Is there now a new ‘New Zealand model’?

New Zealand is frequently cited as a country that has applied the New Public Management (NPM) model in a relatively rigorous and consistent manner. But this kind of assessment of New Zealand normally relies on commentaries covering the period 1984 – 1996. The present article examines further refinements of public management that have occurred in New Zealand more recently, especially since the change to a Labour-led coalition government in late 1999. To what extent have these changes revised ‘the New Zealand model’ of public management? While many achievements of the NPM have been preserved, there are instances where NPM reforms and public-choice principles have been reversed, and there is now an effort to re-instil an ethic of ‘public service’. Significant, though not radical, changes now mean that references to ‘the New Zealand model’ in the comparative public management literature need to take account of ‘the revised version’.