Public sector leaders who have moved out of their jobs since the last election.
Barely a week goes by without an announcement of departure by some public sector leader, be it a chief executive or a board chairman, some of which are explainable and some that raise questions.
The week before last, it was Sarah Fitt, the chief executive of Pharmac, and last week the mother of all Government appointments, Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr.
Neither resignation came as a shock. Fitt had spent seven years as chief executive of Pharmac, some of which were tarnished by incidents of disrespect towards patient advocates; and Orr seemed to be comfortable as a controversial governor during the entire seven years of his tenure.
His statutory independence puts him in a different league to other appointments and while it was no secret that he would not have been appointed under a National Government, it would have been unacceptable for the Government to have pressured him to go.
Two resignations soon after the Government was formed in November 2023 were quite appropriate, those of Steve Maharey as chairman of both the ACC board and the Pharmac board and Vui Mark Gosche as the chair of Kāinga Ora.
They were former Labour Cabinet ministers and had been overtly political appointments by the previous Labour Government. Only one of the three vacancies, Pharmac, was filled with an overtly political appointee in former National Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett.
But the turnover in other public sector leadership roles since the change in Government raises the question of whether there has been pressure applied and/or whether there is now an expectation that board chairs and chief executives should also change with a change of Government.
Politicisation of the public sector is not necessarily the result of anything the sector says or does. It can become politicised when Opposition parties target public sector leaders for political purpose, which can then make for a difficult relationship when those parties get into Government.
That can lead to chief executives or chairs either resigning, not seeking reappointment when their term is up or perhaps getting the message from the new Government that there would be no point seeking reappointment.
One such example occurred in 2017 soon after David Clark became Health Minister. The Director-General of Health, Chai Chuah, who had been the subject of attacks by Clark in Opposition, resigned a few months after the election.
Former Police Commissioner Andrew Coster was the subject of a targeted political attack by National over Covid and gangs while it was in Opposition but he determinedly stayed on after National won office.
Coster made it clear he would not be seeking reappointment – possibly believing he would be unsuccessful – but applied to lead the Social Investment Agency, an appointment that has been welcomed by the Government.
Kāinga Ora is another case. Andrew McKenzie was a high-flying private sector executive brought in to oversee a large state-house building programme that straddled the previous National and Labour Governments.
National was highly critical of Kāinga Ora in its second term in Opposition and, when it came to Government, commissioned a damning report about it that resulted in major changes to the agency.
By that time, McKenzie had been in the job for eight years and he left with a golden handshake on the grounds that the job had changed so much.
Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche does not believe there is any greater churn among the core public service chief executives than usual.
“I don’t think it is anything exceptional,” he told the Herald.
“I think it differs a wee bit for Crown entities ... The dynamics of that sector are different to the dynamics of the core public sector.”
Roche said he had not detected any inappropriate political pressure by ministers on chief executives and he would act if he saw it.
He acknowledged that care also had to be taken by Opposition MPs not to demonise public servants.
“As the Public Service Commissioner, there is a role for the commissioner to ensure the Opposition does not target individuals who cannot defend themselves in the public arena.”
There was a difference between holding public servants accountable for performance and crossing a line.
“We acknowledge these things happen from time to time but we need to seek to avoid them as best we can. If there became a pattern, I would definitely seek to intervene,” he said.
The Public Service Commission appoints chief executives of deparmental agencies such the Ministry of Social Development or Education, and boards appoint the chief executives of Crown entities, such as Pharmac and NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi. Appointments are for no more than five years, and with the ability to be reappointed – conventionally for up to three more years.
The minister appoints the boards of Crown entities and sets expectations through them.
There were vacancies early on in the term of the Government in the three most powerful departmental agencies, the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, which was already vacant, the Public Service Commissioner, for which long-serving commissioner Peter Hughes had given advance notice, and the Secretary of Treasury, for which Caralee McLiesh did not seek reappointment. She returned to Australia for an equally prestigious role, Auditor-General.
Treasury was filled quickly with a former State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie.
The appointment of Roche himself in November last year took a long time, well over a year after Hughes had given notice. That was a case of the Government dragging its feet until it could convince Roche to accept.
Another vacancy that has been slow to fill is that of Secretary of Education. Iona Holsted gave notice halfway through last year that she would be moving on at the end of the year, having had eight years in the job. But despite the public announcement being made in July, she has still not been replaced with a permanent appointment.
There is occasionally speculation that Holsted was forced out but there is no evidence of it.
One big area of churn has been in agencies related to infrastructure, including housing, transport, the Infrastructure Commission, KiwiRail and Transpower.
The risk is that all public sector leaders in such a small country move on and top executives are forced out of the sector or head overseas.
Health has undergone the greatest churn since the Government was elected, on top of the huge restructuring it underwent from a regional to a national system in Labour’s last term.
The shakeout in health has almost come full circle: it has seen the departures of the Health NZ board chairwoman, Dame Karen Poutasi, then the entire board, the instalment of a health commissioner, Dr Lester Levy, the early exit of the Health NZ chief executive, Margie Apa, the resignation of the Director-General of Health, Dr Diana Sarfati and, as announced on Friday, the imminent replacement of the commissioner with a new board.
A close observer of the public sector, professor Jonathan Boston, says the change of Government in 2023 accompanied the most dramatic change in policy in decades including in health, education, social welfare, environment, resource management, transport, energy, and constitutional matters as it related to the Treaty of Waitangi.
“And you would probably expect in that sort of situation to have a more significant shakeout of people holding governance roles in the Crown entity sector and probably more significant changes also in relation to departmental executives,” said Boston, chairman of the School of Government at Victoria University.
But he said high turnover was not a good thing.
“New Zealand is a small democracy. We can’t afford to waste talent and having high turnovers of staff at the senior level, be it in the Crown entity sector or the departmental sector, is probably not a good thing in general terms.”
He also said that targeting chief executives in political debate should be avoided, as a general rule.
“Ministers are, after all, politically responsible for the departments and if there are things going wrong, the minister should be the first person to take the rap, so to speak.
“I think we need to do our very very best to keep a non-partisan public service because we have so few other checks and balances in the system.
“Politicising senior positions in the core public sector would be a very, very concerning development.”
HEALTH
June 2024: Dame Karen Poutasi steps down as Health NZ board chairwoman after 11 months. Professor Lester Levy appointed board chairman for two years.
July 2024: Health NZ board dismissed and Levy appointed commissioner for one year, later with three deputy commissioners, Roger Jarrold, Ken Whelan and Kylie Clegg. Health Minister Simeon Brown on Friday announced the return of a board.
February 2025: Health NZ chief executive Margie Apa steps down four months ahead of her three-year contract ending. Dr Dale Bramley becomes interim CEO.
February 2025: Director-General of Health and CEO of Ministry of Health Diana Safarti resigns, less than halfway through her five-year term. She took over from Sir Ashley Bloomfield in 2022.
December 2023: Former Labour Cabinet minister Steve Maharey resigns as chair of Pharmac and of ACC, replaced at ACC by deputy chairwoman Dr Tracy Batten in March 2024 and at Pharmac by former National Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett in April 2024.
February 2025: Resignation of Pharmac chief executive of seven years, Sarah Fitt, effective from May.
EDUCATION
October 2024: Iona Holsted steps down as Secretary for Education after almost eight years, two months ahead of time because of a family illness. Ellen MacGregor-Reid is acting secretary.
TREASURY
September 2024: Caralee McLiesh steps down after five years as Secretary of Treasury, returning to Australia to become Auditor-General. Iain Rennie, a former State Services Commissioner and former Treasury adviser to Prime Minister Jim Bolger, is appointed for five years in November.
HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
December 2023: Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announces in a television interview that he won’t be reappointing Paul Hunt as Chief Human Rights Commissioner when his five-year term ended the following month. Replaced by Stephen Rainbow.
POLICE COMMISSIONER
November 2024: Police Commissioner Andrew Coster leaves his post about six months before his five-year term is up after accepting a new job as secretary for Social Investment. Replaced by Richard Chambers.
HOUSING
February 2024: Former Labour Cabinet minister Vui Mark Gosche resigns as chairman and is replaced in June by former telco executive Simon Moutter.
July 2024: Resignation of chief executive Andrew McKenzie is announced after eight years with a $365,000 redundancy deal owing to a changed scope of his job. He stays on until October to assist with transition to Matt Crockett, a private sector business transformation specialist, and former Rhodes scholar, appointed for a year.
December 2024: Andrew Crisp resigns after six years as inaugural chief executive of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. Brad Ward is acting chief executive.
NZ TRANSPORT AGENCEY WAKA KOTAHI (NZTA)
December 2023: Former senior public servant Dr Paul Reynolds resigns as chairman, nine months into a three-year appointment by the previous Labour Government. He is replaced in March 2024 by former Transport Minister and former National Party leader Simon Bridges.
February 2025: Chief executive Nicole Rosie leaves at the end of a five-year term.
INFRASTRUCTURE COMMISSION
June 2024: Chief executive Ross Copland steps down after four years and is replaced by Geoff Cooper in September.
November 2024: Raveen Jaduram named new chairman, replacing Dr Allan Bollard after four years. Bollard was appointed in October to the Tertiary Education Commission board.
KIWIRAIL
July 2024: Chairman and former Westpac chief executive David McLean steps down three months early, along with an exodus of board members, and is replaced as acting chairman by board member Rob Jager.
TRANSPOWER
June 2024: Chief executive Alison Andrews steps down after 10 years and was replaced by James Kilty in February this year.
TE ARAWHITI
February 2025: Inaugural chief executive Lil Anderson moves to the private sector after Te Arawhiti, established by the previous Government in 2018, is restructured and key functions are moved to Te Puni Kōkiri.
STATS NZ
February 2025: State Services Commissioner Sir Brian Roche announces that Government Statistician Mark Sowden will step down after five years without seeking reappointment because of failings exposed in inquiry into data collection at Manurewa Marae.
About 600 Kiwis die every year from a suspected suicide.