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confronted a global pandemic in Aotearoa New Zealand. Not the first time we have joined forces with allies to confront a global threat. Not the first time we have sought answers to housing issues. Nor is it the first time we have confronted competing priorities regarding resources. As Justice Joe said: “We are not on a linear pathway to enlightenment.” We are all familiar with the phrase “those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them”. If we fail to listen to the past, we can become blinded by our current assumptions and bias. We become vulnerable to re-inventing failed solutions or falling victim to “snake oil”. We have no idea where our choices will take us. This is all too depressingly true.

One has only to look across the Tasman to the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme to see what can happen when a public service loses some of its political neutrality and, with it, its ability to provide free, frank, and fearless advice. In Australia, it is not uncommon for at least the top two layers of the public service to change when there is a new government. This completely changes the incentives at play and can encourage “group think” or what Andrew Podger, a former Australian Public Service Commissioner, described in his report as “excessive responsiveness”.

But it is in his relationship with iwi leaders, his work to further a true partnership between Māori and the Crown, that Ivan provides us with both challenge and hope. Here was a man who was not tangata whenua but who was respected across te ao Māori. Why? Because Ivan believed in listening deeply to understand, in the true power of conversation, in engaging early, in people over process. Ivan demonstrated that by sitting down together and understanding each other’s interest at a deep relational level, the Treaty partners could find new and different ways of working with each other – ways that benefited Māori and the nation as a whole. He aha te kai a te rangitira? He korero, he korero, he korero.

However, the concept of “amnesia” gave me cause for hope and optimism. We have within ourselves – globally, nationally, locally, and within our communities – the concepts, stories, and ideas that can help us solve current and future challenges. We can recover these memories. Our hindsight can become our foresight. The challenge is to ensure that this “collective memory” is truly reflective of all our stories, of the diversity of our experience as a nation – that it is not partial or selective. This is a challenge that, judging from their session at the IPANZ conference, our new public servants, our rangatahi, are truly alive to, which gives me enormous optimism for the future.

New Zealand has the last politically neutral public service in the Westminister system. Is it perfect? No. But like the huge block of pounamu at Te Papa, Our Place, it is a taonga that we should keep polishing until we can all see ourselves in it. Tātou tātou.

Ivan’s tangi, which was held at Pipitea Marae, was attended by iwi leaders, past and present ministers of finance, and other dignitaries. Many spoke of Ivan’s “sweetness”, of the huge legacy of this humble public servant. It is my hope that the Ivan Kwok Memorial Lecture series will become part of this legacy – that the kōrero generated by these addresses will help sustain a new generation of public sector leaders as we take on the challenges of the future for the benefit of all.

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