{"id":340046,"date":"2026-03-21T01:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/340046\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T01:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:52:08","slug":"stupid-rules-the-new-book-tackling-new-zealands-problem-with-red-tape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/340046\/","title":{"rendered":"Stupid Rules: The new book tackling New Zealand\u2019s problem with red-tape"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u201cThere\u2019s just a lot of things not happening the way we would like them to happen. And that sparked my curiosity about what\u2019s holding us up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stupid Rules offers a more nuanced look at the cultural and economic issues that are slowing us down \u2013 and how we might change them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not really a right-wing book or a left-wing book,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just a choice between regulate or deregulate … markets or rules.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton-Hart advocates a third option, which focuses on looking at organisational structures and how we delegate authority.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis third option, which is organising things in a hierarchy, is efficient, and it\u2019s effective,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Inside those hierarchies, whether they be corporate, public sector agencies or universities, things work best when they are not running on rules and contracts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re running on something kind of a bit more basic, which is commands,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Hamilton Hart believes a culture of fear has developed around delegating decision-making authority.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to delegate more authority to people to make decisions on the basis of overall impressionistic judgment, not holding them to the letter of the law or the fine details of a standard,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
There were two reasons why society had become wary about doing that.<\/p>\n
Watch full-length interview below:<\/p>\n
\u201cOne is that, from the point of view of the people who are getting told what to do, they might like some protection,\u201d Hamilton Hart says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about the abusive boss, or what about if the person above me in the hierarchy is arbitrary or incompetent or whatever?\u201d<\/p>\n
But then there was also the fear of people who occupy these more senior levels.<\/p>\n
\u201c[If] they actually exercise their discretionary choice and make decisions and tell people what to do they are being held responsible and that might be pretty uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Exercising that authority meant providing feedback and saying \u201cno, you didn\u2019t get it right, that wasn\u2019t appropriate behaviour\u201d.<\/p>\n
That could be uncomfortable at a personal level.<\/p>\n
But they also had to carry the responsibility for the outcomes of decision-making.<\/p>\n
Areas like employment and HR have become a minefield of complexity, Hamilton-Hart says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you do with employees who are just not up to par. You can try and work with them and improve them but at some point it becomes evident that it\u2019s not going to work out,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, people who are out there advocating for workers\u2019 rights and unions say, well, if you just make it easy to fire people at will, you\u2019re going to open the door to a lot of people losing their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Employment insecurity was a real issue, so there has to be trust and goodwill, she says.<\/p>\n
But there are other options available.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe example I use in the book is the Danish system where it is reasonably easy to get rid of underperforming employees … but you have to give compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter all, you did make a commitment to give someone a job, and so if you\u2019re gonna fire them, you should give them a payout.\u201d<\/p>\n
So the key was a system that was fair but straightforward.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think getting the settings right might involve deregulating and letting people carry the burden of responsibility for the choices they make,\u201d Hamilton-Hart says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some cases, it might mean we do need a regulation, but it needs to be a simpler, harder regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n
If we are going to have simpler regulations with much less compliance burden, then we need to allow a bit more authority, she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bit of discretionary latitude for choice, to people further up in some kind of organised hierarchy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton Hart argues that, ironically, some of the red tape that has built up in New Zealand over the past few decades may actually be a result of the free-market reforms that were supposed to free us from the regulatory excesses of the 1970s. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe book is definitely not a case for going back to the \u201970s, and I\u2019m not in favour of price controls,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think there are lots of scenarios where the market really does work quite well, and if it doesn\u2019t, sometimes all that\u2019s needed actually is a competition agency with the teeth to make it work well.\u201d <\/p>\n
She says deregulation that came in the 80s was clearly overdue. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut it actually swept up a whole lot of services and functions, and said, well, instead of telling people what to do and getting things done through command and control, what we\u2019re gonna do is contract for these services.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re talking about the language of KPIs [key performance indicators] and performance contracts and, that contract-based sort of model.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it turned out that called for a whole lot of red tape, to effectively monitor and keep track of what was happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, it\u2019s very hard to monitor and set up market-mimicking mechanisms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton-Hart uses the example of outsourcing prison services to the private sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to try and get a market mechanism going, you don\u2019t have the basic prerequisites because the prisoners who are consuming the service, they\u2019re not choosing their prison, they\u2019re not spending their own money,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo there\u2019s no feedback about who\u2019s providing the best prison service.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to set up a way of trying to mimic market-based contracting, you have to devise all these KPIs and standards and indicators, to see if, you know, your service provider is doing a good job or not … to make sure they\u2019re not cutting costs and doing bad things along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOver time, if there are few disasters or scandals, you go, okay, we need to tighten up on quality control, monitoring, conflict of interest, quasi-corruption scenarios.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen you\u2019ve actually got a whole contracting apparatus, which is really expensive.<\/p>\n
One thing we might have to get better at dealing with is that \u201cgranting humans the authority to make decisions means that sometimes things will go badly,\u201d Hamilton-Hart concludes.<\/p>\n
The other big question was: who should have the power to exercise discretionary choice \u201cas to whether those with delegated authority have exercised it appropriately\u201d, she says.<\/p>\n
The book\u2019s answer is, ultimately, that this should be determined by \u201cvoters exercising their free choice in democratic elections and the marketplace\u201d.<\/p>\n