They convince themselves they are making a real difference because they know what is wrong and how to fix it. Yet they think they know what is best for all of us. There isn’t, as far as I am aware, a single Minister who has ever held a private sector job, let alone had to put their house on the line so they could run their own business.
Right now New Zealand is run by career politicians. It was far closer to reality than most might ever appreciate.
Running the real show.įifteen years after that conversation along came that classic British TV show ‘Yes Minister’. But the real power lies with the civil servants, they don’t come and they don’t go, they are always just… there. Politicians come and politicians go, what they really want is power. Yes, he (probably) sighed, thats the idea but not the reality. I thought in a democracy we, the people, get the Government the majority want? The aforementioned Uncle once explained to me as an avowed Communist at age 10, there are two Governments, the permanent and the elected. Little has changed with who really runs the government and the damage they can do. I will never forget him storming up the office hallway yelling that ‘If they want war, they will get a f****ing war!!!’ I sometimes thought they had actually driven him mad. He spent the next 20 years of his life attacking the bureaucrats he once ran and supported. He retired from politics when his party was unceremoniously dumped and became an Immigration Adviser. He went on to explain that every good idea would be watered down and then further diluted as every potentially affected bureaucracy commented and picked apart what was often a very good idea adding or subtracting pieces important to them leaving a rump of an idea.Įverything trended toward the status quo. I recall asking my very first private sector boss, a former Minister of Immigration, as a fresh faced ideological leftie right out of university, if when he successfully ran for Parliament he thought he could change the world. My Uncle stood (unsuccessfully in the end) for Parliament but has remained deeply involved in politics most of his life. Did roads and tunnels etc when there were few of either. We have had a Minister of Public Works among us many moons ago. For some reason there is plenty who would.