Towards a New Public Ethics

This article is a very slightly modified version of Michael Macaulay’s Victoria University of Wellington inaugural professorial lecture, of the same title, which was delivered on 5 November 2019. It offers an overview of misconduct issues in the New Zealand public sector, and an explanation over the causes of toxic workplace cultures. It ends with a plea to develop a more specifically care ethics approach, to augment current public ethics perspectives. The lecture draws on seven years of accumulated research but foregrounds results from the three-year, ARC-funded Whistling While They Work 2 research project, for which Michael was the New Zealand lead.