The Politics and Government of New Zealand: Robust, Innovative and Challenged.

• Author: Martin, John R.
• Position: Book Review

THE POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT OF NEW ZEALAND: Robust, Innovative and Challenged

Authors: G.A. Wood and Chris Rudd

Published by: University of Otago Press, Dunedin, 2004, 260pp, $49.99.

A good starting point for a review of a book with such an all-encompassing title as The Politics and Government of New Zealand is to consider the target audience, said to be 'the general reader, students and anyone working in the public sector'. New Zealand has been well served in recent years by books purporting to provide a broad coverage of the country's constitutional and political arrangements. Some that come readily to mind are the various editions of Raymond Miller's edited New Zealand Government and Politics, Richard Mulgan's Politics in New Zealand, and Geoffrey and Matthew Palmer's Bridled Power. All are scholarly works that have much to offer general readers as well as politics and public policy university classes. Is there room for another? For its part the Wood/Rudd book seems to me well organised to meet the requirements of a domestic readership and also those of overseas readers--including diplomats and students--seeking a readable, focused, relatively short and up to date text.

The early chapters set the scene: 'Founding the New Zealand state: promises and grievances'--the Treaty and its consequences; 'The sovereign state'--beginning with a question I am often asked by overseas audiences, 'when did New Zealand become an independent state?' and tracing the constitutional instruments since 1840; and 'Asserting national identity: foreign policy' (this last a balanced, albeit brief, review of New Zealand's place in the world and recent salient issues). Then the book proceeds through the institutions (broadly construed to include, for example, the media and interest groups) of New Zealand government from the Governor-General, 'a hat not a head', to the checks and balances. Each chapter describes the principal aspects of the...