PUBLIC SECTOR Public Sector, Vol. 28, (2) 2005 General Articles From crisis to reform to crisis again: Argentina’s experience with public service reforms Local government and New Zealand’s constitutional inquiry Expert practice of policy practitioners View Point Race, ethnicity and democracy in New Zealand education Services First Seminar Report New Zealand Public Service – past, present, future AGM Address A pivotal Year Volume 28 Number 2 2005 1 Institute of Public Administration New Zealand P O Box 5032, Wellington, New Zealand Telephone:+ 64 4 463 6940 Fax: + 64 4 463 6939 Join IPANZ There are two types of membership. Individual Membership (Includes four issues of Public Sector) New Zealand individual membership fee: $100.00 GST incl. Overseas individual membership fee: NZ$200.00 Full Time Student/Unwaged $40.00 GST incl. Corporate Membership The corporate membership fee for organisations varies as follows: With staff of less than 20: $280.00 GST incl. 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Phone +64 4 463 6940 Fax: +64 4 463 6939 PUBLIC Email: [email protected] The whole of the literary matter of Public Sector is copyright ©2005 – IPANZ Editor Allen Petrey SECTOR Proof Reader Volume 28 Number 2 2005 ISSN 0110-5191 Helen Mintrom Layout Hettie Barnard Contents Editorial Office General Articles c/- The Publisher as above From crisis to reform to crisis again: Argentina’s experience with public service reforms Editorial Committee by Gonzalo Iglesias ..................................................................................................................7 Tom Berthold Ralph Chapman Local government and New Zealand’s constitutional inquiry Mynetta Erueti by Roger Matthews, Grant Hewison and John Sheppard ..................................................... 12 Rob Laking Allen Petrey Expert practice of policy practitioners Michael Reid by Lorraine Fowlie ................................................................................................................ 17 Carol Stigley Advertising View Point Jay Matthes Phone:+64 4 463 6940 Race, ethnicity and democracy in New Zealand education Fax: +64 4 463 6939 by Elizabeth Rata ................................................................................................................. 2 Email: [email protected] Scope Services First IPANZ is committed to promoting by Charles Finny ................................................................................................... 24 informed debate on issues already signifi- cant in the way New Zealanders govern themselves, or which are emerging as Book Review issues calling for decisions on what sorts of laws and management New Zealanders Public Sector Information in the Digital Age: Between Markets, Public are prepared to accept. 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A pivotal Year The views published in Public Sector do not by Rod Oram ................................................. ..................................................................... 31 necessarily represent those of IPANZ or those of the author’s employers. Volume 28 Number 2 2005 1 Viewpoint Race, ethnicity and democracy in New Zealand education Elizabeth Rata, Faculty of Education, University of Auckland Second, democracy contains dissent between individuals and This article is an edited version of an address associations of individuals while permitting that dissent to by the author to the New Zealand Secondary exist. It is a system for peaceful ‘battle’. It overcomes the Principals’ Conference, Wellington, 19 May 2005. weakness of consensus (the weak agree with the strong) and it Editor enables protest and dissension to remain on the boil without civil war breaking out. It is unafraid of relentless tension. It does not seek permanent resolution. It settles for temporary accommodation between ‘warring’ and constantly changing Introduction parties. In recent decades New Zealand has set in place ideological and These two features are democracy’s claim to superiority. Its institutional conditions that will subvert democracy. This has institutions are the sites for peaceful ‘battle’ and the manage- occurred in two ways: ment of constant change. Its citizens are the ‘turbulent • First, by devaluing the Enlightenment conditions that are individuals’ described by Immanuel Kant. They know how to essential for democracy: universalism, individualism and a disagree and protest. They also know how to unite and commitment to reason and scientific objectivity (Kant’s cooperate. ‘faith in reason’), Democracy is an energetic, creative and contradictory system • Second, by valuing and then institutionalising a racial that enables social cohesion in the midst of social change. But ideology that categorises and regulates people on the its inherent dynamic and its irresolvable contradictions make basis of their racial/ethnic genetic heritage. democracy vulnerable to the claims of traditional hierarchical systems, – those based upon kinship, caste or religion. These New Zealand is not alone in pursuing this course. It operates systems provide greater stability and cohesion it is true. The in a number of similar countries under a variety of names: price however is conformity, rigidity and inertia. identity politics, cultural politics, multiculturalism, bicul- turalism, and diversity politics. I use the encompassing term, In recent decades, New Zealand – along with other democra- ‘culturalism’ for this political and intellectual movement. cies – has suffered a deep existential crisis. Unnerved by the uncertainties of modernity and the complex contradictions of democracy, New Zealand has succumbed to the romantic appeal of neotraditionalism2. I want to discuss the racial Democracy ideology at the heart of neotraditionalism before showing how the incompatibility between democracy and neotraditionalism Secondary schools play a major role in maintaining the underpins the conflict between liberal humanism and conditions necessary for democracy. These conditions are culturalism in our schools. subverted by the pervasive and seductive influence of culturalism. Nowhere has the shift to racial/ethnic categorisation and Culturalism’s racial ideology boundary making been more zealously pursued than in education. I will confine my discussion to its effects on New The term ‘racial ideology’ contains two main ideas. The ‘racial’ Zealand secondary schooling although it is pervasive through- ideas refers to the belief that race or ethnicity (I use the two out education and elsewhere in the public sector. terms interchangeably to mean descent from a genetically identifiable group, – often visible in particular physical charac- I need to start with a reminder of what democracy is in order teristics) is an acceptable way to divide New Zealand society to show the full extent of its incompatibility with a race/ethnic into socio-political categories. The ‘ideology’ part refers to the ideology. Democracy is a system of socio-political organisation fact that this method of categorising people conceals the superior to those systems based upon non-universalist catego- reality of our society, – that of fluid ethnicity. ries such as kinship, religion, caste or race. Its superiority lies in two main areas. First, it tolerates constant social change and The racial ideology promoted by an interesting coalition3 social mobility because it treats the universal individual, not the between neotribalists and biculturalists, and accepted by many foundational group1, as the basic political unit of society. No New Zealanders as a natural way to organise people, does in one category of persons can claim an inherent right to either fact contain myths that are at odds with the real world. The high or low status.