This article seeks to describe a range of enablers of, and constraints on, private actors in New Zealand schooling, using scholarly, polity and mass media sources. It focuses particularly on the decades since the educational reforms of the 4th Labour Government in the 1980s. The article begins by providing a brief background on educational privatisation and governance in New Zealand and elsewhere, in order to provide some context for the concerns explored in the rest of the article. It then considers policy and practice enablers of private actors related to national ideologies and those of key demographics where long-held beliefs support private actors despite various commitments to public provision. The significance of national politics and policy shifts in formal and party-political senses are discussed next, including ways that enactment of policy has opened up new spaces for private actors with indirect and sometimes unintended effects. Overall it is apparent that the conditions and events supporting the development of private actors in New Zealand have often been intermittent, piecemeal, uncertain, and sometimes serendipitous. A further research agenda in this area is outlined.