The next wave of change awaits its big new idea that can’t quite be seen yet

History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. And, in Aotearoa New Zealand, the rhyming seems to have a distinct rhythm. A cursory look at the history of social and economic policy in New Zealand reveals an interesting pattern. The largest transformations have occurred at regular intervals. The upheavals of “Rogernomics” marked the late 1980s.

Before that, New Zealand’s welfare state was forged in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Go back another 40 to 50 years, and the first wave of liberal, social reform took place in the 1890s. And this was 40 or 50 years after the onset of mass dispossession of Māori land by the British.

Each of these transformations was deep and profoundly affected those who lived through them. Each was a response to difficult economic and social conditions. On the economic front, these were the depressions of the late 1880s and early 1930s, and the stagflation of the 1970s.

Major social change – women’s suffrage, the maturation of the labour movement and the Māori renaissance – went hand in hand with economic stress. Each wave profoundly shaped our health system. Thus, our tax-based funding model was established in the 1930s, while the 1980s bequeathed the legacy of contracts between funders and providers that is taken for granted today.

Each of these transformations was associated with some sort of international big idea – a seemingly coherent narrative that pulled together diverse strands regarding where social and economic responsibility lay, and how a society should be organised.

THE TWO BIG ideas of the 20th century – the universal welfare state of the 1940s and the economic liberalism of the 1980s – came to be adopted and accepted across the main political parties of their time. These big ideas, and the changes they underpinned, were not unique to New Zealand.

New Zealand governments with a majority in Parliament face few obstacles and veto points if serious about major change

However, the architecture of our political system ensured that each wave of change took hold more quickly, and had a deeper and longer-lasting impact on our political institutions than was typically the case in comparable countries.

Each was facilitated by what former prime minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer famously described as “unbridled power” of governments. Compared with Australia and any European or North American country, New Zealand governments with a majority in Parliament face few obstacles and veto points if they are serious about major change.

Elsewhere, formal political power is more dispersed. This might be through having a federal system as in Australia, Canada, the US or Germany. It might be through having a second legislative chamber that can review, and sometimes reject, government-sponsored legislation; most other jurisdictions have that design feature.

Or it could be by separating the function of making legislation from the job of running a government (as in the US or France). All of these design features dilute the concentration of government power. We don’t have any of them, and that makes our political system rather weird.

IN BETWEEN TIMES of major change, most public policy in New Zealand, including health policy, bobs along with incremental change. Because of this, we don’t notice the peculiarity, the potential, and the dangers inherent in the design of our political institutions. So is this concentrated power a blessing or a curse? On the plus side, provided that the big idea is a good idea, new big ideas can take hold quickly, and opponents are relatively powerless to thwart them.

However, policymakers will make bigger mistakes without the checks and balances that other political systems enjoy. It is very easy for us to get ahead of ourselves. So, let’s take stock of the political landscape after the 17 October election. We are approaching the 40-to-50-year interval since the last major transformation.

We have the major economic stress caused by COVID-19. We have a surging wave of social activism around climate change and around addressing Te Tiriti o Waitangi responsibilities and social inequality. And we now have – in spite of having changed our electoral system to proportional representation – a single party elected with a majority and the capacity to pursue its policy priorities strongly.

THE ONE INGREDIENT we don’t have is the big idea. Or, at least, if it exists, we are not quite aware of it yet. That also pretty well describes the situation of the late 1970s. Only a few academic economists had encountered the ideas of Milton Friedman and the Chicago school of economics.

Nor was John Maynard Keynes a household name in the early 1930s. (I’m not suggesting we should think of social history in terms of heroic male economists; these two were the earliest, identifiable flagbearers of their generations’ big idea.) The point is that the next big idea is probably not far away.

It will be championed by an assortment of voices from across the political spectrum. It may well confound our established ideas of left and right, of liberalism and conservatism.

By 2030, we will probably see its full shape. Due to our political system, the next wave of transformation is likely to hit us faster, and perhaps with more force, than elsewhere. And, as with each wave of transformation before it, our health system is likely to be different in ways we cannot yet imagine.

Tim Tenbensel is associate professor, health policy, in the School of Population Health at the University of Auckland