Progressive Thinking: Ten Possible Futures for Public & Community Services
23 Apr 2020
The Public Service Association - Te Pukenga Here Tikanga Mahi is bringing together progressive voices in an exclusive webinar series.
Progressive Thinking – Ten Possible Futures for Public and Community Services is bringing together some of our movement’s brightest minds to help New Zealand navigate what a world post-COVID-19 could look like for our public and community services.
Join us over lunch every month between now and September to discuss topics as diverse as active citizenship, the future of our health services, tax, and the merits or otherwise of a Ministry of Works.
Registration coming soon for our next webinar with Deb Te Kawa and Dr Amohia Boulton on Wednesday 22 July .
Chapters will be loaded prior to the relevant webinar.
| Date | Guest | Chapter |
| Wed 29 April | Sophie Handford | Reimagining New Zealand’s journey to a zero carbon future |
| Wed 13 May | Max Rashbrooke | Learning and unlearning coronavirus lessons |
| Thurs 28 May | Troy Baisden | Restoring research for the restoration of well-beings |
| Wed 10 June | Peter McKinlay | Local Government and Wellbeing in a Post-Covid 19 World |
| Wed 24 June | Janie Walker | Being a fisherwoman or a gardener: How COVID-19 lockdown turned Community on its head |
| Wed 1 July | Paula Tesoriero | Webinar speech (Speech to webinar on Wed 1 July) |
| Wed 8 July | Geoff Bertram | Should we revive the Ministry of Works? |
| Wed 15 July | Professor Jonathan Boston | The welfare state beyond COVID-19: A case for step-change |
| Wed 22 July | Deb Te Kawa and Dr Amohia Boulton | |
| Wed 12 August | Tracey Bridges | |
| Wed 19 August | Adrian Brown and Toby Lowe | |
| Wed 26 August | Mike Joy | |
| Wed 2 September | Professor Jackie Cummings and Dr Lesley Middleton | |
| Wed 16 September | Andrea Black |
Deb Te Kawa and Dr Amohia Boulton on What will Māori policy and delivery look like in the future?
Mana motuhake – what will Māori policy and delivery look like in 2040, and what needs to happen for the covid recovery.
This piece will use the voices of the Dames (Turia, Glavish, Tāwhiwhirangi and Sir Mark) as a way of presenting this.
12:00pm - 1:00pm, Wednesday July 22nd
Tracey Bridges on Social marketing and the State
12:00pm - 1:00pm, Wednesday August 12th
Governments have a role in encouraging – and sometimes requiring – behaviour change from their citizens.
One set of tools governments can use to encourage voluntary change is marketing and communications. In many ways, using these tools is so obvious, and the evidence is that it can be very effective. Yet in practice it is strangely controversial, and too often poorly done. Tracey will reflect on the lessons from the Government’s approach to social marketing around Covid and talk about what needs to change for public sector communications to work even better.
Can’t make it? Don’t worry – we will load all of the videos here.
Adrian Brown and Toby Lowe on A revised Manifesto for Better Government
12:00pm - 1:00pm, Wednesday August 19th
Can’t make it? Don’t worry – we will load all of the videos here.
Mike Joy
12:00pm - 1:00pm, Wednesday August 26th
Professor Jackie Cumming and Dr Lesley Middleton on The future of health services
12:00pm - 1:00pm, Wednesday 2nd September
The public health and disability system and what change needs to happen – both to enable us to get through and out the other side of the pandemic, but also to help New Zealand to be the kind of country we’d like it to be. Where the review of the health and disability system should take us in the short and longer term. The need for a more whole of system approach to health and disability and the removal of the “funder-provider split” instituted at the end of the 1980’s.
Can’t make it? Don’t worry – we will load all of the videos here.
Andrea Black (NZCTU) on Tax, transfers and other payments
12:00pm - 1:00pm, Wednesday September 16
Can’t make it? Don’t worry – we will load all of the videos here.
Sophie Handford on Reimagining New Zealand’s journey to a zero-carbon future
12:00pm - 1:00pm, Wednesday April 29th
First up, we’ll be chatting with climate change activist and Kapiti Coast District Councillor Sophie Handford on where our public services need to get to for a Just Transition.
Read Sophie's chapter here:
Reimagining New Zealand’s journey to a zero carbon future
Couldn't make the webinar? Catch up below.
Max Rashbrooke on The new and future role of an active state in a COVID-19 world
12:00pm - 1:00pm, Wednesday May 13th
Join writer, academic and commentator Max Rashbrooke and PSA MC Andrea Fromm for the second webinar in our Progressive Thinking series – this time on the role of the state in a post-coronavirus world.
Do you think the State’s role will inevitably change in the coming months and years? Or that change will have to be fought for and carefully thought out?
Max Rashbrooke cautions that not everything about this crisis will teach us the right lessons and argues for more deeply democratic government, one in which citizens are more directly involved in decision-making.
Join us for a discussion about how we can create a more active, dynamic and resilient kind of government.
Read Max's chapter here:
Learning and unlearning coronavirus lessons
Couldn't make it? Catch up below:
Troy Baisden (NZ Association of Scientists) on Restoring research for the restoration of well-beings
12:00pm - 1:00pm, Thursday May 28th
Join New Zealand Association of Scientists’ president Troy Baisden and PSA MC Andrea Fromm for the third webinar in our Progressive Thinking series – this time on the role of science and research in a post-coronavirus world.
Science has been at the base of Government decision making and hearing the voices of scientists in mainstream media has become an everyday thing. Will science and research continue to be at the heart of the recovery?
Troy will discuss what’s needed for research to play its vital role in the restoration of well-beings in the recovery period and beyond.
Read Troy's chapter here:
Restoring research for the restoration of well-beings
Couldn't make it? Catch up below:
Peter McKinlay on Local government and wellbeing in a Post-Covid 19 world.
12:00pm - 1:00pm, Wednesday June 10th
Local government has a unique role which will be essential for managing the recovery from Covid-19. Join us with Peter McKinlay of the Local Government Thinktank and an associate of the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, to talk about local government’s role of enabling and supporting resilient communities and the change needed at both the local and the national level, to ensure communities shape the recovery and the post-Covid world.
Peter McKinlay, Executive Director of McKinlay Douglas Ltd, has nearly 30 years’ experience as a researcher and adviser on local governance and local government. He is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce and a member of its research advisory group for Australasia.
As well as New Zealand, he has worked extensively in Australia, including NSW, Victoria and South Australia. His major work focus currently is the shift to well-being as the principal focus of central government, and the concurrent statutory empowerment of local government to promote community well-being. Peter’s experience in reviewing practice internationally suggests that this change far from being just symbolic will result in a fundamental shift both in the role of central and local government and in how they work together.
Have an unanswered question from the Q&A?
Click here to read Peter's follow up answers.
Couldn't make it? Catch up below.
Janie Walker on Reinterpreting community and public services post COVID-19
12:00pm - 1:00pm, Wednesday June 24th
Janie Walker's life has been a mix of paid and unpaid work opportunities.
Highlights include running a creative writing workshop for the Wellington Mosque community post-March 15; senior engagement roles with local and central Government; walking rescue dogs at HUHA; writing a children’s play called An Elephant Never Forgets for Wellington Zoo; helping to settle one of the first Syrian former-refugee families in Porirua with the NZ Red Cross; and travel writing and photography for The NZ Herald and Dominion Post. Janie's academic achievements include a Master’s degree in community climate change adaptation in Fiji, and translating Sanskrit into Tibetan. Action research and community development are Janie's latest passions.
Have an unanswered question from the Q&A?
Click here to read Janie's follow up answers.
Couldn't make it? Catch up below:
Paula Tesoriero on Building a more inclusive society in a post-COVID19 climate
12:00pm - 1:00pm, Wednesday July 1st
As New Zealand’s Disability Rights Commissioner, it is Paula Tesoriero's role to protect and promote the rights of disabled New Zealanders
For this webinar, Paula will speak to the role of the public and community sectors as employers in the building an inclusive New Zealand post-COVID19. She will refer to the impact of the COVID19 response on disabled people, and how gaps in services and data, and the lack of understanding of disabled people’s lives, were highlighted in the response. However, Paula says there are opportunities for the re-build that should not be missed in creating the inclusive New Zealand we seek, such as incorporating universal design and accessibility into shovel-ready and other recovery projects.
Have an unanswered question from the Q&A?
Click here to read Paula's follow up answers.
Couldn't make it? Catch up below:
Dr Geoff Bertram on Should we revive the Ministry of Works?
12:00pm - 1:00pm, Wednesday July 8th
Until retiring in 2009, Dr Geoff Bertram was a Senior Lecturer in Economics at Victoria University of Wellington. Since then he has been a Senior Associate at first the Institute for Policy Studies, and now at its successor the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies. Geoff has a doctorate in Economics from Oxford University.
Geoff’s broad research areas include climate change policy, environmental economics, income and wealth distribution, and small island economies. To see more of Geoff's work, his website www.geoffbertram.com hosts a variety of his writing from over the years.
Couldn't make it? Catch up below:
Professor Jonathan Boston on The welfare state beyond COVID-19: the case for a step-change
12:00pm - 1:00pm, Wednesday July 15th
Professor of Public Policy in the School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington, Jonathan will be joining us to discuss Covid-19 and the welfare state.
