On the cusp of Waitangi Day, in an election year, our political leaders are offering us 1990s nostalgia and middle management spreadsheets.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney stood at Davos and stated clear as day: “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.” The rules-based order is dead. Middle powers must stop performing the fiction of shared values and start building coalitions based on strategic interests, not pretended consensus.
Meanwhile, in New Zealand, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon delivered a State of the Nation speech that reads like a mediocre report from a middle manager at TradeMe. Chris Hipkins responded with an op-ed offering 1990s fictional political nostalgia about shared values. The gap between what Carney described and what Hipkins and Luxon are saying is dangerously wide. We're about to elect leaders who don't understand the world they're governing in.
So what’s the problem exactly?
Why does this gap between what Carney said and what Luxon and Hipkins are saying matter?
Because we're on the cusp of an election year where our political leaders are so far off the political mark, they can't possibly course correct in time. Carney is describing the world as it actually is: fractured, competitive, where middle powers must build strategic coalitions without the fiction of shared values. Luxon and Hipkins are describing a world that no longer exists: one where fiscal discipline and appeals to unity can substitute for the hard work of governing a deeply divided society. This shows how utterly underwhelming and underqualified our political leaders are. They fundamentally do not understand the political reality they’re operating in. And it’s dangerous.
The real threat isn’t misinformation or polarization or institutional collapse. The real threat is oversimplification: political leaders who govern as if New Zealand still has shared values when we demonstrably do not, or as if we’re a team of business analysts who salivate over surplus and economic stats. Luxon delivered a State of the Nation so focused on management jargon it barely acknowledges we exist as a society. Hipkins responded by calling it “management speak mumbo jumbo”, he’s right, but then immediately pivoted to his own platitudes about shared values and unity. Both men are campaigning to lead a country that does not exist.
Our diversity creates unresolvable tensions
We have not managed to reckon with how diversity is not a romantic notion, inherently good or better. We speak over 30 languages, hold fundamentally different views about the role of government, the role of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the meaning of fairness, and who is responsible for what. Meanwhile, AI is kicking our ass. It's accelerating the collapse of any shared reality we might have had left. Tribal ideals, algorithmic echo chambers, the fragmentation of information sources. And our universities, our government, our political institutions are totally asleep at the wheel. There's this weird hope that these shifts are optional or temporary. They're not. Its embarrassing.
We are a society of competing values, and continuing to pretend we can govern through appeals to manaakitanga or fiscal discipline demonstrates acute political incompetence. It’s hard to believe we are so far behind what is happening. Recognizing we don't have shared values is the only honest starting point for building the institutional capacity to actually govern the country we are, not the one we nostalgically imagine.
Social cohesion is not a utopian vision of a united society singing the same songs and believing the same things. What social cohesion actually requires is something far more difficult and far more necessary: the capacity to live together despite profound disagreement, to govern ourselves without demanding that everyone share the same values or vision of the good life. This is the only honest foundation for politics in our current complex context.
Hipkins’ “shared values” rhetoric belongs in the 1990s. It’s the language of Third Way globalization, when liberal democracies could still pretend consensus was achievable and that diversity was the Holy Grail. We romanticized diversity to defend globalization, whilst never building the governance structures to manage the tensions that diversity inevitably creates. Now we’re running out of time, and our leaders are still talking as if appeals to manaakitanga will paper over the fact that we can’t agree on what manaakitanga even means.
Hipkins and Luxon's visions are useless in 2026
Neither tells us what kind of country we're building or how we navigate the technological and geopolitical fractures reshaping liberal democracies globally. Luxon thinks he's managing a BestBuy. Hipkins thinks he's starring in a 1990s political drama. Both are performing a version of politics that no longer exists. So what would leadership that actually understands this moment look like? What does it mean to govern a society that can't agree on what's real, let alone what's right?
What complexity-aware leadership actually looks like
Carney understands what Luxon and Hipkins refuse to see: we're in a rupture, not a transition. The old ways of doing politics do not work anymore. He told world leaders at Davos, “Stop invoking the rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is: a system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as coercion.” He’s saying: stop pretending. Name reality. Build new coalitions based on strategic interests, not shared values, because we don’t have them anymore.
Carney calls this “value-based realism”: being principled about core commitments like sovereignty, territorial integrity, and human rights, while being pragmatic about the fact that interests diverge and not every partner will share your values. He’s talking about variable geometry coalitions: different groups for different issues, based on common interests rather than pretending we all agree on first principles. He’s saying middle powers must stop performing the fiction of unity and start building the capacity to manage conflict.
It’s being honest about social tensions, about building coalitions issue by issue rather than demanding consensus. It names the trade-offs rather than pretending every policy is win-win. And critically, it accepts that governing diverse, polarized societies requires institutions designed to manage conflict, not suppress it.
Neither Luxon nor Hipkins are operating at this level. They’re not even close. Carney is grappling with systemic rupture and governance paradigms. Luxon is tweaking economic settings. Hipkins is appealing to abstract values. The altitude difference is staggering, and it matters because we’re about to elect one of them to lead us through this.
We’re not choosing between center-right economic management and center-left appeals to unity anymore. We’re choosing whether to have leaders who understand the world we’re actually living in. A world where liberal democracies are fracturing under the weight of value pluralism they can’t manage. A world where AI is totally kicking our ass, and universities and government are not coping. A world where domestic diversity has created unresolvable tensions. And no amount of rhetorical appeals to kotahitanga will change that.
Our leaders are still talking about shared values and fiscal responsibility while the ground shifts beneath them. They're governing like it's 2015 when everything has changed. They're offering us nostalgia and spreadsheets when what we need is leaders with the political horsepower to admit we don't agree, the institutional capacity to manage that disagreement, and the strategic vision to navigate a world that operates in an endless political storm.
On the cusp of Waitangi Day…
…a day that should force us to reckon with whose values shape this country and how we govern when we can’t agree, we’re getting management speak from one leader and unity rhetoric from another. Neither is prepared for the complexity that politics actually demands. Neither understands that social cohesion in a diverse democracy isn’t built on shared values. It’s built on the capacity to live together despite profound disagreement, to negotiate competing interests transparently, to build institutions that manage conflict rather than suppress it.
This is what governing without consensus requires. This is what our political leaders should be talking about. And the fact that they’re not, the fact that they’re still performing the fiction that Carney is telling the world to abandon, should terrify us. We’re running out of time to build the governance capacity we need.
*Natalia Albert is a PhD student at Victoria University, has previously worked in the public sector and is a former deputy leader of The Opportunities Party. This article first appeared here on Albert's Substack, and is used with her permission.
51 Comments
The stability we have enjoyed for nearly a century has meant our leadership is more paint by numbers than strategic.
We don't have the experience or knowledge depth in any of our political parties to properly address what's unfolding.
We may, but it'll be a cycle or two before anyone wakes up.
"We don't have the experience or knowledge depth in any of our political parties to properly address what's unfolding." You can throw in the UK, US and one or two European countries. Likely more.
Most of us take the peace and prosperity we have enjoyed as a given, or worse, something to take advantage of.
Rather than something we should be striving to maintain.
We rely on historical alliances for trade and mobility to attract talent, yet we are told to forego these and build something new. We cannot do this as we are a trade based nation with low population. If we couldn't attract talent then we would struggle to get the likes of key medical specialists, engineers for infrastructure, and all for this would lead to lowering standards of living. We also rely on having a relatively popular currency with enough clout that we can import key goods to keep society running (fuel, transport etc). If we stray from the current alliances too much too soon, many would lose faith in our currency and again our standard of living would drop.
"We cannot do this as we are a trade based nation with low population. If we couldn't attract talent then we would struggle to get the likes of key medical specialists, engineers for infrastructure, and all for this would lead to lowering standards of living."
We have over 5 million (Norway has 5.6) and we had plenty of medical and engineering capability when our population was 3 million and less...lack of population size is not our problem.
Yup. Norway enjoys the benefits of oil and higher taxes. We enjoy endless tax avoided housing speculation. The real damage of which is now being seen as skilled youth vote west.
When you need that doctor, just hope they speak English.
This is a key theme from 'The 4th Turning' which leads to the current crisis period - a couple of generations who assume stability is the normal/given and that no sacrifice or hard work is required to maintain the peace/good times.
Mr Carney certainly spoke well and meaningfully and the home truths and warnings are hardly easily refutable.The trouble though is that the whopping great status quo is deeply entrenched population by population which are becoming more and more occupied with just coping for themselves, day to day. in fact today’s quote hereunder by Carl Sagan is as good a description of the plight you might find. There are democracies and there are dictatorships. The latter likely can only be altered by savage intervention of some sort. The former requires the electorate to act but what the electorate elects is often not then what the electorate had expected. No criticism of the author here but the status quo in NZ will undoubtedly continue to produce as it always has. For instance MMP was thought to usher in new initiatives from alternative directions formerly not having a voice. Yet the electorate by large, and ably assisted by too much of the media, still cannot grasp the reality of how a resultant coalition government should thus function and instead continues to regard the political scene as if nothing much has changed from FPP.
The sad reality is that our 'leaders' (not just political) are not leaders but rather the marketing arm of the powers that be.
"Neither understands that social cohesion in a diverse democracy isn’t built on shared values. It’s built on the capacity to live together despite profound disagreement, to negotiate competing interests transparently, to build institutions that manage conflict rather than suppress it."
on this NZ National holiday my first thought on waking was how much happier, better & more productive a country we would be if our national & local political leaders, state authorities including health education & judiciary etc with overt support from partisan media all simply stopped acknowledging & appeasing our national racist separation in any of its current forms.
Mono culture you reckon.
The more I hear from the likes of you of this perceived separation the more I see it as good. I couldn't help but think of the caning given to 3waters and co-governance when hearing of the sewage being poured from Wellington. Perhaps with some eyes and ears open we wouldn't literally be in the shit.
I totally agree. Not so sure the 3waters proposal needed the co-governance tack on - but the transfer of the infrastructure to central government was sorely needed. Local government cannot afford to be looking after this infrastructure - the borrowing costs needed to fund the maintenance and upgrades is beyond their ability (as is proven by the past 20 years of inability/neglect). Central government's borrowing costs are lower and it has so many more tools (taxation, money supply, etc.) to get the job done than does local government.
Sorry cannot agree. Why is it every time something fails its the Govt fault and what are they going to do about it. Never liked or agree on too much Central Govt
In this case it was/is local government's fault.
But in many ways central government drove/participated in local government's downfall. When rates money should have been spent on these reticulated services maintenance/upgrades - so many local authorities were instead building aquatic centers; stadiums; conference centers; and other "so called" economic development initiatives/expenditures. And central government was always there to contribute just enough to get these local projects over-the-line.
In other words, central government "pitched in" on the nice-to-haves and provided no financial assistance whatsoever on the must-haves.
All the more reason why, they now need to own the infrastructure deficit problem they helped create.
water is simply another council blameshifting profit centre rort. They spent over 2 decades since Helen Clark gave them "powers of general (in)competence" wasting untold ratepayers money on virtue signaling vanity projects instead of maintaining their core business - a lot in invisible underground infrastructure
I've lived in Wellington over 40 years (relocating south this year). The last 15 years of Labour/Green "leadership" largely elected by non ratepaying students have gutted out the city's economic & cultural heart. Their latest $56M financial black hole here https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/360941467/wellington-city-councils-la…
Agreed. The recent mayors and councilor s in Welly should be give a bucket and spade and tasked to help clean up their poop.
Agreed. The recent mayors and councilor s in Welly should be give a bucket and spade and tasked to help clean up their real poop.
Hipkins is a weakling who should be replaced now before it's too late.
And Luxons answer to everything (along with his finance minister) is to cut costs. Nothing in the pipeline to replace the previous mass immigration and property parties that kept everyone happy for the last four decades.
There are those who seek drama and combat from our politicians. The more blood on the floor the more they like it.
I prefer quiet management speak and organisation any day, so Luxons speech suited me fine.
There is no shortage of drama in the world for sure. Turmoil is the better noun. NZ, like it or lump it, is obliged to navigate as best able in the wake of the turbulence created by the so called great powers. Luxon is certainly not a colourful politician and to try to be so would be unnatural and self defeating. But he nevertheless has evidenced for two years now, as being a safe pair of hands and given the global turbulence as acknowledged, that quality could hardly be valueless.
FG. A colourful polemic whose core theme appears to be that Canadian PM Carney has delivered a, seemingly profound to some, revelation that the rules based order is no more, that we should join his proposed 'variable geometry' coalition and that Luxo and Chippie's speeches show they are oblivious to the developing new world order. The catastrophic potential consequences of signing up to the proposed entente cordiale for our tiny country at a time of big power aggression and vindictiveness is not touched on and that both Luxon and Hipkins are almost certainly well aware of but prudently stepping carefully round this particular minefield is also not considered. It's a time of elevated risk for the nation, externally and to our national social cohesion. I'm thankful there appears little appetite for firebrand radicalism.
Ayup. Carney needs to be a firebrand, where we don't. Their closest neighbour and Ally has turned on them. We have a relationship with the US, but it's at a greater distance.
Yep, and Trumpy Trump will be Mara Lagoing full time in 3 years after which our forelock tugging servitude to the shining city on the hill may not have to be quite so obsequious. Tiny NZs leaders need to think long term.
"Tiny NZs leaders need to think long term."
That is Carneys point....this is not a sojourn and we are not going to able wait out a return to 'normal' . Wasting an additional 3 years, while typical is not a good use of time.
That's how I read it. US has lost the trust of the former allies and it will not return quickly if at all. They all are quietly and quite directly shifting direction in exactly the way the bullying orange #$@# didn't want.
Good to see that a lot of New Zealanders are now seeing Luxon as a safe and effective pair of hands
Many words on how Luxon and Hipkins have it all wrong, but none I could discern revealing the path to heaven.
Invoking Led Zeppelin there John ? ....... 'a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold'
My manifesto for:
1. The cost-of-living crisis;
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/119377/katharine-moody-takes-look-r…
2. The AI crisis;
https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/133744/what-do-you-get-when-yo…
3. The Iwi/Kiwi crisis;
Writing as we speak :-).
Yes, this is a rupture, not a transition. We need to govern via regulatory action - not words without a firm plan to resolve the challenges and conflicts.
Long ago words meant mountains more than what they do today. Folk were dependent on what was written in the newspapers or said at town halls and they wrote letters that were meaningful in both intent and information. Today words gush forth by all manners of communication, radio, television and electronics. Just think how once upon a time a telegram had to be carefully crafted compared to the ill thought and pointless spouting fired off by emails nowadays. It’s something like an orchestra fitted with the best of musical instruments , but if the conductor and players are lousy, why would folk want to listen.
We need to govern via regulatory action
I actually feel it's regulations that have helped starve us of productivity and advancement.
Do those regulations increase costs and therefore add to GDP?
They do.
Here, here's a billion dollars or so bill for "health and safety"
When workplace injuries and deaths haven't improved in the 20 years we've been carrying out this bollocks.
Then it may have the opposite effect than you think on productivity (as measured.)
Not sure what you mean by "20 years" as the legislative reform/re-write was in 2015 - 10 years ago.
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2015/0070/latest/DLM5976660…
From the quick look I had, work-related fatalities have decreased relative to the early 2000s (even when not taking into account the outliers of Pike River and the CHCH EQ). See;
https://www.worksafe.govt.nz/research/work-health-and-safety-an-overvie…
Not sure what you mean by "20 years" as the legislative reform/re-write was in 2015 - 10 years ago
I work in construction. I think I still have my first Sitesafe card in a drawer, but pretty sure it's from 2004/2005. That was the beginning days of safety going from being mostly about built-in preservation skills and competent tradespeople, to an expensive box checking exercise.
From the quick look I had, work-related fatalities have decreased relative to the early 2000s (even when not taking into account the outliers of Pike River and the CHCH EQ).
They have plateaued for the past 10 years.
Yep, agree they have plateaued for the past 10 years - but that baseline is lower than the early 2000s.
Interested to know why you think the competence of tradespeople has lowered since 2004/05? I have always suspected this, but would really be interested to understand why this has come to pass.
You should be able to see though that's one example of a hell of a lot of time, money and energy going into appeasing legislation at the sake of making not much observable difference.
Why has the competence lowered? Bunch of reasons:
- less trades apprenticeships 20 odd years ago. So now the workforce is a split of young inexperienced types, and older, about to retire types. There's no core of middle aged workers with the experience to run jobs, and hand knowledge down to newer workers.
- heavy reliance on modularity/systems based construction methods. 50 years ago a builder would've done their time mastering a wide range of carpentry skills. Now someone can be signed off as a builder, and have done little more than stand up pre manufactured framing and screwing the rest of the house together.
- emphasis on compliance rather than the actual construction process.
Thanks. Yes, all makes perfect sense.
DP
Yes, that is indeed a foundational neo-liberal premise. And we de-regulated ever since David Lange's government. Then we re-regulated due to the leaky building crisis; the rampant pollution of our waterways; the slow and steady depletion of our oceans resources; the monopolistic behaviours of Telecom, etc. I could go on.
But, with all that, if you look at NZ stats for productivity - we have languished for decades while practicing neoliberalism - and its subsequent incremental tweaks and patches.
Take the RMA - the number of amendments made was beyond belief - year after year after year after year. Reducing, not improving productivity. And now its proposed replacement - still overly cumbersome and perhaps worse as we'll now be subject to a re-do of legal interpretation and clarification by the Courts. And why is that - because the politicians are STILL trying to take a largely neo-liberal approach - not wanting to be prescriptive, certain and clear. Afraid to give regulators the opportunity to say no, you can't do that.
The world falls apart without certainty. It becomes unproductive. Trying to get a straight yes or no answer out of anyone in Trump's Cabinet appearing before an oversight committee is comedic. Same but to a less obvious degree here.
But, with all that, if you look at NZ stats for productivity - we have languished for decades
As has most developed economies. Regulation can't overcome the issues with growth limits to mature economies.
prescriptive, certain and clear.
It's been a while since I've dealt with a new regulation that's seemed like any of those things.
The problem with regulation is most people are generally good actors. Then with regulation, everyone has to prove again and again that they're not a bad actor.
Waste of time and money, and gets in the way of human interaction. I work construction, and now the record of what you're doing, is more important than what you are doing. If I'm a proven experienced operator, I shouldn't have to prove that every time I conduct a project. My reputation speaks for itself and if I do a shit job I shouldn't have any business.
It's been a while since I've dealt with a new regulation that's seemed like any of those things.
Yes, that's my point.
I don't think the aim of health and safety regulation has anything to do with job quality - you might be talking about the Building Act regulations?
I don't think the aim of health and safety regulation has anything to do with job quality
Maybe not the aim, but the result is lower job quality. There's such a financial/legal interest in health and safety, it garnishes a disproportionate amount of attention away from what the main focus should be; carrying out construction work. 40% of construction labour is now tied up in non physical roles - that's doubled over the last few decades. Not all health and safety mind, but most of the gain is in some sort of compliance officer or another - effectively creating a bureaucratic middle class in the sector, and you just fill the ranks with whatever cheap labour you can get.
It consumes around $5k more extra, per worker, just to be compliant. Often to do the same "refresher course" every year or two, or "job safety analysis" day in, day out.
And that cost gets passed on to the end user/consumer, whether they like it or not.
Likewise every other piece of regulation, usually involves another cost to us.
Wow - 40% of your workforce is non-physical/labour related roles - yes, that's a REAL problem.
And do I understand you right - that you fill these admin roles with low-wage personnel?
I'd love to delve into this topic a lot more but not quite sure where to start such research? Are there any good, comprehensive studies that have been carried out on this? It sounds like work that David Seymour's Ministry of Regulation should be all over like a rash. I'll start there but if you have any other places you can point me to - that would be great;
https://www.regulation.govt.nz/about-us/our-minister/
Wow - 40% of your workforce is non-physical/labour related roles - yes, that's a REAL problem.
And do I understand you right - that you fill these admin roles with low-wage personnel?
My own company's workforce isn't 40% back of house, it's the industry as a whole.
I could've worded myself better; because of the heightened importance of compliance, the financial incentives are weighted towards being one of those admin/compliance roles. Construction firms pay those on site less, when really the best outcome is to have well paid, experienced workers who can manage their own safety.
I'd love to delve into this topic a lot more but not quite sure where to start such research? Are there any good, comprehensive studies that have been carried out on this? It sounds like work that David Seymour's Ministry of Regulation should be all over like a rash. I'll start there but if you have any other places you can point me to - that would be great;
Most of my views are garnished from having worked in the industry before and after the shift towards heavier compliance. I can back cost a job and work out how much more it costs to do it in adherence to regulations.
And you can get an idea of some of the effects due to how much longer and more expensive it now is to construct a home (or any building really). That's not solely based on regulations, but every regulation carries a price and this gets worn by the consumer.
David Seymour has little practical experience in the real world, only ever being a politician or some sort of consultant or other so I wouldn't expect him to know the first thing about efficiency.
Very well said. Perhaps New Zealanders are starting to wake up, at last
It’s pretty easy to list some issues from deregulation (and over a long period of time), it will never be perfect. But I suspect there would be a hell of a lot more issues if we had regulated more.
In fact our most regulated market, housing, is by far our worst market.
Houses would be half the price if unregulated..maybe less.
While governments and councils were deciding how to rebuild Tokyo after it was fire bombed, the locals just sorted it out themselves.
I have 3 businesses. All being operated due to minimal external compliance requirements. On any given day, I could come up with another 12 concepts for job creating, productive businesses. But then I have to mathematically calculate what it'd take to run and be compliant. Then I decide I need just enough to get by and have a little bit left over, and go to the beach.
Agree, without planners and building code regulating houses, the price would be much lower, and I suspect the overall quality would be higher, as the buyer would be aware of what they are buying.
Imagine what cars would be like if MBIE specified how they must be built and the local council specified what type of car each suburb must have. And imagine the price if the people assembling the car had to have MBIE certifications. Seems ridiculous doesn’t it?
I’d rather have Toyota build my house based on the fact they have a bloody good reputation to uphold, than have Dave build my house with the government ticking off a checklist. And I’d rather choose what type of house I want than the council choosing for me.
Imagine if Dave built your car and the council decided what car you should have. And you couldn’t just go and buy it, you had to beg the council for months for permission. Regulation sucks.
Yup. We incur costs and complexity our competitors don't. Regulations make everything more expensive and harder to produce.
Although our cars are definitely getting lower quality and more of expensive and heavy due to endless introduction of new standards.
More GDP growth that's giving you what you had before, just certified and more expensive.
Never considered myself a neoliberal though. More a "please government just do the basics well and your society should be able to work the rest out amount themselves".
You are a neoliberal and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Am I?
I believe in laws to punish bad behaviour. But the justice system is pay to win.
I kinda like there being sensible safety practices. But we are also liable via ACC for the costs of every dumb actor, who you can't regulate for adequately.
I think health, housing, food etc should be minimum requirements for a government to provide. But it's not going to be the same quality if you aren't contributing somehow.
So you believe in small government with a safety net and personal responsibility? So do I.
So technically I should vote National, but where it all comes unstuck for me is that I live in Auckland, and National hates Auckland.
Yes Kate nothing is more undermining and destructive than uncertainty. Not knowing what’s happening, and what to do about it even if you did will strip and gut the confidence and structure from any going concern. Not a sports site here but by way of an example simply consider the impact of that, as recently clearly evidenced too often, by the nation’s pride, the All Blacks.
I reckon the countries that elect extremists will ultimately end up worse off than the countries that don’t. I hope the likes of Luxon and Hipkins continue getting the majority of votes in NZ, warts and all. Neither of those guys will ruin this country.
A country that votes for the centre parties is a united country. One that votes for extremism (either side) is a shithole.
Too true.
This is great article, as it looks beyond the noise of often un-thought-through poilicy to seek underlying problems.
I'd like to suggest that our political state is a symptom of our society.
We are adversarial - look at our obsession with sports! - so winner takes all is actually seen as a good thing, and collaboration is seen as weakness and capitulation, meaning diverse ideas can not be accommodated.
Political party membership is a fraction of its former self, so political candidates come from a small puddle of talent that's self-selecting for zealotry and the desire for power. It means we don't get the best and the brightest and we have a large and growing professional political class who can only see win/lose, won't or can't cope with complexity, and can't communicate complex ideas to the electorate. Politics isn't for thoughtful people in this country, and unpalatable truths at variance with ideology are avoided as electorally toxic.
The legacy, and much of the new, media do not help our political life as they constantly seek sound bites and controversy to garner attention and rarely addess detail without their own agenda.The result is that media are broadly distrusted and forums for public discourse have been reduced to niche echo chambers that impede intelligent debate.
Our permanent public service have become corporatised to the point they behave worse than private companies, because they are so much more averse to risk, and are impeding our ability to evolve as a country because they believe their risk-minimising processes are more import than results.
Great response
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