Friends With Benefits

by Rebecca Thomas

Politicians keep high-profile friends. Friends with benefits.

The kind that help win elections, shape policy and, once in government, quietly occupy positions of influence. Politics has always traded in loyalty. Trusted allies are less likely to leak, less likely to challenge and more likely to carry the agenda exactly as intended. You only have to look at the recent line-up across education to see the final row of the chessboard coming into play.

Sarah Brown was one of the earliest principals to publicly support Erica Stanford's education agenda, hosting campaign events at her Far North school before the election. She now sits on the Teaching Council, helping shape the future direction of the profession.

David Ferguson moved from leading the Teachers' Institute while serving as Chair of the Teaching Council before becoming Chief Executive of the Education Review Office. Along the way, public questions were raised about governance, funding allocations and perceived conflicts of interest. While no findings of personal misconduct were made against him, the sequence of appointments has fuelled debate about independence and public confidence.

Then there is Nina Hood.

Once respected across the profession for her independent research and commentary, she became one of the earliest and most prominent public advocates for the Government's Science of Learning reforms, delivering webinars and helping build confidence in a policy direction that many teachers were still trying to understand while Te Mātaiaho was rapidly being pushed aside.

We all know the benefits don't stop there. Advisory groups. Board appointments. Ministerial working parties. National honours. Influence. Access. The opportunity to shape the future.

Most of us would probably say yes. I'd probably be flattered too. Because that's the thing about political patronage. It rarely begins with corruption. It begins with opportunity.

Which is why this isn't really about Sarah Brown, David Ferguson, Michael Johnston, Elizabeth Rata, Ben Jensen or Nina Hood. I suspect every one of them genuinely believes they are making education better.

The question isn't whether they are good people. The question is what power does to good people. Can anyone accept influence, appointments and political favour and remain completely independent? Or does every relationship eventually come with expectations?

Every government wants reform. The fastest way to achieve reform isn't to persuade independent people. It's to appoint people who already agree with you. Once enough of the key institutions are led by people who share your vision, persuasion becomes unnecessary.

Why spend years debating academics, universities and professional bodies when you can gradually reshape the institutions themselves?

Change the Teaching Council. Change Initial Teacher Education. Change the Education Review Office. Change the Children's Commissioner. Change advisory groups. Change procurement panels. Eventually, you no longer need to argue for your ideas. Your ideas become the only ideas being heard. That isn't necessarily corruption. It isn't necessarily illegal. It's something much more subtle. It's control.

There is another side to power that is rarely talked about. Sometimes it isn't the appointments that tell the story. It's actually the story of removals.

Claire Amos chose a different path.

She chose to remain loyal to what she believed education should be. She kept writing. She kept questioning. She kept arguing for an education system that was balanced, evidence-informed and protected from the political pendulum. Her opinion piece wasn't abusive. It wasn't a personal attack. It was a call for a bipartisan approach to education and a reminder that complex problems rarely have simple, ideological solutions.

Not long afterwards, a government board appointment that Claire had been expected to take up, reportedly worth around $45,000 a year, no longer eventuated. Whether the timing was coincidence or consequence is something readers can judge for themselves. But what many educators took from it was a simple message: speaking up can come at a cost.

And Claire is far from alone.

Perhaps this is where "friends with benefits" quietly evolves into something else. Australian academic Professor Robert Hattam warns of what he calls a "knowledge cartel"—not a conspiracy, but a circle of trusted institutions and experts whose ideas become self-reinforcing. The same names advise. The same organisations receive commissions. The same research is cited. The same people train the next generation. Before long, it isn't that other perspectives have been disproven. They gradually stop being invited into the conversation.

Across the sector there are academics whose research has fallen out of favour. Universities that have seen funding streams shift. Initial teacher education providers that have watched contracts and opportunities diminish. Professional learning providers whose work has reduced as government priorities have changed. Some of that will be a natural consequence of any new government's policy direction. Some of it has left people wondering whether independence has become a liability rather than a strength.

Perhaps that is the real test of character. Not whether you are offered influence. But whether you are prepared to keep your principles when influence comes with expectations.

So, Claire, perhaps you dodged a bullet.

Appointments come and go. Contracts come and go. Governments come and go. But your integrity has to stay with you long after the title has disappeared. In the end, I'd rather walk away with my principles intact than spend my career wondering whether I traded them for a seat at the table. Because the greatest benefit an educator can ever keep isn't a board appointment. It's the freedom to tell any Minister—of any political colour—when they are wrong.

But here's the part that fascinates me now as we head towards November, what happens when the wind changes?

Today's trusted adviser can quickly become tomorrow's reminder of the previous government's agenda. Will these same people still defend the principles they hold today if a different Minister takes office? Will they challenge the next government with the same conviction? Or will they simply adapt to whoever now occupies the ninth floor of the Beehive?

History suggests political favour has an expiry date. I remember good people being purged from the Ministry of Education when the current Government took office. Experienced educators. People whose careers had been spent supporting schools. Overnight they were told their jobs no longer existed, because power changed, and so did the people considered useful.

Loyalty, it turns out, is often only valuable while it remains politically useful. High-profile appointments are no different. Power can elevate you. Power can also remove you.

If speaking out can cost you appointments, influence or opportunities, then eventually fewer people speak. Control doesn't require censorship. It simply requires enough people to decide the risk isn't worth it. Enough teachers deciding it isn't worth writing the blog. Enough academics deciding it isn't worth publishing the paper. Enough principals deciding to keep their heads down.

Democracy rarely loses its voice all at once. It loses it one quiet decision at a time.

Real teachers, however, have never been very good at following someone else's script. We keep asking questions. We keep adapting. We keep buying beanbags because relationships matter more than prescriptions. We keep putting children ahead of politics. And we keep speaking.

Healthy democracies rely on institutions that create friction. People willing to tell Ministers what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear. Because institutions are not supposed to serve governments. They are supposed to serve the public.

And that's the thing about friends with benefits. The benefits can be intoxicating. The invitations. The titles. The influence. The access. But every benefit quietly asks a question in return. Who are you ultimately loyal to? The Minister who appointed you? Or the children your profession exists to serve?

Because if there ever comes a day when those two loyalties collide...

...that is when we discover whether the benefits were worth the friendship after all.