"Making Government Work: Lessons For The
Business Community From New Zealand"

While ethics and government accountability are at the forefront of Louisiana’s public discussion, confusion remains about what these concepts mean in practice—and what they mean for the business community.  Drawing on his experience from his native New Zealand and over a decade of work in Washington, the Honorable Maurice McTigue will explain why a culture of government accountability, transparency, and ethics is important to Louisiana’s business community and economic competitiveness—and how the state can get there.

Hon. Maurice McTigue has had an illustrious career as a New Zealand Member of Parliament, Cabinet Member, and Ambassador. Prior to his arrival in the United States, McTigue led an ambitious and successful effort to reconstruct New Zealand’s public sector and to revitalize the country’s stagnant economy. From 1984–94, Ambassador McTigue headed the Ministries of Employment, State Owned Enterprises, Railways, Works and Development, Labor, and Immigration. He was also Associate Minister of Finance and Chairman of the Cabinet’s Expenditure Control Committee. While in these positions, Ambassador McTigue worked to apply the results-based criteria and incentives that helped to reinvigorate New Zealand’s businesses climate. He later served as ambassador to Canada and received the prestigious Queen’s Service Order in 1999 at Buckingham Palace. In 1997, Ambassador McTigue joined the Mercatus Center, a research organization based at George Mason University focused on the economics of public policy issues, as a distinguished visiting scholar. For more than a decade he has translated his New Zealand reform experience to policy makers throughout the United States, working with officials in the Clinton and Bush administrations, on Capitol Hill, and in 23 executive branch departments and agencies.

In preparation for the forthcoming Louisiana special session on ethics, Ambassador McTigue testified before Governor Bobby Jindal’s Government and Fiscal Reform Advisory Council on the importance of transparency and accountability in ethics reform in Louisiana. In this discussion, Ambassador McTigue will provide an account of his reform efforts in New Zealand, which have led to New Zealand’s place as one of Australasia’s richest democracies and one of the world’s economically freest nations. His presentation will focus on why ethics reform and accountability in the public sector matters to the Louisiana business community and the state’s economic competitiveness.