists on rotation and expect the board to deliver results from a building across town. Yet that is precisely what we ask of our ministers.
Voters did not elect the Public Service Commissioner. They elected a government, and they are entitled to expect it can govern.
Dr Oliver Hartwich is the Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative think tank. This article was first published HERE
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