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An announcement by Bosch and Cavana, in Systems, called for new papers to provide updated perspectives about and fresh insights into developments that influence 'systems education for a sustainable planet'. This paper's objective is to provide an overview of the 14 papers that were published in the special issue, and present some insights and findings from their content. It does this by classifying the papers into five distinct themes, then analysing their content and the linkages between the themes. This process revealed that: (1) Specialised systems education at a tertiary level is predominantly at graduate level, using a diverse range of approaches; and (2) Delivering specialised systems education remains a challenge for programs that endeavour to provide an integrated and interdisciplinary learning experience. Barriers include current institutional structures and the need for students to be both big picture thinkers and detail-oriented technocrats; (3) Teaching systems approaches outside of specialised programs for students (both young and mature) help to expose systems thinking to a wider demographic; (4) The strong links that exist between systems approaches and sustainability goals are increasingly being recognised. Systems education can help transition towards a sustainable planet, as it helps people appreciate that individual actions are not isolated events but contribute to an interconnected system that determines both the well-being of humans and the planet.

Renewed interest in local government reform in New Zealand can be viewed as the continuation of a yet-to-be-completed process that commenced in 1989.' Calls for further rationalisation of the sector (fewer units of government) come from a number of quarters and reflect several motives. First, there is a perception that local government continues to be inefficient.? As local government divests or reorganises its traditional infrastructure services, so this argument goes, its overheads should also be reduced. Second, there is a concern to improve the capacity of local government to deal more effectively with its increased responsibilities for such matters as environmental regulation3 and the quality of the urban environment.4 It is argued that local government is the most appropriate level at which to deliver environmental and social services to increasingly diverse communities.-5 Thus, the amalgamation of smaller units of local government to increase the institutional capacity of the sector can also be understood as a establishing a viable alternative to traditional centralist solutions to such problems. Third, there is the simple view that less government is better government.6 This can be seen as part of a more fundamental reassessment of the role of the state in the face of demands to reduce the costs of business, which is in turn a response to the globalisation of capital. It can also be seen as part of an ongoing reassessment of the nature of public goods and of the benefits claimed for the private delivery of public services. It may also be conceived as a conservative reaction to the challenge of devolution. Whatever the motives of the protagonists, debate over the number and size of local government units should be conducted with proper consideration given to the respective functions of different levels of government, as well as to the I R. Howell, P. McDermott and V. Forgie, 'The Unfinished Reform in Local Government: the Legacy and the Prospect', Occasional Papers in Local Government Studies 3 (Palmerston North, 1996). New Zealand Business Roundtable, Local Government in New Zealand: an overview .f economic andfinancial issues (Wellington, 1995); National Business Review, 4 September 1998.

Systems archetypes are effective in communicating complex behaviour with relatively simple structures, across a wide range of topics. The “power dynamics” between different power holders are critically important in decision making when it comes to formulating and implementing policies. This topic was explored at a four‐day Australasian systems workshop run in New Zealand. A synthesis approach was combined with analytical procedures from system dynamics (SD). Building on Rahn's “Fear and Greed” political archetype, a conceptual “Power and Influence” political archetype was developed. This political archetype shows the impact of public support. It is used to analyse a crowdfunding story in New Zealand. A small SD concept model was subsequently constructed to test this story and evaluate alternative public support scenarios. A library of political archetypes and concept models would be an asset for the field of SD and provide a means of synthesising insights from case studies and social theory. © 2019 System Dynamics Society