Public Service Professionals and Rogernomics: Ministry of Works and Engineers

The thesis is a study of both the Ministry of Works after 1970 and of engineers employed by the Ministry as it restructured in the later 1980s. From 1870 the Ministry of Works was a major department of state, although, in its first century, the relationship between public building of infrastructure and private would be contested - as would the Ministry’s existence. After 1945, the Ministry’s power grew, and its influence and power peaked in the early 1970s. By the end of that decade, however, the Ministry would be under scrutiny both in the wake of the Kaimai tunnel disaster and as a new political generation cast a critical eye over public spending and the public sector. Although major state sector reform is associated with the fourth Labour Government, the preceding Muldoon Government had decided to split the Ministry in a way that anticipated the Lange Government. Engineers were a significant part of the Ministry’s workforce, and the thesis explores the impact of public sector restructuring on this group of professional staff.