"Circle the Wagons"

In the absence of an effective public consultation process in these times of change, it would appear that we are being asked to leave our future in the hands of a very clearly change averse Norfolk Island Government and its Administration. Consider the following;

The range of responsibilities currently undertaken by the Norfolk Island Government is likely to change as the island becomes more closely integrated into the Australian system.
As a consequence of this, the Norfolk Island Administration will need to change the scope of its activities as it potentially sheds the more appropriately national responsibilities of border security and social security in favour of increased activity in municipal services and the provision of policy and administrative support to the NIG.
Change in the public sector, however, can be extremely difficult to progress as public servants (understandably) resist any change that might cause them to lose their jobs or have to undertake roles outside their normal comfort zones.
This behavior is neither unique to, nor universal within, the Norfolk Island public service.
The Norfolk Island Administration is a bureaucracy that has learned many of the lessons of process fairly well. However some processes within the Administration will have changed little in the life of self government and some officers will have been in the same role for a long time and will have received little in the way of training to equip them for new roles in an evolving bureaucracy. This is largely because the bureaucracy has not been evolving in any meaningful way.
The Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy said in a report
on Singapore's bureaucracy, "the Singapore bureaucracy during normal times, when the system is not stress-tested, operates very well, however, during difficult times - or when mistakes are made that reflect badly on the system - there is a tendency among bureaucrats to circle the wagons in ways that lack transparency and make accountability difficult". Reflecting also on the Indian Bureaucracy the report went on, "they are a power centre in their own right at both the national and state levels, and are extremely resistant to reform that affects them or the way they go about their duties". These same traits exist to a greater or lesser extent in any tenured public service and are certainly found in the Norfolk Island Administration. A job for life in the public service does not serve the public well if the organisation remains frozen in time.
Public Administration (the public service) should, by definition, be driven by a culture of responsibility, accountability, and one would hope, altruism. However the degree to which a public service embraces these qualities will depend on the extent to which these qualities are found in their political masters. By contrast, the forces at work driving performance in commerce are substantially different. Commerce lives or dies on its responsiveness to change, it has no choice with profit being the primary driver of performance. It is ironic then, that the changes we all will be expected to live with are for the most part being driven by reluctant stakeholders while the enthusiasts for change sit on the benches.

The NIGs failure to understand the importance of investing in capacity building within its Administration may prove costly for us all. In dealing with the Commonwealth bureaucracy, Norfolk Island is seriously mismatched at both a political and an administrative level; it's a David and Goliath scenario.
It remains to be seen if, against this recalcitrant background, the Norfolk Island community can get a good outcome?