NZ Engine

Source: Radio New Zealand

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When Auckland couple Sue and Tony Kerr first opened their door to a homeless teenager as part of an organised programme to shelter young people in crisis, they were nervous about how it would go.

They are retired and worried the generation gap might prove problematic, that their home cooking would be left uneaten and that their things might be stolen.

“I was worried about security, needlessly, and that they might take anything that was precious to us and we haven’t found that was an issue,” Sue said.

“They always joined us for dinner … ate lots of vegetables so it was fine.”

They are one of six host homes in west Auckland in a programme called The Safety Net, who house homeless rangatahi to get them off the streets while more permanent housing is found.

It was working so well the programme was looking to expand into other parts of the city.

A recent report by youth support organisation Kick Back found teen homelessness was getting worse, with 22 percent of young people sleeping rough when they first sought support.

The Kerrs lived in Hobsonville and in between grandchildren’s visits they had so far had eight young people stay.

“It’s definitely given me more compassion and understanding about the problem and the need. If you can just help them this short time, all eight of them have apparently been helped into better accommodation. It’s just great to know we’ve helped.”

They had been hosting homeless young people for over a year – often for just a week at a time – one young man even stayed during Christmas 2024.

“I was putting up the Christmas tree which of course our sons always used to do … and I asked him if he’d like to join in and he had never decorated a Christmas tree before and I thought that is so sad he loved doing it, he was very proud of the outcome.”

They first heard about The Safety Net through their church, had a spare room and said they strongly felt it was something God wanted them to do.

Tony said having young people stay had opened his eyes to their struggles.

“The benefit has been benefiting them. It’s given me greater insight into what goes on that we didn’t have before.”

Josh Hendry oversaw The Safety Net and said since it began two years ago they had found stable housing for 36 rangatahi who were hosted by families short-term, just a few nights or a week.

He said often teenagers had left home due to a family breakdown, whether that was violence or substance abuse or even just a lack of beds for families living in poverty.

Hendry worked closely with his brother Aaron who ran the youth advocacy organisation Kick Back, helping young people off the streets.

“There’s very little youth specific housing for our young people but one significant gap that we’ve seen is for 16 and 17 year olds, where their reason for experiencing homeless might be to do with a family breakdown for a variety of reasons.”

He said it could take up to eight weeks for a young person in that situation to access government support, through the Youth Payment.

“In the meantime, how do we expect a young person to access housing when they can’t actually have the financial support when they need it.”

He said The Safety Net had six host homes, which included families, couples and singles, and wanted to expand in other suburbs by partnering with organisations. It was funded through grants and the hosts were volunteers.

Hendry said there was an extensive sign-up for host families to ensure they matched the tikanga of the programme, as well as police and reference checks.

He said they took care to match young people with suitable host homes, ensuring ongoing support for both the young person and hosts who also came from a variety of backgrounds.

“One of the big concerns is people have a lot of stigma around our young people and they’re actually just like any other young person. The potential with The Safety Net is we can intervene early, we can prevent our rangatahi from having a long term experience of homelessness, from experiencing all of the trauma that comes with that.”

Hendry said all the young people who were in education and hosted in homes were able to maintain their schooling, more than 80 percent had been housed and 30 percent had safely reconnected with whanau.

“We’ve seen amazing outcomes for our young people. When we provide an immediate safe, supportive caring place for our young people right when they need it most the ability to really change the trajectory of where that could have gone.”

He said the government’s proposal to give police more power to move on those rough sleeping or begging in public, from the age of 14 years old, was concerning because young people travelled to the city to access support.

“A lot of the young people we work with, even out west, will go to the city centre to get support so they’ll go to places like the Front Door or Rainbow Youth.

“The Safety Net is a direct solution to that. Rather than punishing people for being in the situation they’re in, if we actually provide them support we can really see that change.”

No longer homeless

Late last year, Tina spent two weeks living in an alleyway while still attending high school because she had been kicked out of home.

She is 17 years-old and said it was a sensitive situation and she spent a few nights staying with a friend but was too ashamed to ask for help.

“I was very ashamed and embarassed to tell people that I was quite homeless during that time.”

So she sought shelter where she could hide – no one knew she was there.

“I was staying in my alleyway for two weeks and then that’s when I got tired of living that kind of life, I really did need help so I went to my school teacher and told her what happened and that’s when I found out about The Safety Net.”

Tina was placed with a host home where she stayed a few nights.

“I actually opened up to them, the host family that took me in. They were very sweet I loved them I really miss them as well.”

She said The Safety Net helped her to find a flat and she was now studying at tertiary level.

“It helped me build so much confidence in myself and now I’m doing everything that I love to do … I’m happy where I am now.”

Tina wanted to encourage other young people struggling with homelessness to ask for help.

“It’s always good to ask for help, it’s the bravest thing that you could do. One of the bravest things that I have accomplished was to ask for help and I stopped being embarassed.”

Another 17 year old, Mae, left home to escape escalating domestic violence last year and sought refuge at a hospital’s emergency department.

She said they let her sleep on a bench for a few nights while a social worker tried to find her somewhere to go but there was a lack of housing.

“The options were that I would have to sleep on the street and risk my safety or I would have to go back to the house I left and pretty much go through hell again.”

Mae said The Safety Net stepped in and gave her hope – she spent her first night with a host home in her room because she was so nervous but quickly found her feet.

“Being in a stable environment, it made me realise what I went through at my old house wasn’t normal. I realised what safety feels like and it was actually the first time I relaxed,” she said.

Mae was now living in stable housing with others her age, studying at tertiary level.

“Honestly it’s healing, I can imagine if I hadn’t have left home I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have now.”

The hosts

In the last year, Ottolien Pentz had hosted six young people in her spare room, usually for less than a week each time.

She fostered about 25 children when her own were growing up and said teenagers were actually easier to have because they could voice their thoughts.

Each time she got a knock at her door, Pentz knew the young person would be feeling nervous about staying with a stranger.

“Most of them after a little [while] would say ‘I thought it would be really scary and I wondered if I would be safe’ and it’s a lovely surprise that they were safe and that there’s goodness in the world.”

Pentz said The Safety Net helped her as a host to set reasonable boundaries and whare rules that she talked the teenagers through when they arrived.

And she told them she would like them to rest and think about their next step, what they would like out of life.

“One of them said I felt cared for for the first time … and that I’m valuable enough that I can want good things,” Pentz said.

“Just for a few days there was none of the negative things in life. That’s what makes me sad, some people’s lives are in such a discombobulation that simple things are big things.”

Sue and Tony said they could get called at short notice to host a young person and that had been challenging because they liked to plan ahead.

But they wanted to help the teenagers who had no-one else to rely on – they said one of their sons experienced mental health issues and would unlikely have survived had it not been for their stable family home.

“It’s just tragic really, one young person said that at home they didn’t get enough food … they didn’t on the whole talk about the worst of the trauma but it is just so sad,” Sue said.

Hendry said they would like more host homes to come on board because having a stable roof, even for a few nights, gave young people a fresh perspective.

“One young person told me how she’d stayed in her room all night but she’d just stayed awake listening to the whanau laughing and having fun in the kitchen, because for her that was something she hadn’t really experienced.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Health researchers are calling for policy changes to combat air pollution in Auckland, saying traffic is silently killing locals.

More than 700 Aucklanders die every year from air pollution from traffic, compared to 2000 deaths nationally, according to a new report by the University of Auckland.

It’s similar to the number of people who die from smoking cigarettes, with almost 4000 more ending up in hospital, the report said.

Dr Jamie Hosking, a public health researcher at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland, said petrol and diesel burn produce the gas nitrogen dioxide and small particles of soot, smoke, dust and chemicals.

“Those particles are really, really fine, so we can’t see them,” Dr Hosking told Morning Report. “But because they’re so fine, they get right down into our lungs and cause damage there, and can even get through into our bloodstream and cause inflammation there and give us problems such as heart disease, strokes, lung cancer and in our kids, asthma as well.”

Dr Hosking said it is really difficult for individuals to combat air pollution.

“We can’t avoid breathing in polluted air. The solution here is with our councils and with the government,” he said.

The report outlines several solutions on both a national and city level, such as investing in better public transport, raising vehicle emission standards, improving air quality monitoring and introducing equitable congestion charges.

Dr Hosking said central cities around the world, such as London, have implemented low-emission zones, which means only the cleanest cars can come into central city areas.

“That’s been really effective at lowering air pollution and giving them cleaner air,” he said.

“That’s really good for people’s health and something that we could be putting in place in Auckland.”

The report would be presented to Auckland Council’s Transport Committee, where researchers will call for urgent action towards the city’s air pollution.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

An immigration adviser caught selling a fake job at her husband’s company in taped phone conversations – after he lost his first fake job there – has lost her licence.

Heidi Castelucci, also known as Qian Yu, coached a migrant in how the $70,000 scam would work and how to hide it from authorities, the immigration advisers’ complaints and disciplinary tribunal ruled. Five other complaints from visa applicants against her have also been upheld by the tribunal, which described it as a “concerning pattern of behaviour”.

She worked at Auckland firm Liberty Consulting, trading as Liberty Immigration, but the Chinese migrant’s job was a visa facade and was terminated.

“Ms Yu then persuaded the complainant to resign on the basis he would be re-employed as a manager at twice the salary. This role also did not exist. He had to pay an unlawful premium for the position. He would pay his own salary and tax. He would have to find other employment to support himself and his family, as well as fund the premium (the Tribunal assuming he would be repaid his salary).

“Ms Yu coached him regarding this arrangement, including advice to hide it. All of this was unlawful, as she well knew. The gravity of the misconduct here is at the upper end of serious. The integrity of the immigration system is compromised by fake jobs. They strike at the heart of the system and public trust in it. The involvement of a licensed adviser in creating such a scam is to be condemned.”

The man signed a new employment contract with the agency, whose owner also runs the New Zealand Language Institute and Foreign Exchange Program, as a $100,000-a-year business development manager, being told he would pay $70,000 for the company to support his residence visa – that he could fund through cash-in-hand jobs elsewhere.

He paid one $7500 instalment for the non-existent job before raising the alarm and leaving New Zealand with his children. The tribunal said a fee of $2000-$4000 would have been reasonable for immigration advice for his work visas, but in all he paid $25,588.

Castelucci/Yu had not responded to any of the allegations, but when the tribunal turned to considering penalties she expressed deep remorse, and pointed to “a concentrated period of profound personal, medical and psychological collapse”.

“The extenuating circumstances advanced appear to have occurred after she set up the scam with the fake job,” the tribunal concluded.

“The public need to be protected from advisers who conceive arrangements themselves to exploit clients and the immigration system. Her dishonesty here warrants cancellation of her licence on its own. Despite one belated letter acknowledging her wrongdoing and expressing remorse, the tribunal is not persuaded she has ‘turned a leaf’.”

She received abusive and threatening messages and phone calls when the offending became public, she said, and been forced to repay fees when other migrants became aware of what she had done.

Publicity from the case had already severely damaged her professional reputation, her licence was suspended, many clients terminated retainers and she suffered substantial loss and medical fees.

The tribunal fined her $4000 and noted it could only cancel her licence for a maximum of two years, with the registrar of immigration advisers deciding if she could be relicensed.

Job tokens

The migrant’s employment advocate May Moncur said lifetime bans should be available for cases involving dishonesty. “I think if it’s a character issue, two years is too short. I would say a life ban would be more appropriate. And also that would send a message. When the deterrent is severe enough, that would deliver a strong message.”

Jobs were still being sold via ‘tokens’ INZ gave to companies that gained accreditation to recruit migrants.

“The worst I’ve seen, you know, agents, these kind of proxies, recruited probably dozens or even a hundred workers. I don’t know what kind of penalties or sanctions they are subjected to. It’s very disappointing, actually, that they’ve made millions in illegal incomes, and New Zealand benefited nothing.

“Those migrants, they paid a huge premium to come to New Zealand, hoping to have a genuine employment but ended up with no job, no income, and not only themselves, also their family members were affected by such a scam.”

It also created a distorted economy, with tax revenue losses from workers being paid under the table.

“It really undermines the real employment opportunities, because some companies, they could make a profit out of selling job tokens, which is still going on nowadays.

“Some people may think naively this has nothing to do with them and they are not in the immigration sector. It’s not good for anyone. It’s really affecting everybody in New Zealand.”

One recent example was a woman charged almost 200,000 RMB ($49,000) for a job, she said.

“I’m still being approached by some migrant workers and I understand there are licensed immigration advisors who are actively involved in the recruitment process and outside their immigration services and all responsibility, they are acting as proxies to charge illegal premiums.”

The Registrar of Companies has initiated action to remove Liberty Consulting, an immigration firm based in the North Shore suburb of Rosedale, from its register. A new company set up by Castelucci’s husband last year, Global Pathways Consulting, operates from the same address.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Health New Zealand (HNZ) has been warned that keeping financial control is “one of the thorniest” aspects of the government’s rapid push to devolution.

The government blamed loss of financial control when it sacked the central agency’s board two years ago.

Health Minister Simeon Brown on Tuesday promised regions and districts would get more say over budgets and hiring from 1 July so that decisions on medical care were made closer to the patient.

Late last year he ordered HNZ to decentralise rapidly, and this week he said, “This is the most significant structural change our government is making to improve how the health system operates.”

But the latest HNZ internal report on devolution said “people capability is an extreme risk” in the finance and operations area, with centralisation diverting resources.

“Many local teams are under-resourced in financial management,” said the report done in January for a new devolution committee.

Brown on Wednesday said there was a “huge” amount of work underway to build back the local leadership disempowered by over-centralisation.

“We are making sure we’ve got the capability around operations, around finance, human resources, all of those things are being looked at.”

The January report by consultants Deloitte laid that out, he said.

The report has not been publicly released though RNZ has seen parts of it.

‘Clearly underpowered’

Former HNZ Te Whatu Ora board chair Rob Campbell expressed serious misgivings.

“They quickly need to get some financial resources into those regions and districts which are clearly underpowered in this respect,” Campbell said on Wednesday. “That’s the first thing they have to do.”

The devolution plan puts executive regional directors in charge of rebuilding the capability but at a time when money was exceedingly tight said the report.

“The financial challenges are going to increase in 2026/27, meaning there will be even more pressure on financial controls to reduce the deficit …. from $200m to breakeven.

“Currently there will be little to no capacity remaining within the baseline next year without significant productivity improvements and prioritisation decisions,” it said.

Campbell said it was an unenviable task.

“They’re being told they’re getting more autonomy. The truth is they’re really not, and they don’t have the money to do that anyway.”

‘Fully coming into effect’ on 1 July

The devolution report contains self-assessments by Health NZ’s various business units showing some progress, and a lot of risks, around devolving key clinical and service decisions back to the four health regions and 20 districts.

One section on “reduced financial visibility” said, “One of the thorniest aspects of devolution is financial control – ‘who holds the purse strings’ and how to prevent overspending or inequities.”

Financial visibility was fragmented across 20 health boards before 2022’s centralisation, then smeared after it by “confusion … and weak controls” at Health NZ Te Whatu Ora. It then began its nosedive towards a forecast billion-dollar-plus deficit.

The centralisation also pulled experience and skills into the centre in Wellington, the report said.

This was compounded by hundreds of cuts to support jobs since 2024 in a savings drive.

The January report outlined “critical” current gaps and “staff churn” in the workforce, such as in data and digital, analysis and finance, that supports the frontline doctors and nurses.

Under a heading ‘Options to accelerate devolution’ it said, “There is a risk of not understanding cost structures or nuances between districts, further compounding the risk that pushing the funding allocation and management of each region and district to the lower levels quickly may result in loss of financial visibility across the sector again.”

It said some fixes might take 18 months to three years.

However, Brown said on Tuesday the changes underway would “ensure a nationally planned, locally and regionally delivered health system, will come into effect on 1 July”.

Hospitals would be able to recruit and deploy staff without central sign-off but with delegated budgets and responsibility to meet targets in the district or region.

On Wednesday Brown reiterated the 1 July delivery date.

The Deloitte report talked about the many initiatives being done by HNZ “to make sure that districts and regions are ready for 1 July when the devolved operating model … is fully coming into effect”, he said.

“Of course there’s risks in changing an operating model but at the same time the last government … left local clinicians not able to make some of the key decisions.”

Globally, health ran better when a devolved operating model split decision-making between national, regional and local levels, Brown said.

New policy on who decides what

The devolution plan depended on four executive regional directors at the top being “best placed to manage performance and build capability, which can vary significantly between districts”.

Already, a new policy on who gets to decide on hiring and firing, and on spending, was being rolled out.

Papers RNZ has seen showed the policy was approved by the board in December.

They showed there must be consultation with the regional or national head of human resources for all hires, or for creating new positions within budget; and to create any new positions outside budget needed “consultation/approval” from either of these heads or from the executive leadership team.

Campbell said, “You start off looking like they’ve got a lot of power, and then when you really read through it, they don’t.

“Even on items that are within budget and full-time equivalent allocations, there is a need for … consultation, and in a hierarchical organisation like this consultation means getting approval.”

The biggest difference was a bigger regional element compared to what HNZ was building at the time he was sacked in 2023 for a political attack on National’s water infrastructure policy.

Yet it was “still very tightly controlled” and regional and district managers were “in a no-win situation”, Campbell said.

‘Divergent approaches’

In addition to lack of finance staff, the January report added “fragmentation” to the hurdles for devolution.

“Without strong governance structures and clear national guardrails, regions and districts risk adopting divergent approaches, weakening system-wide alignment and equity in service delivery,” it said.

Those governance structures were still being set up.

Campbell said good governance meant having a business model everyone grasped. “People throughout the organisation still find it very hard to understand what the responsibility for particular issues is.”

The report said Health NZ had had to build national financial guardrails after its lurch towards a big deficit.

“If HNZ devolves too quickly or carelessly, they risk losing the opportunity to use its current … structure and scale” to address system problems, it said.

On the plus side, devolution could help districts take more responsibility for day-to-day spending and not expect topdown bailouts, citing how Australian state hospitals used to have a “rollercoaster of budget blowouts and rescues”.

Brown’s plan retained the Wellington-based bureaucracy for strategy, planning, policies, standards and system integration.

However, the report said many of the national plans existed in name but “have not yet been developed or published, and the decision-making framework to support accountability is still developing”.

Building districts’ financial capability an ongoing focus – HNZ

Late on Wednesday Health New Zealand told RNZ that according to the Deloitte report the agency’s budgeting, planning, reporting, and performance management disciplines had been strengthened since a review of financial management at the end of 2024.

“These improvements have ‘reduced the risk of a loss of financial control levers’,” it quoted.

Building financial capability of districts and regions was an ongoing focus, said executive national director of strategy performance improvement, Jess Smaling.

“Regions and districts will have clear budgets, and delegated authority to make decisions based on the unique local needs,” she said in a statement.

“Budgets will be based on expected activity to meet those local needs, within the resources available to Health New Zealand.”

A national funding board and human resources oversight committee had been replaced by four regional investment committees and “people and culture committees”, along with a national version of that to consider human resource policies so there was national consistency.

A new national investment committee would make funding decisions above the authority of the four executive regional directors.

“Hiring decisions will be made in the regions and districts, within available budgets,” said Smaling.

Those within existing FTE and budget would only require the approval of the hiring manager’s immediate manager.

Decision-makers using delegated authority had to stay within approved budgets and limits, and comply with Health NZ policies and legislation, she added.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Fellow Melbourne based New Zealander, Bec Lister, who has lived across the Tasman for 13 years, shares Maclean’s yearnings.

“I love autumn in Melbourne, it’s probably my favourite time of year in Melbourne, but I also know of all of the feijoas that I’m missing out on.”

Both have found ways to source the fruit in Melbourne, which occasionally means paying prices that would make many Kiwis’ eyes water.

Maclean has seen them selling on Facebook Marketplace for about AU$15 (about NZ$16.10) a kilo, but when she was hit with a feijoa craving while in a fruit shop, she paid far more.

“I picked a few out thinking these will probably cost me but might not be too bad. When I took them over, she said, oh, that’ll be $2.49 (AUD) each. I paid $7.50 (AUD) for three medium-sized feijoas.”

New Zealander Jen Jones, who has called Melbourne home for 13 years, has seen some other novel ways new Zealanders source feijoas.

“There’s the Facebook good karma networks and things where people would say, ‘hey, I’m here from New Zealand, I’m craving for feijoas. Does anyone have any?’”

But Jones enjoys foraging for the fruit in her local neighbourhood.

“We ride our bikes down the laneways and just collect feijoas, and sometimes we even go up to a door and say, ‘hey, we’ve noticed you’ve got all this fruit on the ground, do you mind if we collect them?’”

Jones says finding a good tree is a year-round mission.

“Through the year, you drive around and feijoa trees are on the radar. You kind of just log it in your mind and know that when Autumn comes around, you might just drop by and see how it’s going.”

For Lister, a generous workmate has provided her a steady supply this season. She sits with another New Zealander in the staff room at the school where they work spooning out the juicy flesh.

“There was a massive bowl of feijoa skins just on our desk … all of our workmates were just like sitting around, being like, ‘what the hell is going on? What are these things?’”

Mark O’Connor, an Australian poet and self-proclaimed “feijoa expert”, explains why the feijoa has “not been taken all that seriously as a fruit” outside of New Zealand.

“When they were setting up the city of Canberra, which was an artificial city set up as a capital, when you arrived you had a right to get something like six free trees from the government nursery and 40 free shrubs.”

Feijoas were counted as a shrub and were recommended due to their ability to tolerate the soil and climate of Canberra. But they were never prioritised for eating.

“All over Australia, almost any nursery will have feijoas in it for sale at any time. But they will not be selected for fruit.”

O’Connor explains this has led to a low opinion of feijoas as fruit, and many people consider them as similar to a loquat and other trees where the fruit is “not taken seriously” and considered only good for jam.

O’Connor grows feijoas in his Canberra backyard and is often giving them away – there are no surprises who his main beneficiaries are.

“I certainly give them away in bucket loads, especially to people from New Zealand.”

O’Connor is interested in cultivating the fruit, and is in awe of the state of play in New Zealand.

“You don’t know how lucky you are in New Zealand that you can go to Bunnings and find half a dozen of the very best varieties on sale for really the price of seedlings.”

While Australian-based New Zealanders may be misunderstood for devouring feijoas, Lister describes it as something of a comfort.

“You do get homesick. I guess that’s one thing that can kind of comfort you is having that love for feijoas.”

Which is something echoed by Jones.

“There’s a bit of a homesickness that comes with it, and you end up more keen for them than you probably would if you were back home. It’s more than just eating the fruit, it’s a bit of nostalgia. It’s a taste of home.”

Lister also has some advice for Australians.

“You can treat Kiwis like shit all year round, but if you bring them feijoas on one day they will love you for life.”

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Too many rules, too little judgement – why one Kiwi professor says the country is strangling itself with red tape.

Professor Natasha Hamilton-Hart has a simple rule for stupid rules: get rid of them.

She says the country’s love for red tape is making life harder and society less effective.

So, she’s written a book about it.

It’s aptly called Stupid Rules: Reducing Red Tape and Making Organisations More Effective and Accountable.

She tells The Detail that modern workplaces are trapped in a culture of compliance that replaces judgement with bureaucracy.

“We have too many stupid rules, which are the rules that regulate when we really should delegate authority, and if we actually ceded a little discretion to authority, we would paradoxically have more freedom, and we would get more of what we want,” she says.

In this episode, Hamilton-Hart, who is a professor in management and international business at the University of Auckland, gives examples of both personal and professional experiences.

The personal: volunteering with a conservation group, helping teams to get rid of pest plants in urban areas.

“The first time I did this, headquarters sent us this health and safety form which had a matrix on it, and you were supposed to list every conceivable adverse event, and then you were supposed to attach a probability of it happening and how serious it would be if it did happen.

“And when you start thinking about it, well, actually, people could injure themselves pretty badly if you take them gardening, they might even have a heart attack.

“The point was, if you took it literally, and go, ‘we are not taking a defibrillator out with us on our weeding expedition, so if someone had a heart attack, actually they would probably die,’ we wouldn’t have been able to do it at all.

“So obviously I was supposed to lie when I filled out this paperwork,” she says. “But that’s kinda ridiculous, that has gone overboard.”

Changing a hyphen

Her professional experience included a hyphen in a name on a university website, which was wrong.

“I thought, ‘no problem,’ I got my office manager to send the web people a note and say, ‘can you take the hyphen out?’.

“This had to get escalated to the head of administration in my faculty, because I was told that the rule book said the hyphen had to be in there.

“I’m pretty sure the rule book doesn’t have naming rights over study centres.”

She says rule books can become shorter and more effective if companies, sectors, governments, and organisations cede authority to people in a hierarchy or empower them to decide what is appropriate.

She points to General Motors, which once had a clunky employee dress code that grew to 10 pages long.

But when Mary Barra became vice president of global human resources in 2009, she replaced the whole thing with two words: “dress appropriately”.

Hamilton-Hart says this sort of change achieves two things: it makes common sense and requires authority.

Employees gain more discretion, but managers will have to step in when someone gets the dress code wrong.

And this is what the book is about.

“What inspired me, if inspired is the right word, was actually coming back to New Zealand after many, many years away, and mostly working in Southeast Asia, where, whatever else they suffer from, tends not to be stupid rules. And coming to New Zealand and thinking, why can’t we get things done?

“Why can’t we build buildings that don’t leak? Why can’t we have finance companies that don’t go bankrupt? Why is it so hard to actually deliver the stuff that people want delivered?

“There is no disagreement – we want better hospitals, we want better schools, we want to raise literacy rates, but we don’t seem to be able to do it.

“And I know there will never be just one reason, but I sort of got curious about what stops organisations delivering on their purpose.”

She says she discovered a “flight from authority” in recent decades, which has stripped organisations of command capacity and resulted in workplaces where employees tick boxes rather than exercise initiative.

She says the answer isn’t to abandon rules altogether – but to rethink how organisations govern themselves.

That means trusting expertise, strengthening leadership authority, and holding people responsible for outcomes rather than compliance.

In other words, fewer rules – but clearer responsibility.

She says if nothing changes, the country could be left with more bureaucracy, less effectiveness, and a system where everyone follows the rules, but nothing works quite as it should.

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