Cases for the practical state

Ngāti Pāhauwera and the Ministry of Social Development

Welcome to our new series Cases for the Practical State. It will explore what good public service looks like, in place, in practice, and in the quiet middle where change happens and outcomes are revealed. This week, I turn to Ngāti Pāhauwera and the Ministry of Social Development, and the lesson it offers about what happens when the state shows up in place, not with a programme, but with presence. The hypothesis we are testing in this series is that the practical state is not a reform agenda or a new department, but the middle ground where relationships, trust, and daily judgment give policy its real shape. Today we will learn how a Crown agency backed local leadership without obstructing it, and how change held because it was built relationally, not imposed from the centre.

In Aotearoa, public power has long swung between two poles: concentrated executive authority, akin to authoritarianism, on one hand, and a cultural desire for egalitarianism through fragmented delegation on the other. Matthew Palmer (2007) argued that it’s not doctrine but pragmatism that holds the tension in balance: a kind of unofficial glue that keeps the state operational when our constitutional principles fall short.

This series builds on that hypothesis: it proposes that the job of holding the state together, of bringing policy decisions to life, isn’t done by pragmatism alone anymore. It’s being done, every day, by what I call the practical state.

The practical state is one of the main findings from stages one and two of my Phd. The practical state isn’t a department or reform agenda. It’s a way of working. It emerges where public servants and communities meet: not just in service delivery, but in shared authorship. It lives in the middle, between policy and practice, between centrally divined strategy and street-level reality, where trust is built, discretion is exercised, and legitimacy is earned - daily.

This idea draws on a long line of political theory. Hobbes gave us sovereignty (1651/1996), and Locke grounded it in consent (1689/1988). But neither foresaw the complexity of governing modern, networked, information-overwhelmed, and pluralist societies. Rhodes (1997) described governance as a networked and negotiated process. O’Neill (2002) insisted that trust must be based on transparency and competence, and earned daily. And Honig (1993) reminded us that democracy isn’t consensus: it’s sustained through respectful contest, tension, and a state strong enough to hold both.

The practical state is where that holding happens. Each week, this series will share one case, not a hero story or silver bullet, but an instance where something held, where public servants showed up with integrity. Where policy was shaped in relationship, not imposed at scale, where the system backed place, and didn’t retreat when the yards got hard.

Some cases don’t begin with strategy. They begin with presence.

In northern Hawke’s Bay, in places like Raupunga and Mohaka, the labour market had been stuck for years. High unemployment, layered disadvantage, and long-standing institutional distance meant many whānau had been locked out of work for a generation. The government had tried before. It hadn’t stuck.

But in 2017, the Ministry of Social Development seconded one of their own into Ngāti Pāhauwera. There was no fanfare. No new logo. No big photo opportunities. Just a decision to put someone on the ground, to listen, build relationships, and back local leadership.

Over time, the partnership built real pathways into employment in forestry, horticulture, pest control, water restoration, and driver licensing. More than 200 people who had been described as “hard to place” were supported into work.

Slowly. Relationally. In context.

This wasn’t a model being applied to a community. It was a community shaping its solutions, and the public service walking with, not ahead, and not directing from behind. The centre didn’t drive the change, but crucially, it didn’t obstruct it either. Instead, the head office got behind and resourced what was working.

The initiative won a Spirit of Service Award in 2019 for Māori–Crown partnerships (Public Service Commission, 2019). And it didn’t stop there. By 2021, MSD-funded roles were still embedded in Ngāti Pāhauwera, supporting ongoing employment brokering and service navigation (Ngāti Pāhauwera Development Trust, 2021).

This is a case of the practical state. Not an innovation lab. Not a pilot. Just the slow, careful work of backing place-based solutions, and the relationships that hold them. It shows what happens when policy is made with communities, rather than being delivered to them.

It also illustrates what political theorists have long understood: that the work of government doesn’t just happen in Parliament or on paper. It happens in the middle. Michael Lipsky (1980) called it street-level bureaucracy, where front-line discretion makes policy real. Charles Lindblom (1959) described it as muddling through: learning and adaptation in place of master plans. And Bill Ryan (2003) argued that this middle ground, where communities and officials meet, is where public value is negotiated and sustained.

This case reminds us that what happens in government is not always what’s announced. Sometimes it’s what endures, quietly, in place. It also reminds us of the mana of Ngāti Pāhauwera. They did not wait for the system to solve their challenges. They led. With vision, patience, and relentless commitment to their whānau and their whenua. This case is not about what the government gave; it’s also about what Ngāti Pāhauwera built and what the public service learned by walking alongside.

Kia kaha tonu koutou. Ka mihi ki te mana whenua, ki ngā ringa raupā, ki te whakapapa i herea ai tēnei mahi. Tēnei te mihi: mō te ārahi, mō te manawanui, mō te mahi tika i te wā roa.

References

Honig, B. (1993). Political theory and the displacement of politics. Cornell University Press.

Hobbes, T. (1996). Leviathan (R. Tuck, Ed.). Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1651)

Lindblom, C. E. (1959). The science of “muddling through”. Public Administration Review, 19(2), 79–88.

Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services. Russell Sage Foundation.

Locke, J. (1988). Two treatises of government (P. Laslett, Ed.). Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1689)

Ngāti Pāhauwera Development Trust. (2021). Annual Report 2020–21.

https://www.npdt.co.nz

O’Neill, O. (2002). A question of trust: The BBC Reith Lectures 2002. Cambridge University Press.

Palmer, M. (2007). New Zealand constitutional culture. New Zealand Universities Law Review, 22, 565-597.

Public Service Commission. (2019). Spirit of Service Awards 2019: Award winners. https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/spirit-of-service-awards/2019-award-winners/

Rhodes, R. A. W. (1997). Understanding governance: Policy networks, governance, reflexivity and accountability. Open University Press.

Ryan, B. (2003). Learning muddling through: Learning from complex and evolving policy problems (Occasional Paper No. 1). Victoria University of Wellington, School of Government.