Cases for the practical state

Integrity and Trust Are Ultimately Built by People

Cases for the Practical State explores how public service actually holds together: not in slogans or reforms, but in the middle ground where policy meets practice, and where trust is earned day by day. This week turns to integrity. When John Ryan stepped down as Auditor-General, he didn’t deliver a valedictory speech. Instead, he left behind a reflection that cut through to the heart of the system: safeguards don’t protect themselves. They only hold when people hold them. Integrity, in this sense, is not an individual trait or a job description. It is relational: distributed across roles, exercised in practice, and sustained through discipline.

In Aotearoa, public power has long swung between two poles: concentrated executive authority on one side, and a deep cultural pull toward egalitarian delegation on the other.

We are a country that mistrusts centralised power but often fails to support those to whom it is delegated. Matthew Palmer (2007) argued that what holds this tension in place is not constitutional doctrine, but pragmatism, a kind of unofficial glue that keeps the state operational when our formal structures fall short.

This series builds on that idea but departs from it in one key respect. I no longer think pragmatism is enough.

The job of holding the system together: of making policy real, of sustaining legitimacy under pressure, of delivering outcomes, is being done by something more deliberate. I call it the practical state.

The practical state is not a department or reform agenda. It is a way of working. It emerges where public institutions and communities meet, sometimes formally, often not. It resides in the liminal middle: between policy and practice, between centrally declared priorities and the actual conditions in which lives are lived, mortgages are paid, and small businesses are kept afloat.

It is here, in the liminal middle space, that trust is built, discretion is exercised, and legitimacy is earned, not by design, but in practice.

This concept is one of the main findings from stages one and two of my PhD. It draws on the work of political theorists who have long grappled with how modern states maintain cohesion under conditions of pluralism and complexity. Hobbes gave us the concept of sovereignty (1651/1996), and Locke grounded it in consent (1689/1988). However, thinkers such as Rhodes (1997), O’neill (1989, 2002), and Honig (1993) are the ones who begin to trace the relational logic that sustains democratic governance under stress.

The practical state is where that logic is enacted. It is where relational discipline, not just institutional design, holds the system together. Where public service is not simply delivered, but where public policy is co-authored and outcomes are co-produced.

Each week, this series shares one case. Not a breakthrough. Not a silver bullet. But a moment, a person, an example, of when something held or revealed itself. Where the system leaned into place, rather than away from it. Where integrity was exercised, not claimed. And where the practical state showed its face or voiced an opinion: quietly, but unmistakably.

This week, that moment came in the form of a voice saying farewell.

When John Ryan completed his term as Auditor-General, he didn’t deliver a farewell speech or make a policy pitch. Instead, he offered a published reflection: a quiet but pointed reminder of what holds the system together.

He began with a reference to Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who once described Auditors-General as lonely figures: watchdogs without friends, pitched against larger powers. It is a familiar trope: the noble outsider. But John paused that narrative. Yes, the role is isolating, he offered, but he let the reader know that the Auditor General is never entirely alone when others choose to do the right thing.

That small shift matters. It moves the emphasis away from role authority and toward shared responsibility. Integrity, in this framing, is not located in a person or office. It is distributed. It is shared. It is practised.

He reminded us that the safeguards we rely on: free and frank advice, a professional and non-partisan civil service, select committee scrutiny, mutual respect across branches of government, do not protect themselves. They only hold when people hold them. They require effort, presence, and relational clarity. And too often, we only notice their absence once they’ve been overridden.

John’s farewell reflection was not sentimental. It was structural. And it was relational. His core message was that we are all trustees of the public management system. Elected and unelected. Institutional and independent. Insider and outsider. State and non-state actors.

That does not mean we must agree. It means we must stay in role and allow others to do the same. Even when we’d rather they weren’t there. Especially then.

To me, this was not a call for civility. It was something more demanding. It was a call for discipline. The kind of discipline that sustains the practical state: not just through compliance, but through respect for the relational architecture that underpins public life.

That was already on my mind earlier this week, when I wrote a Loose Threads post responding to the Integrity Institute’s campaign targeting Federated Farmers.

The Institute’s campaign suggested that influence itself is a threat to democracy. I think that analysis is flawed. It frames participation as corruption and treats declared advocacy as a breach of integrity. But in our system, influence is not the problem. Influence is inevitable. What matters is how it is exercised, under what conditions, and who else is at the table.

Policy advice in Aotearoa does not flow through a single channel. Iwi and hapū argue it never has. I’d add that the new public management and new public governance reforms in the late 80s and early 90s confirmed that view. Policy advice comes from numerous channels, including iwi, hapū, whānau, Māori organisations, unions, academics, researchers, third-sector advocates, private-sector think tanks, industry representatives, lobbyists, public servants, and others. It is plural, contested, and open to challenge. That is not a failure of integrity. That is what legitimacy looks like in a democratic advisory system (Craft & Howlett, 2012; Craft & Halligan, 2020).

So when I read John’s reflection this week, I heard something that reinforced that view. Integrity doesn’t live in isolation. It lives in interaction. In our ability to disagree, to challenge, to advocate, and still uphold each other’s right to participate and be at the table.

That is the practical state, too.

It is not just about doing your job. It is about letting others do theirs.

Ka nui te mihi e te rangatira. You reminded us what it means to hold space for the practical state. And what it takes to keep it together.

References

Craft, J., & Halligan, J. (2020). Advising governments in the Westminster tradition: Policy advisory systems in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Cambridge University Press.

Craft, J., & Howlett, M. (2012). Policy formulation, governance shifts and policy influence: Location and content in policy advisory systems. Journal of Public Policy, 32(2), 79–98.

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

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

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

O'neill, O. (1989). Constructions of reason: Explorations of Kant's practical philosophy. Cambridge University Press.

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

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

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

Ryan, J. (2025). Trust in the public sector: Reflections from the Auditor-General. Public Sector, 48(2), 14–17.