Democratic Whimper
Aotearoa New Zealand’s Curriculum Reform and Competitive Authoritarianism.
Introduction
“Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms.”
— Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die
In New Zealand, we heard the whimper. It sounded like curriculum reform.
It’s taken me a long time to piece together the different strands of evidence I have amassed. I am now in possession of hundreds of pages of OIA documents. I have spent hours transcribing the December Education and Workforce Select Committee session. I dived into the procurement guidelines to understand the obligations they place on government. I trawled months and months of publicly available briefings and Education Reports to the Minister. All that time requesting, researching, and investigating means I have too much evidence. But it has led me to an epiphany, a moment where everything crystallised and I saw what was going on—the methodology at play, if you will.
Because alongside all that work, for the last nine months, I have also been reading academics who specialise in democracy, and specifically democratic backsliding. What I have come to understand is that what we have seen in the education reforms since December 2023 is a near textbook example of democratic backsliding in action. Since making that connection, I have looked at my investigation with a new lens, and in doing that I have identified five steps that can serve as ‘early warning signals’ in other domains and jurisdictions.
Competitive authoritarianism, as defined by Levitsky and Way (2010), is characterised by “regimes that combine comprehensive elections with serious violations of democratic procedure”. It is my belief that what has happened in the education reform process since December 2023 in Aotearoa New Zealand is a textbook example of that, to the extent we must consider whether Aotearoa New Zealand has taken a step towards competitive authoritarianism.
Indeed, Levitsky and Way (2020) argue that, while it is “much harder to tilt the playing field” in more established democracies, “the emergence of more subtle and sophisticated authoritarian strategies … is a major cause for concern.” This example, as I have documented across three reports and multiple supporting pieces since August 2024, is subtle and sophisticated, making use of the façade of legality and democratic process while subverting and hollowing them out.
This report reveals the extent of that sophistication. Its objective has been institutional capture to drive ideology that can then be embedded through legislative change. It has, on the whole, been successful. As Levitsky and Way (2020) say: “Competitive authoritarianism is not only thriving but inching westward. No democracy can be taken for granted”.
Not long after I published my first report back in August, I wrote a piece (Holloway, 2024c) that argued the real danger with the curriculum changes was the democratic price we were paying. Schoolnews.co.nz asked to republish it, which they did, and then retracted it two days later citing poor editorial fit. I didn’t realise how prophetic that piece was. This report charts the exact nature of that democratic price. The threat is real, and it is a betrayal of the very promise of this country, established with Te Tiriti o Waitangi — a foundation document that lays out the pluralistic promise of Aotearoa New Zealand. It is a foundation that is inherently democratic.
These education changes, specifically the way they have been enacted, betray that promise. They are democratic only in the sense that they reflect the election promise of the party that came to govern. But democracy is more than winning. It is process and voice, not power and privilege.
The most stunning thing, I have come to realise, is that the Ministry both left a paper trail and confessed. Earlier analysis suggested (Holloway, 2024a, Holloway, 2024b) 15 March was a significant day. I now have multiple pieces of evidence that show just exactly how significant that day was. Not only is that the day Michael Johnston, Chair of the MAG, emailed the MAG to confirm their involvement in the “project ahead”, I now (Ministry of Education, 2025) have an email from Anya Pollock, Chief Adviser to the GM Strategy & Integration at the Ministry of Education, detailing the meeting she and other Ministry officials had with Johnston the day before regarding that project, plus an Education Report (Ministry of Education, 2024, March 15), authorised by Ellen MacGregor-Reid and Pauline Cleaver, annotated and signed by the Minister, from that same day.
15 March is the day of irrefutable coordination that proves the MAG was pure theatre designed to validate what were predetermined outcomes.
The timeline
Here are the key dates that prove coordination before official advice was submitted:
15 January
The MAG meets for the first time, including with the Minister.
17 January
A series of emails (Ministry of Education, 2025) between the MAG over a few days show multiple members are getting to work writing documents.
- Elizabeth Rata is “working on a piece about the English Literature strand”.
- Helen Walls is “about to start the ‘concept testing’ for the writing strand”.
- James Chapman has “put together some thoughts” about the common practice model and shares a reading about culturally responsive instruction.
- Walls thanks him: “this is very clear and will help us as we begin to write the documents.”
13 February
Johnston (Holloway, 2024a) emails Pollock to ask about writing documents: “we have been operating on the understanding that writing the documents is within scope for the MAG.” Pollock (Holloway, 2024a) reminds Johnston of the public service guidelines for advisory groups: “Creating regulations (which is what the national curriculum is and also the intended status for the common practice model) and providing resource and tools to schools is part of the work of government.”
28 February
Johnston (Ministry of Education, 2025) circulates a draft of the MAG’s report to the MAG, and includes Pollock in the thread.
1 March
Pollock (Ministry of Education, 2025) replies to Johnston’s email from 28 February twice this day.
- The first time to share a document about the Understanding-Know-Do framework (“It may, however, be helpful to support a clear explanation of how the pragmatic approach in the current draft report differs from the current approach and why the shift matters”).
- The second time is with comments on the report (“I hope they are helpful as you are finalising your advice”).
15 March: the day democracy whimpers
Pollock (Ministry of Education, 2025) emails Johnston and other senior Ministry officials, including Ellen McGregor-Reid, with a detailed overview of a meeting they had with Johnston the day before. Of note:
- He has told them what recommendations will be in the report.
- She wants to know when the report will be ready to go to the Minister, in order “to keep things moving”.
- They “discussed the need to agree .. The schedule and timeline for getting the work done”, the establishment of writing groups, review and QA processes, that “MAG members will play a role in all three areas”
- The need to “make sure appropriate checks and balances are in place [to] manage potential conflicts of interest”.
- The MAG will get to determine the makeup of those groups, with the Ministry providing names of people they “may want … involved in the work ahead”.
- Johnston gets to determine “roles of specific MAG members”.
- The immediate priority is “getting work going on the teaching sequences and methods content as this is the backbone of a structured approach to teaching.” Johnston (Ministry of Education, 2025) replies and confirms, and thanks her “for the list of names who can potentially help … [he] will forward this document to the MAG and ask them to look for people they would be happy to work with.” Johnston (Holloway, 2024a) emails the MAG about the “project ahead”: “the Ministry will provide a project manager to coordinate our efforts” and he is “going to get in touch with (redacted) to find out exactly what detail the Minister would like to see in the report”.
An Education Report (Ministry of Education, 2024, March 15) called ‘Implementing a structured approach to literacy in schools and kura’ is provided to the Minister. She has annotated it. It details the work the MAG is already doing with the Literacy Contributors Group on preparing draft materials for testing in schools.
The MAG’s report is not submitted until 19 March. It is not accepted by the Minister until 5 April. I had Jan Tinetti submit a written parliamentary question to the Minister about the project. She denied knowledge of it. And yet, she has annotated the Education Report, and signed it on 17/3/24, so is aware of the MAG’s involvement in creating curriculum documents.
This timeline gives irrefutable evidence of Step 1 of the early warning signals methodology I have identified: Advisory groups exceeding their statutory authority. The MAG was active in writing curriculum documents almost from the start of their work, doing so in a way that stretched any reasonable definition of what was allowed in their terms — instead of providing samples for the Minister’s consideration, they were coordinating with the Ministry in the creation of curriculum content that was to be used in schools. The advisors became, very quickly, the implementers.
This evidence also shows us Step 2 of my methodology: Coordination between advisors and decision-makers before advice is submitted. Somehow, between 13 and 28 February, Pollock shifts from warning Johnston about violating public service guidelines to collaborating with the MAG. This is an important point: the MAG did not change their approach, the Ministry did. Why?
One can only speculate as I have uncovered no emails between 1 March and 15 March through OIA requests. However, what is clear is that by 1 March Pollock is offering documents she hopes are “helpful” and by 15 March helping Johnston to organise the “project ahead” which he and the MAG have control of. And all this before a report has been submitted, let alone accepted.
Pollock’s transformation from institutional guardian to collaborator is an example of what Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018) call ‘semi-loyal’ actors — officials who maintain a formal allegiance to democratic institutions while undermining their substance, thus contributing to their hollowing out.
This is a violation of democratic process. The MAG, the OIA documents show, has from the start being doing the work of government. That is work public service guidelines say their lack of legal status means they are unsuited to. That they are doing the work means we have the democratic façade of advice while predetermined outcomes are being implemented without official authorisation. The democratic form is preserved while it’s substance is hollowed out. This is a key characteristic of competitive authoritarianism.
This is not the only way to enact change What we have in this instance is an inversion of the expected process. The expected process allows for an elected government to make good on their election promises, and that it was not adhered to with regard to the education reform process is of utmost alarm.
First, there is the law, in this instance the Education and Training Act (2020). A curriculum, as Pollock reminds Johnston, is secondary legislation. As such, it must be consistent with the Act—it cannot change its intent. So, all significant change must begin with changes to the Act. But, as a result of the MAG exceeding their statutory authority, we have ended up with the curriculum leading the legislative change. That means what the legislation looks like ‘on the ground’ is a reflection of what those with power want it to be, and it has escaped the consultation and scrutiny required of legislative change. It also means that the amendments to the Education and Training Act currently before Parliament can be presented as a way to bring the Act into alignment with the curriculum.
A fundamental democratic principle is that if a government wants to change the legislation they start with the legislation. Then a minister seeks advice. Then, after considering the advice, a minister gives approval for work to be done that is consistent with the legislation so its intent can be realised when it is implemented. What we got was advice and implementation being collapsed and driven by the same group. That work has resulted in a curriculum that is inconsistent with with current Act (Holloway, 2025), an issue that will be resolved with the planned amendments to the Act. I have briefing papers that show those amendments have been planned since April 2024.
The confession
The December Education and Workforce Select Committee (Education and Workforce Committee, 2024) was one I keenly anticipated. A couple of weeks before, I had found the Education Report from March 15. I wrote up my findings in a short report called “15 March: evidence of MAG and Ministerial overreach?”
The morning of the select committee, I spent time on the phone with Lawrence Xu-Nan walking him through the implications of what I found. He was keen to press the Ministry leadership team on this issue. It has taken me this long to realise that what he was able to extract from then acting, now permanent, Education Secretary MacGregor-Reid is damning — a clear admission of the violation of democratic process that fits the first two steps of the methodology I have identified as being early warning signals of competitive authoritarianism spreading into a democracy: 1) Advisory groups exceeding their statutory authority, and 2) Coordination between advisors and decision-makers before advice is submitted.
Responses in select committee are officials speaking to Parliament, and so are the official public record. I am going to include the full responses to Xu-Nan’s questions.
Xu-Nan began by asking MacGregor-Reid about the relationship between the Ministry and the MAG. She stated (1:19),
“The Ministry, as it would with any MAG, provided secretariat support. We also provided background papers, information that was requested. The MAG produced their report. That report was considered by the Minister in discussion with the Ministry. The Minister took some decisions, some of their recommendations she agreed with, some of them she wanted to consider further, some of them she amended, and from there the Ministry looked to start work. We did remain in contact with members of the MAG as we commenced work on the curriculum areas that they had been tasked to look at by the Minister so that as we were thinking about criteria we were using for that design we were quality assuring, we were keeping in mind and getting that advice from them in the parts of their report that the Minister had agreed with.”
Here she is painting a nice, clean procedural picture, one very close to what we could expect and one that was also in the MAG’s terms. However, the OIA documents contradict this statement. Her inclusion in meetings and emails around 15 March, as well as authorising the March 15 Education Report suggest she is aware of that contradiction.
Xu-Nan then asked who gave authority for MAG members to continue in the design of the curriculum. She stated (1:20)
“The MAG ceased to be in place. The MAG itself did not undertake the writing or participate in the design. Once the MAG was completed and the Ministry was looking to set up writing groups, establish the processes around ourselves with the expertise we needed to undertake the writing, we contracted a range of people and we chose to contract some people who had also been part of the MAG, but the MAG itself ceased to operate.”
The Education Report from 15 March explicitly documents the involvement of the MAG in writing curriculum content for schools. That report is annotated by the Minister. Remember, the MAG does not submit its report until 19 March. It is also clear from the OIA docs that it is the MAG in control of setting up the writing groups. They are the ones vetting people they “can work with”. Elizabeth Rata has her writing team ready to go on 20 March.
Xu-Nan asks for clarification that there was no overlap between the MAG operating and members of the MAG being involved in curriculum design. She stated (1:21),
“We did have an issue, and it’s come out by OIA, where one MAG member, you know, they were very excited by the work, they threw themselves into it, commenced work. We rectified that situation. We looked at what was occurring and from our perspective, the MAG process came to an end, the Ministry then took over from there and groups were established.”
So, she admits her previous answers were not accurate. We have an admission the MAG — she says one member, we know multiple — were writing curriculum content when they should not have been. And we also know they were writing from 17 January. The situation was not rectified, because they continued with this work with the cooperation of the Ministry from 1 March at the latest. We also know from the 15 March email Johnston sends to the MAG that the Ministry was in a supporting role: they are going to provide a project manager, and the offer lists of people the MAG may want to include, for instance. Hardly the Ministry taking over.
Xu-Nan then asks explicitly about the 15 March Education Report, asking if the Ministry was aware that the curriculum rewrite was initiated before the MAG submitted its report. Remember, MacGregor-Reid’s name is on this Report. She stated (1:22),
“While the MAG work was occurring we obviously had a feed of information from the MAG, and all the previous curriculum work we had been doing … and so there were aspects of us as a Ministry thinking about, right, what’s the direction of travel here, what are we thinking about, what do we think makes sense, how can we start getting ahead of the work so that the sector doesn’t have to wait another two years for a curriculum they’d already been waiting for for a while.”
Public Service guidelines explicitly state that advisory groups lack statutory authority for regulatory roles (New Zealand Public Service Commission, n.d.), yet the OIA documents reveal this group consistently going beyond giving independent advice to the Minister. This is a point that Pollock stresses to Johnston on 13 February when she is making a point about the necessary separation of powers between a MAG and a Ministry. It is the work of government to set regulations, as Pollock stresses on 13 February, not advisory groups.
That MacGregor-Reid has confessed to the MAG writing curriculum documents, for there being “a feed of information” during the advisory process and that feed leading them to think about “the direction of travel” and “getting ahead of the work”, and we have an Education Report detailing the MAG’s direct involvement in writing curriculum robs the whole process of any semblance of necessary independence.
There was no separation of power. This is not efficient public sector work, it is loyalty to a pre-determined plan.
Just sit with that for a moment: the acting Secretary of Education admitted before Parliament that they collaborated in the corruption of democratic process. Does she, does the Ministry, think that democratic process is inefficient red tape?
As I wrote in August 2024 (Holloway, 2024c), this isn’t about pedagogy, this is about our democratic foundation. A small, ideological network has captured a government agency, predetermined the outcomes, and then implemented their own recommendations while maintaining the fiction of independent advice. Except the acting Secretary blew their cover. This is a textbook case of what political scientists call competitive authoritarianism—democratic institutions remain in place but are hollowed out and redirected to serve the interests of the few—documented in real-time with primary source evidence.
References
Education and Workforce Committee. (2024, December 3). Education and workforce committee hearing [Video recording]. New Zealand Parliament. https://vimeo.com/showcase/10758097
Holloway, B. (2024a, August 28). Curriculum overreach: How a special interest group took over the refresh of the New Zealand curriculum. Bevan Holloway [Blog]. https://bevanholloway.bearblog.dev/curriculum-overreach/
Holloway, B. (2024b, December 1). 15 March: Evidence of MAG and ministerial overreach. Bevan Holloway [Blog]. https://bevanholloway.com/2024/12/01/15-march-evidence-of-mag-andministerial-overreach/
Holloway, B. (2024c, August 31). The democratic price we’re paying by shrugging our shoulders at the curriculum change takeover. Bevan Holloway [Blog]. https://bevanholloway.com/2024/08/31/the-democratic-price-were-paying-by-shrugging-our-shoulders-at-the-curriculumchange-takeover/
Holloway, B. (2025, April 23). How the curriculum is legislation realised. Bevan Holloway [Blog]. https://bevanholloway.com/2025/04/23/how-the-curriculum-is-legislation-realised/
Levitsky, S., & Way, L. (2010). Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. Cambridge University Press.
Levitsky, S., & Way, L. (2020) The New Competitive Authoritarianism. Journal of Democracy 31(1), 51-65. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2020.0004
Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How Democracies Die. Crown Publishing Group.
Ministry of Education. (2024, March 15). Education report: Implementing a structured approach to literacy in schools and kura Official information release. New Zealand Government.
Ministry of Education. (2025). Official information request response: Ministerial Advisory Group communications OIA reference 1338985. New Zealand Government.
New Zealand Public Service Commission. (n.d.). Establishing a ministerial advisory committee. https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/guidance/establishing-a-ministerial-advisory-committee