Summary
New Zealand - Includes a related article on New Zealand's first general election under a proportional representational system
New Zealand's reform program which started in the 1980s has been successful despite having a multiparty democracy. New Zealand underwent extensive downsizing, deregulation and privatization first under the Labour Party and then by the National Party.See the full content of this document
Extract
The incredible shrinking state.
How New Zealand got up from down under its bureaucracy.
Life used to be pretty simple for Jim. A middle-aged career bureaucrat in New Zealand's Supply and Information Department, Jim had a job for life if he wanted it. The work wasn't too stressful: Some days Jim spent much of his morning reading the newspaper. But those days are gone, A few years back, SID was transformed into a "state-owned enterprise": It was required to pay taxes and dividends, raise capital, and operate according to commercial principles. They even brought in a brash young business whiz to run the agency. Employees were required to account for what they did all day, and for the first time, Jim and his colleagues were forced to compete for the business of other government agencies. Jim has been a loyal - if not too industrious - state servant all his adult life, and now he's angry and bewildered at the changes that have occurred in New Zealand since the mid-1980s. "In the old days, the PSA [the public sector employees' union] would never have let them get away with it," says Jim sadly. SID was recently privatized - sold to a Japanese company, making Jim a private sector employee for the first time in his life. "Public service is supposed to be for life," he says. "That was the deal when I got in; now they're going back on it." Indeed, Jim and many of his co-workers would soon become "redundant," polite New Zealandese for being laid off. Sound like fiction? It is. The story of Jim and SID's transformation is a synopsis of Market Forces, one of New Zealand's hottest plays. The changes transforming New Zealand government, however, are quite real. You know a country has gotten really serious about downsizing the state when one of its most popular plays is about privatization. Since launching its reform program in 1984, New Ze...See the full content of this document
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