After the war there was no renewal of the Labour Government's pre-1940 flood of social legislation. Nevertheless, administrative changes continued at a rapid rate. Now the Government was markedly less antagonistic to non-departmental forms of organisation than was formerly the case. It nationalised the Bank of New Zealand, set up a National Airways Corporation, and transferred the processing and marketing of linen flax from the Industries and Commerce Department to the Linen Flax Corporation. In each case it retained substantial powers of control. The most spectacular increase in the number of corporations occurred in the primary industries. In 1946, under pressure from the producers, the Marketing Department began to disintegrate and the Wool Disposal Commission assumed some of its duties. By 1953 marketing authorities had been set up to sell or regulate the disposal of a wide range of primary produce, and the remnants of the Marketing Department were absorbed by the Agriculture Department.

In addition to continuing its predecessor's policy of fostering the creation of primary-produce marketing authorities, the National Government (1949–57) showed some preference for non-departmental forms of organisation in other production and trading spheres. Thus it created a commission which ran the railways from 1952 to 1957 when they were placed again under departmental control, and in 1957 it established a corporation to control the hotels formerly managed by the Tourist and Publicity Department.