HELEN SIMS offers both an appraisal of A Civilised Society and a dialogue with its director, Alister Barry, on the documentary’s chronicle of free market reforms and education upheaval in the eighties.


A Civilised Society charts the reversal of values in New Zealand’s education system driven by the free market reforms of successive Labour and National governments from 1984. In the documentary filmmaker Alister Barry demonstrates and laments the erosion of the right to free education in order to realise one’s fullest potential, and the resulting loss of the values of equal opportunity and community. It is also a film of protest and peaceful, but by no means passive, resistance to the policies of successive governments by teachers and their unions. Barry’s belief that “A high quality universal public education system is a fundamental requirement of an egalitarian society” pervades the film.

The documentary is loosely structured around elections, beginning with the Labour government led by David Lange in 1984 and culminating with the election of another Labour government in 1999 led by Helen Clark. The documentary briefly sets out the aims of New Right public management, according to Roger Douglas, of “competent economic management” and the promotion of the individual as a “self maximising unit”. As is well known now, these beliefs were pursued through a programme of deregulation and privatisation. Although schools were not privatised, another major problem becomes obvious at once – according to the documentary, the Government was allowing Treasury to have a high degree of involvement in the formulation of public policy, using business models that have no capacity to take into account equality and nation building. Instead education was seen as benefiting the individual, with parents cast as the consumers of an economically quantifiable service. An emphasis on competition and the market values of service delivery emerged. The Lange government’s commitment to this new conception of the delivery of education resulted in the substantial enactment of the Picot Commission’s recommendations into law. Most notably this resulted in changing the management structure of schools by giving parents a substantial amount of control through elected Boards of Trustees (BOTs). Principals were re-cast as erstwhile CEOs, having to negotiate the difficult interface of operating a successful business and providing education. While the increase of community involvement that resulted from this move is indicated as a relative positive, the lack of consultation with the representatives’ of teachers, the PPTA and New Zealand Economic Institute, are highlighted as an omission of considerable concern.

The growing sense of conflict comes to head over the issue of individual employment contracts for teachers. Teachers saw this as giving an unacceptable amount of control to the BOTs and precipitating a slippery slope towards a loss of uniformity in the provision of education. Resistance is also attributed to the tendency of the government to push through reforms in the face of opposition and without reference to union representation. The views of teachers seem to have been that although they wanted central control, this did not mean a government acting dictatorially.

Following the National landslide victory in the 1990 election, the dismantling of the trade unions and the pursuit of bulk funding became primary objectives. The rest of the documentary charts the ability of various schools BOTs to resist the carrot dangled in front of them in the face of increasing economic pressure. The charge of bribery is covert rather than overt, with Lockwood Smith painted as a slippery double talker, a smiling Janus, espousing neo-Liberal theory. The National government also abolished zoning in the name of free choice, which led (coupled with their economic policies) to social stratification, or in the words of one interview subject “ghetto-isation” of schools in low decile areas. The commercial deal struck by Avondale College with Pepsi – “If it becomes Avondale Pepsi College then so be it” – is a particularly frightening example of the problem faced by schools, especially their principals, who begin to sacrifice the provision of a well rounded education in favour of getting a “good deal” for their pupils.

Unsurprisingly, the situation begins to degenerate into hardball by both the government and the unions and teachers themselves. Strikes and protests became more common, and the film deftly links this into the push for electoral system change in 1993 and the strong emphasis on the education issue in the first MMP election in 1996. Despite increasing the size of the carrot, re-naming bulk funding as the “fully funded option”, and a further attempt to break the strength of the PPTA, many schools held out. BOTs and Principals were placed in an increasingly difficult position, as Barry notes:

The BOTs were expected and predicted to behave like company directors representing the interests of the parents of the school to the detriment of the interests of the children of the nation as a whole. Perhaps to the amazement of the free market theorists, this did not happen. The BOTs did act as “citizens” as much as they acted in a self interested way.


Labour’s electoral success in 1999 is credited to its “time for a change” and “get our country back” themes, and after their quashing of bulk funding upon election, the voiceover (Adele Broadbent) is heard to proclaim “the education system had survived.”

The documentary is highly educative of the unions’ and teachers’ perspectives of education reform in the 1980s and 1990s. Treasury as well as successive Education Ministers are roundly indicted. Barry uses a technique of a multiplicity of interspersing interviews with academics, union representatives, BOT members, principals and teachers. This is punctuated by the narration of Broadbent, which delivers a mix of historical fact and political opinion. This is the same approach he has taken in his previous two documentaries that form a loose trio on the subject of the social impacts of the New Right reforms, Someone Else’s Country and Land of Plenty. This gives the documentary a great primary evidence feeling and makes it a valuable historical document for the sheer fact of capturing this many accounts alone, even if it is unashamedly weighted towards a left wing view. As Gordon Campbell notes in his extended profile of the film for the Festival, the documentary may also become an “activist tool about how such policies can be defeated” should the spectre of bulk funding raise its head again. Assessment of government policy is perfunctory, with only a grudging acknowledgment at the end that, despite some dodgy tactics, the reforms were largely pursued with the ideological conviction that they would improve the education system. Despite the fact that I agree with Barry that the policy choices made by the government actually resulted in the opposite, putting an incredible strain on teachers to defend the quality of education students actually receive, there is not much of an acknowledgement that the “quality” of education is a highly subjective concept. However, to ameliorate this charge, it is Barry’s avowed aim to combat the invariable deceptiveness with which the government presented the views of teachers and their unions:

“There was a profound difference between the teachers and their unions, and the New Right’s approach to this struggle. The teachers were always trying to have a public debate about the real issues, – the real facts, the actual research and philosophical, moral and “New Zealand” issues involved. The New Right was always trying to avoid doing this and to talk about other issues and to claim the teachers had other self interested motives behind their objections. The New Right was invariably deceitful in representing their views. This was because their values were those held by perhaps 5% of the population. They could never win the argument in an honest debate.”

But over and above the struggles against each individual policy that are presented in the documentary is a pervading nostalgia for the country of equal social opportunity that Barry believes existed post WWII. The film ends as it began – with footage of 1940s school children and swelling nostalgic music and with the voiceover professing a longing to revive education that instils a sense of community and a strong commitment to democratic principles, namely equality. The desire to return to a circa 1940’s utopia that brackets the documentary weakened the film for me – for one thing, the challenges of second wave feminism and the struggle for indigenous peoples’ self determination has revealed the problems inherent in the bare concept of equality the documentary seems to be championing. Secondly, it is also a pretty common factor of any 100 level university history course that despite the outward profession of social idealism post-WWII, New Zealand was far from the inclusive utopia it is painted to be. Thirdly, a commitment to democratic principles inevitably involves an investigation into what a society truly means when it says it is “democratic”. In New Zealand, with our strong commitment to parliamentary sovereignty, I think this would scare many and disabuse them of their notions of New Zealand having the underlying social and constitutional fabric to completely fulfil the idealistic vision proffered without serious change and a confrontation with what we are fundamentally committed to as a nation – something that New Zealander’s are famously reluctant to do.

Maybe I’m an overly cynical product of the individualistic, user pays system, as when I put the question to Barry as to whether the tide could realistically be turned, he responded:

“The values studies that are done by Massey University show that in fact the fundamental value system of New Zealanders is incredibly stable over time and over generations. Perhaps superficially those under say 30 seem to be more individualistic, in fact they are not. New Zealand does have a unique set of values and a world view all of its own that is shared by the vast majority of its citizens. This was the mistake of the New Right revolutionaries. They believed that if they forced the policy changes through that in ten or so years the views of the people would change to match these policies. They were wrong and they continue to be wrong. For the younger generation, there is a sense of loss and sadness about the way things are because of a mismatch between the current policy reality and the way things used to be and should be again. Bruce Jesson believed it would take 25 years to return NZ to the way it was (allowing for adaptation to a changing world). Slowly things are changing to again reflect a sense of fairness, of equality of each citizen.”

As my father (a teacher for 30 years and a strong opponent to the reforms of the 1980-90’s – he described them as a “cynical con”) noted “If we created this monster since 1984 why can’t a range of policies create a different perception?” There are obviously those out there who share Barry’s optimism and faith. For them, this documentary (and his two others) will be informative and inspirational viewing. Whether you agree with its politics or not, it is an invaluable resource covering a crucial period in New Zealand’s history.