The 'circular economy' was first advocated in the 1960s in an article called The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth. It's another way for the middle class to hector working people about the way you live, what you eat, your tastes and lifestyle. It has the credibility of homeopathy, by which I mean it sounds deep and meaningful to people who know they can shield themselves from the damage done by every utopian theory.

Imagine if the Treasury had a section advocating for collectivisation. But the revolutionary Ministry for the Environment has an entire website dedicated to the circular economy. It tells us that when something breaks “in our modern world” it is often more expensive to repair than to buy a new one. “This take-make-dispose mind-set has created a linear economy.” The sly disparagement of ‘modern’ economies is a clue to what is intended, and the slur is untrue anyway. Modern economies are far more productive than those of our ancestors. Today we create more out of less than our pre-industrial forbears managed. Replacing my carbon hungry Holden V6 with an EV makes sense.

Let’s imagine I'm completely wrong to disparage the controversial Circular Economy. It's still true that advocating for comprehensive change to the way we live and provide for ourselves is more radical than anything Rob Campbell said. Chris Hipkins' 'back to basics' government isn't about to put 'circular economy' on its to-do list. I don’t mind passionate public servants having wacky ideas. One of them might work. But what we are seeing is a public sector where the only daring new opinions are those entertained by the ruling mandarin caste, which Rob Campbell called ‘Poneketanga.’

No wonder they wanted him out.

Instead of giving a challenging voice only to Poneketanga, and muzzling other public officials as if they were passive government backbenchers, we should go the other way and open the public sector to more contestable ideas and individuals capable of pushing back.

Josie's Stuff column is here.