2024 OIA stats

Over on Kikorangi Newsroom's Marc Daalder has published his annual OIA stats. So I thought I'd do mine:

• 82 OIA requests sent in 2024
• 7 posts based on those requests
• 20 average working days to receive a response
• Ministry of Justice was my most-requested entity, with 7 requests (mostly about secrecy clauses)
• Of 74 requests which have received responses: 41 received responses before the due date, 22 on the due date, and 11 were late (8 are still pending, but none of them are due till January).

I also have stats on my complaints to the Ombudsman:

• 28 complaints filed in 2024
• 22 complaints resolved in 2024 (17 from 2024, the others from earlier years)
• 186 days on average for a resolution
• Of the 22 resolved complaints, 15 were successful, 4 partially successful, 1 unsuccessful, and 2 were withdrawn.
• 1 complaint resulted in a published casenote.
• Every "process" complaint (delays, extensions, charging) filed was successful.

The big question is whether any of those successful complaints will result in the agencies concerned changing their behaviour...

Climate Change: A perverse incentive

The government published its first Biennial Transparency Report under the Paris Agreement yesterday, and the media has correctly noted that it is missing any plan to actually meet our target. While it hypes domestic emissions reductions so far - which have been good, but will likely get worse thanks to National - there's an 84 million ton gap between our expected emissions and our Paris NDC. The report doesn't say how we're going to fill this, merely noting that the government is "exploring options for international cooperation".

Why so vague? And why haven't these "explorations" (which they've been doing for years) resulted in any agreements? Other countries have been signing them, after all, and while the previous government was rightly picky about whether foreign "credits" were real, I don't expect any such pickiness from National. They'll happily accept cheap fraud, if it means they get to tick the "target achieved" box, and dealing with the consequences will be Somebody Else's Problem.

A possible answer may be buried near the bottom of that RNZ article:

Also in the background, Treasury had advised Ministers Watts and Nicola Willis that if the government made a statement to the effect that it had signed a deal or made a firm commitment to do so, the $3-23 billion estimated cost of purchasing offshore credits between now and 2030 could start appearing as liability on the government's books.

So, if they take even baby steps towards meeting our obligations, then that's the "demonstration of intent" to meet the NDC that Treasury has been refusing to recognise, the entire obligation becomes real in accounting terms, and the government gets hit with a $23 billion future liability. Normal people might think that recognising an actual obligation is good, and that including the cost also reifies the cost of inaction and so incentivises fixing it. But all the government sees is "books look bad; bad headline". And so we have a perverse incentive: only by denying the problem and refusing to do anything about it can the illusion of fiscal probity be maintained.

It would be nice to have actual adults running climate policy. But that's not going to happen until we throw out this government and get a new one.

Open Government: The joke ends

Correction: This story is fortunately incorrect. While Te Kawa Mataaho repeatedly advised the government to quit the OGP, Ministers rejected the idea, and it never went to cabinet. For some reason, this fact was not mentioned in the OIA response the post was based on. Its one of those cases where I'm glad to be wrong, and hopefully the government will now commit to using the OGP to push our public service for real change.

The Open Government Partnership is a multilateral organisation committed to advancing open government. Countries which join are supposed to co-create regular action plans with civil society, committing to making verifiable improvements in transparency, accountability, participation, or technology and innovation for the above. And they're held to account through an Independent Reporting Mechanism, to ensure they do what they promise and that it has the effects they want.

New Zealand joined the OGP in 2013. We were a late joiner, and from the start it was treated as a PR scam - "we're good at open government, and this is a free headline, hur hur hur". And this showed: its first "action plan" was developed internally with a mockery of consultation and consisted entirely of lazy, business-as-usual goals which the government was doing anyway. And from the outset, it was criticised heavily by civil society groups and the OGP's Independent Reporting Mechanism. Fast-forward a decade, and we're now on our fourth action plan. Over the last four action plans the government has done sweet fuck all, eschewing real change (like beneficial ownership registers, or rewriting the OIA, or requiring real participation in policymaking) in favour of business-as-usual and meaningless "reviews" which are then thrown in the bin. While they've started to do a better pretence of "consultation", there's no real effort at co-creation, priorities are all set by government, for government, and nothing has really changed. Which is why major civil society groups have given up entirely on the process (I gave up after 2016). Our participation was simply a bad joke.

So I'm not entirely surprised to see today that the government has sought advice on withdrawing from the OGP. It hasn't bought them the benefit they wanted (positive headlines), and instead just gets them criticism for failing to meet even the low targets they set themselves. At least by withdrawing they're being honest about their lack of commitment to OGP values, and their preference for the classic Tory values of secrecy, unaccountability, and democratic isolation. (Oh, and naturally they kep the whole idea secret, until it was exposed by an OIA request).

And yet, its disappointing. By requiring formal consideration of open government issues every two years, the OGP could have driven real change in Aotearoa. Instead, the timidity and resistance of officials and a lack of commitment from Ministers buried it, and destroyed any goodwill from civil society for future efforts.

MFAT thinks the risks of OGP withdrawal "can be appropriately managed". I guess its the job of civil society groups now to make those costs as high and severe as possible, to remind the government that it shouldn't cheat wither the international community or the public on transparency.

Can the government change its mind on the ferries?

The decision to unilaterally repudiate the contract for new Cook Strait ferries is beginning to look like one of the stupidest decisions a New Zealand government ever made. While cancelling the ferries and their associated port infrastructure may have made this year's books look good, it means higher costs later, and not just for the government. Quite apart from the facts that the ports need to be upgraded anyway and new ferries will be far more expensive than the price Labour negotiated, pursuing a cheap-arse no-rail option will mean clogging the roads with megatrucks, and higher freight costs for everyone. And it makes you wish they could just change their mind again and go back to the original plan.

And it turns out that that may in fact still be an option. Because while National has repudiated the contract, negotiations over the exit price are still ongoing. The information is buried in a provisional opinion from the Ombudsman (which has now become final, so I can talk about it). I'd requested the iReX contract, and KiwiRail had refused, citing prejudice to negotiations. The Ombudsman upheld that decision, but in explaining their reasoning, described the negotiations:

The negotiations involve numerous parties, including KiwiRail, Hyundai, and external counsel. KiwiRail is represented in the negotiations by counsel based in the United Kingdom, as the contract is based in English law. The parties are meeting on an at least weekly basis for negotiations. Information about the negotiations and the contract is treated confidentially and tightly held. KiwiRail staff who require access to the information are required to sign non-disclosure agreements.

The negotiations are highly complex and detailed. They involve Hyundai submitting information to substantiate the costs incurred in various areas relating to the ship build. There are also numerous subcontractors to Hyundai who are making similar submissions, and this contributes to the complexity. KiwiRail has specialist external lawyers, ship architects and ship brokers assisting its verification of the claims.

KiwiRail has provided me with information about the tenor of its relationship with Hyundai. Unfortunately, I am unable to detail this specifically as doing so has the potential to undermine the interests which section 9(2)(j) is intended to protect. However, what I will say is that the nature of the negotiations, including their stage at the time of your request (and now), suggests there is a reasonable likelihood that they would be prejudiced if the information was released.

[Emphasis added]

That opinion was released to me yesterday, and became final today. While the time-lags involved in Ombudsman's decisions may mean the information relied upon is a month old, taken at face value it suggests that contract negotiations are still ongoing. And you'd expect the government to have announced if they'd concluded.

The fact that negotiations are still ongoing also suggests that there may still be space for the government to change its mind, and decide that actually, they'd like those ferries after all. That will not be free. Quite apart from any penalty payment for dicking them around, its clear that the whole negotiation process has cost a lot of people a lot of money, which the government should rightly pay. But their decision is so disastrous that this might still be the cheapest option. Sadly, the unwillingness of politicians to admit they have ever made a mistake means they probably won't take it.

(Meanwhile, the lesson from all of this is to request major government procurement contracts the moment they are announced, and before political interference screws them up and allows the holders to claim “negotiations” as a withholding ground...)

Member's morning

Today is a special member's morning, scheduled to make up for the government's theft of member's days throughout the year. First up was the first reading of Greg Fleming's Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill, which was passed unanimously. Currently the House is debating the third reading of Rima Nakhle's Corrections (Victim Protection) Amendment Bill, which, having got this far, is destined to pass. Following that are the first readings of Catherine Wedd's Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill and Cameron Luxon's Repeal of Good Friday and Easter Sunday as Restricted Trading Days (Shop Trading and Sale of Alcohol) Amendment Bill. If the House moves quickly it might make a start on Marama Davidson's Consumer Guarantees (Right to Repair) Amendment Bill, but given that its the last day before the holiday adjournment, its more likely they'll take an early lunch. There will be at least two free spaces on the ballot, but I'm not sure when they will be filled.

Corrections is torturing prisoners again

In 1998, in the wake of the Paremoremo Prison riot, the Department of Corrections established the "Behaviour Management Regime". Prisoners were locked in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day, with no fresh air, no exercise, no social contact, no entertainment, and in some cases no clothes and no toilet paper. Over 200 people were treated like this, all for a minimum of 2 weeks, and some for years. If this sounds like cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, you're right - the Supreme Court found that it was, and the government had to pay out nearly a million dollars in compensation. No-one in Corrections ever faced any employment consequences for this (let alone criminal ones) - which might be why, twenty years later, its all happening again:

The Chief Ombudsman says the Department of Corrections must stop the way it’s running the Prisoners of Extreme Risk Unit (PERU) because the unit’s prisoners are being ill-treated.

Peter Boshier has released a report that outlines serious concerns about human rights abuses at the unit which is based at Auckland Prison.

“The conditions and treatment in the PERU are cruel, inhuman and degrading and in breach of the United Nations Convention against Torture,” Mr Boshier says.

The full report is here. It details "prolonged and potentially indefinite solitary confinement" (which international law recognises as torture), "oppressive living conditions", "disproportionate use of force", and "excessive and unjustified" searches and surveillance. All run by a semi-autonomous unit within Corrections with little oversight and poor reporting and record-keeping.

These are the exact problems found with the BMR, and they likely mean significant liability for the government. The Ombudsman has recommended that the entire regime be stopped immediately, but that's not enough - because this isn't just a matter of civil liability; it is a crime. Torture is a crime. Assault is a crime. Failing to keep proper records is a crime. Our prison guards are criminals. And it is time they were properly held to account.

"Better economic management"

At the 2023 election, National basically ran on a platform of being better economic managers. So how'd that turn out for us? In just one year, they've fucked us for two full political terms:

The government's books are set to remain deeply in the red for the near term as a big dent in the tax take and higher expenses deliver continued budget deficits.

But the government has adopted a new measure of its finances, excluding the impact of ACC, which it said has distorted previous forecasts and had the potential to affect spending decisions.

[...]

Using the established measure the deficits would rise more than expected in the budget and a surplus was not expected in the forecast period to 2028/29.

The reason for this of course is austerity, which has seen core government services cut and 11.6% of all the workers in wellington sacked in a single year. Meanwhile, they're grinding down ordinary people with sub-inflation increases to the minimum wage and 0% pay offers to public servants (so: pay cuts in real terms). And all of this flows through to the rest of the economy. The only people doing well are landleeches, who are gouging us for an extra 6.9% this year. But then, that's who National works for, isn't it?

If this is "better economic management", I'd hate to see what worse looks like.

More public service contempt of parliament

Back in 2023 the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties raised concerns about the inherent conflict of interest involved in public service agencies supporting parliamentary select committees. Our parliament is run on a shoestring, so depends on the public service for advice. But public service agencies work for Ministers, not the legislature, and are usually committed to progressing the legislation they have proposed and worked on. This isn't an abstract concern; there have been a couple of disturbing instances where public service agencies have attempted to impede or even outright subvert the will of the select committees they are supposedly supporting, advancing unauthorised amendments, sanitising departmental reports to remove criticism, and even preparing a fraudulent "select committee" report despite being instructed not to. And now we have another example, this time of an agency just saying "nope" when instructed to advise on amendments.

The bill in question is National's Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill. The bill introduces new search powers to detect drug-driving, and these are so extreme that even Judith Collins though they were unjustified and produced a statutory section 7 report advising parliament that it violated the Bill of Rights Act. To their credit, the select committee tried to fix this. A key issue was that compulsory roadside testing necessarily involves detention, but the bill set no time limit on this, meaning it allowed indefinite (and thus arbitrary) detention. The committee naturally asked the obvious question (how long is it expected to take?) so they could set one. But according to the select committee report, the department (Ministry of Transport) simply refused:

We record here that we have been unable to satisfactorily resolve this matter ourselves during our consideration of the bill. This was due to time constraints on our committee and because departmental officials did not provide us with a possible maximum time period for enforcement officers to administer the first oral fluid screening test. Officials noted this was due to their concerns about specifying a maximum period as outlined above.

It is very clear from the above that the refusal was deliberate. It is also very clear that this obstructed the work of the committee. And that sounds an awful lot like contempt. The question is, will the committee actually do anything about it, or just whine pathetically in their report?

There are more than enough examples now to make it clear that this situation is untenable. Parliament cannot depend on the inherently conflict and compromised servants of the government of the day to advise it. It needs its own independent advisers if it is to do its job properly. And if this means that it reaches different conclusions to the executive about what the law should be, so much the better - that is what a separate branch of government does.

Showing the Americans how to do it

Just ten days ago, South Korea's president attempted a self-coup, declaring martial law and attempting to have opposition MPs murdered or arrested in an effort to seize unconstrained power. The attempt was rapidly defeated by the national assembly voting it down and the people flooding the streets to defend democracy. And now, after one failed attempt, the national assembly has impeached the insurrectionist scumbag. Yoon will now be suspended and be sent for trial with the constitutional court to determine whether he will be permanently removed from office. Assuming he's not tried and convicted on criminal charges of insurrection first...

The contrast with America's handling of Trump's insurrection couldn't be greater. There, Republican legislators refused to defend democracy, voting against Trump's impeachment in the Senate. Criminal charges were dragged out and delayed, and have now been dismissed. And the Republican Supreme Court allowed him to stand for re-election, despite crystal clear constitutional language barring insurrectionists from federal office. The clear message is that the US political elite doesn't care about democracy or the rule of law. And Americans will find out the consequences of that on January 20th.

Rotten to the core

Just a few months ago, Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming was one of the final two candidates for the position of police commissioner. Now, he's on leave and facing multiple investigations for unspecified wrongdoing:

The second-most powerful police officer in the country is on leave pending separate investigations, the Herald can reveal.

Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming is being investigated by the Independent Police Conduct Authority, and the New Zealand Police.

The nature of the allegations against McSkimming cannot be reported.

And he's not the only one. Stuff reported back in October that a (now-former) senior police officer is being prosecuted for grooming a 12 year old girl. How "senior" he is is unclear, but it all adds to the impression that the police are rotten to the core, and that their senior leadership, the ones who are meant to set standards for everyone else, are criminals themselves (and particularly grotty ones at that). And it invites the question of how they possibly expect to have the trust and confidence of the public when this is the case.

Climate Change: Hope is not a plan

One of the purposes of the Zero Carbon Act was to break the bad old cycle of announcing targets and then doing nothing to meet them. Instead, governments would have regular carbon budgets with relatively short deadlines - meaning any failure would happen on their watch - and be required to state what, specifically they would do to achieve them. And if the numbers didn't add up, the courts would (in theory) force the Minister to come up with a different plan. But National's second Emissions Reduction Plan released today throws all that out the window, and we're back to the bad old days again.

Labour's first ERP had gaps - notably around agricultural emissions - but for everything else it had actual effective policy, which was working spectacularly. National repealed all that out of pure spite. Instead, they've replaced those proven, working policies with a reliance on unproven and speculative technologies like carbon capture and storage (a fossil industry PR scam), methane inhibitors (always a decade away, and with no plan to force their adoption when developed), sustainable aviation fuels (another PR scam), and "non-forestry removals and nature-based solutions" (accounting fraud, unless sources are included as well as sinks and baselines are adjusted accordingly). Together these scams and wishful thinking account for more than half of their "planned" emissions "reductions". And of coures they're not counting the effects of their proposed expansion of the gas industry, which would destroy any chance of meeting our future emissions budgets.

National has made its numbers add up - barely - but as Rod Carr points out, that's not enough. It doesn't understand the uncertainties involved in measurement, technology and behaviour, and leaves no margin for when things inevitably go wrong. Most obviously: National's plan is based on the current emissions budget numbers, but He Pou a Rangi has recommended that those be lowered to account for methodological change, to ensure that the numbers are consistent and that we're not comparing apples and oranges. National won't want to follow that recommendation, of course - they like accounting fraud as a substitute for real action - but that will inevitably mean legal action. What are they going to do if the court forces them to accept the recommended changes?

And of course there are other uncertainties. We could have a dry year, meaning we need to burn more gas for electricity. National's attack on EVs and public transport could result in even higher transport emissions. One or more of their hoped-for technologies could fail to arrive on time (or just not be adopted, because of insufficient regulation to force it). Any of these will sink their plan. Skin-of-the-teeth budgeting may work in the corporate world, where all you have to do is tick the box on next quarter's targets and then move on to another job. But IBG YBG is not an appropriate philosophy for government. Unless their plan really is to be a one-term government, and leave someone else to clean up their mess (and criticise them for doing so). In which case, I wonder: has anyone told their backbenchers, who will lose their comfy political jobs under such a plan? I wonder how they will feel about it?

A bad joke

That's the only way to describe National's announcement today on replacement Cook Strait ferries. A year ago they cancelled iRex, which would have given us two new, rail-enabled ferries in January 2026 for $551 million (plus port costs). Today, they're promising two smaller, non-rail enabled ferries sometime in 2029, and the cost is secret. But it was leaked last night: $900 million. Excluding port costs, of course, plus contract break fees , and the costs of setting up a new SOE to shift them off KiwiRail's books. Once you include the contract break fees, we're paying twice as much to less, later.

This is not a competent government. Instead, it is one driven by spite and penny-pinching. And this is a perfect example of how this ends up being more expensive in the end. The quicker we throw this bunch of muppets out on their arses, the better.

Bringing the House into disrepute

Last month we all thrilled to see Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke's haka in parliament in response to National's racist, anti-constitutional Treaty "Principles" Bill. Of course, the targets of that haka did not like someone speaking so forcefully and well against them - so they had Maipi-Clarke named and suspended from Parliament for a day. And now, National's Speaker has sent her and three other MPs to a kangaroo court for further punishment:

Four opposition MPs who left their seats as part of the haka at the end of the Treaty Principles Bill debate last month have been referred to the privileges committee.

They include Te Pāti Māori MPs Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Rawiri Waititi, Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke and Labour's Peeni Henare.

Speaker Gerry Brownlee said the haka was "disorderly and disruptive".

I use the phrase "kangaroo court" because that's exactly what the privileges committee is: a bunch of MPs, on which the government has an automatic majority, which decides cases on partisan lines and which can impose arbitrary punishments. And when the government are white supremacists, its difficult not to see this as just another racist organisation, upholding white supremacy under the guise of "decorum" and "civility" (because, remember, reminding people they're being racist and responding appropriately to their racism is uncivil) - not to mention just an outright abuse of process, a politicised pretence of "justice" which is really just an exercise of power by the majority to silence and discipline the minority. And that seems like it will have a significant effect on the public legitimacy of parliament.

If Maipi-Clarke and the others are "convicted" by this sham-court, it will be a badge of honour. It will also be a badge of shame for parliament. The entire process brings the House into disrepute. And there's a name for that: contempt. Maybe Brownlee should report himself to his own kangaroo court for it?

Climate Change: An alternative plan

The government is supposed to release its second Emissions Reduction Plan any day now, and if its anything like the draft, it will be a pile of false accounting and wishful thinking, which will do nothing to actually reduce emissions. The central problem here is that national is legally required to have a plan to meet the emissions budget, but they have repealed virtually all effective policy, leaving them with a carbon capture fantasy and an ETS that doesn't work because it excludes our biggest polluters and is full of pork. Meanwhile, their plans to increase the gas industry will increase emissions, in a way that is wildly incompatible with all future emissions budgets.

So, what's the alternative? The Greens have just released one. He Ara Anamata: Alternative Emissions Reduction Plan is exactly what it says on the label. The core of it is a return to the successful policies of the previous Green-Labour government: public transport funding, the clean car standard and discount, the GIDI fund to reduce energy-sector emissions, a coal phase out, and the offshore gas exploration ban. But in addition to that, it goes further, by bringing agriculture into the ETS, immediately eliminating industrial allocation, and kicking forestry out (as recommended by He Pou a Rangi). Plus a "green jobs guarantee" to ensure a just transition, more regional rail, a sinking lid on synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, and direct government investment in renewable electricity. Together this will reduce emissions by 35% by 2030, and 47% by 2035 - setting us up nicely for a rapid shift to net zero and negative emissions.

Can we do it? I think so. Bringing agriculture into the ETS at the processor level is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, with He Waka Eke Noa modelling estimating that its worth an 8% cut in total emissions by 2030 alone (which was far more than the bullshit they eventually came up with). The rest puts us at least back on to the He Pou a Rangi demonstration pathway. Of course, these numbers are if the Greens were in power now; we don't know what impact three years of lost progress will have.

Finally, its good to see this development. Climate change is the core policy of our era, and parties should be offering alternative plans for voters to choose between. So far we have spin, bullshit, and denial from National, and a real plan from the Greens. The question is "will Labour offer anything"? Or is this an area of policy where they are happy for the Greens to do all the heavy lifting?

Climate Change: Sabotaging the Climate Commission

Throughout its term in government National has been annoyed by repeated unwelcome advice from He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission to move faster, do more, or even just do something. But Rod Carr's term as commission chair expired over the weekend, as did those of two other board members. And National has taken the opportunity to remove this source of irritation by replacing them with three new people who will not challenge the government's "do nothing" stance:

Former Governor General Dame Patsy Reddy has been appointed as the new chair of the Climate Change Commission, replacing Rod Carr whose term ended last week.

[...]

Watts also appointed Felicity Underhill and Devon McLean as climate commissioners, replacing Catherine Leining and Professor James Renwick.

The most noticeable point here is that unlike those they are replacing, none of the new appointees are climate change experts (Leining was a policy wonk from Motu, Renwick is a climate scientist who had been a lead author for the IPCC, and Carr had an interest, took the role seriously, and learned on the job). The new people have plenty of governance experience, but only tangential interest in climate change (Reddy has none, Underhill is interested in hydrogen, and McLean has conservation credentials). So its a very real deskilling of the Commission, which will almost certainly impact on the quality of its advice.

The second point to note is that a former Governor-General is the ultimate safe pair of hands. Reddy may bring mana to the role, but fundamentally will not challenge anything or rock the boat in any way. Backing this up, she was previously chosen to review New Zealand's spy agencies, a review as usual saw them given greater powers. So no threat of recommending anything which might change things or see anyone forced to do things differently - unlike Carr, who very much rocked the boat and said loudly "we have to change!"

And thirdly, Underhill is from the fossil fuel industry (Shell, Origin) and a hydrogen quack. She is currently a director of fossil fuel company Channel Infrastructure. Which seems like a significant conflict of interest.

While none of these appointments are as bad as those National has made to the Human Rights Commission, its the same agenda at play: sabotage a key institution and effectively prevent it from challenging National's agenda. He Pou a Rangi is simply not an institution we can have confidence in going forward. Fortunately, the Greens are now producing their own emissions reduction plans, so they'll do the job it National's strapped-chicken commission won't.

National finds out

Since coming to power last year, National has viciously cut the public service, sacking nearly 10,000 public servants (to date). Those people weren't just doing nothing, and it was obviously going to have an impact on something other than the government's books. But while National's over-paid, privately-insured, and DPS-guarded Ministers may have been able to ignore growing hospital wait times and the police withdrawing from enforcing laws against domestic violence, there's finally been an impact they may have to pay attention to: it may affect their ability to deliver their agenda:

Funding cuts have been so deep at the Ministry for the Environment that it may not have enough resource to enact the Government’s resource management reforms, including the Fast Track resource consenting plans.

The current work plan is only able to be delivered because some of those losing their jobs accepted delayed redundancy, MPs have heard.

[...]

Palmer said the ministry had hit all its deadlines on the work programme set by the Government, but indicated that it may now need more funding next year as the Government embeds its reforms, including the Fast Track resource consenting regime.

“It may well be further resources are required,” he said.

This was a problem for Labour last term as well, when their ongoing austerity meant the Ministry of justice could not deliver on their promise to rewrite the OIA, and instead had to ask the Minister to prioritise (the Minister ultimately chose to prioritise reducing accountability for politicians via a four-year term instead). But this is rather more serious. RMA reform and the fast track law are National's key priorities for the portfolio, and the Ministry is basically saying that they can no longer provide the necessary advice and analysis to do it. They've been gutted so badly by National's arbitrary cuts that they're basically useless.

Given the scale of the cuts, this is unlikely to be an isolated story. Other Ministries will likely be in the same situation, even if they have not yet publicly said so. So National may have cut itself into ineffectiveness, and its agenda may now be going nowhere fast.

Climate Change: More unwelcome advice

He Pou a Rangi / Climate Change Commission has just released its Review of the 2050 emissions target including whether emissions from international shipping and aviation should be included. After noting that there have been significant changes since the target was originally set in 2019 - stronger evidence that we need to do more, stronger international action, and greater projected impacts on the world and Aotearoa specifically - they recommend that the headline 2050 target be strengthened from net-zero to negative 20 million tons (meaning: we must not only reduce and offset all our emissions, but also offset 20 million tons a year more than we emit). They also recommend a strengthening of the methane target band from a 24 to 47 percent reduction (from 2017 levels) to a 35 to 47% reduction. At the top end this almost turns our "net zero long-lived plus variable methane reduction" into a true all-gases net-zero target (we'd still be emitting ~0.2 MT net, which is well into the margin of error). Oh, and international shipping and aviation should be included. And they've done all this because they think its realistic and achievable. Not only should we move faster to reduce emissions - but we can actually do it! More importantly, we have been doing it - or were, until the current government repealed virtually all effective policy.

Its a slap in the face to National, which systematically dismantled our climate change policies, and which has just released its own strapped-chicken review of the methane target to support its position that we should do less. The problem for the government is that He Pou a Rangi's review has statutory force: the government must publicly respond to it, and the statutory presumption is clearly that the Minister will follow the advice of Parliament's expert body. If they do anything other than agree to fully adopt the recommended target, they must give reasons for any departure. And in such a case, you can expect the decision to be very closely scrutinised by the courts. OTOH, the only way to amend the targets is by legislation, and I'm not sure that the courts can actually order parliament to pass a law. But they can certainly say the Minister has acted irrationally and unlawfully in not recommending to cabinet that it do so.

Climate Change: National wants to cheat on Paris II

Back in September, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts shocked us by suggesting that New Zealand could refuse to meet its international commitments under the Paris Agreement. Now Forestry Minister Todd McClay has echoed that position:

Minister for Agriculture and Forestry Todd McClay says the Government won't be buying carbon credits overseas to meet the Government's 2030 climate targets.

According to the latest calculations the Government would be more than 90 million tonnes - over a year's worth of the whole country's greenhouse gases - short of meeting its international promises under the Paris Agreement target if it doesn't buy help from overseas but the Minister repeatedly told Morning Report spending money overseas was off the cards.

"No we don't have to go and buy credits overseas to meet our obligations and we're working very hard to make sure we don't.

"The idea of sending billions overseas is not palatable to anybody in New Zealand."

McClay said that the government has a plan to meet the target without using overseas mitigation, but won't say what it is. Which is as much as admitting that there isn't one. National's upcoming Emissions Reduction Plan certainly won't do it, given that they've ripped up virtually all existing measures to reduce emissions. So what's left? Getting Lester Levy in to cook the books with an accounting fantasy of "blue carbon"? Or are they just hoping for another pandemic - or an outbreak of foot and mouth - to save them?

Meanwhile, McClay is also Trade Minister, and you'd expect him to have some idea of what the consequences are for failing to meet our Paris commitments. Not least: trade sanctions from the EU (which should target our biggest polluters, the dairy industry). But maybe he's also hoping that it'll all happen on someone else's watch, leaving National to complain from the sidelines while better politicians clean up their mess?

Climate Change: The ETS needs reform

The final ETS auction of the year was held today, resulting in a partial clearance: 4 million of the available 11.1 million units were sold, at the minimum price of $64/ton. Once you add in March's partial sale, the government managed to sell just over 7 million tons all year - or just under half of what it had planned to.

Which I guess is a strong argument that the ETS was overallocated. Polluters didn't need all that carbon, so they didn't buy it. Fortunately, the available volume is being brutally cut next year, to just 6 million tons - which should help rebalance things. Unfortunately, National has cancelled expected cuts to industrial allocations (aka pollution subsidies) - and after next year these subsidies will exceed auction volumes. Meaning the benefits of the system will accrue to those subsidised large polluters rather than the public. And the systematic overallocation of subsidies means these polluters are already making out like bandits at our expense.

I don't think this system is sustainable. For the system to work and help us meet our targets, ETS volumes need to decrease every year - and that includes industrial allocations. But beyond that, I don't think there's public support for a tool which simply operates to enrich favoured cronies at public expense - especially when said cronies are (by definition) New Zealand's worst polluters, and some of them are not lifting a finger to change that (while others are demanding that their subsidies continue, even as they take government money to reduce their emissions). If the ETS is to continue, it needs wholesale reform. And that includes ending the subsidy regime. These polluters have been receiving subsidies for 16 years now - more than enough time for them to transition to cleaner technology. If they have not, that is a poor business decision, for which they deserve to be held accountable. End the subsidies, make them pay their full social costs, and if they can't, then they were never really "profitable" anyway.

Restoring the status quo is not enough

Labour held its party conference over the weekend, and Chris Hipkins gave a speech promising to make the current coalition a one term government. Along the way he made some policy promises: restoring free prescriptions, resuming the Smokefree Aotearoa policy, restarting the build of Dunedin hospital, restoring state housing investment, reinvesting in new Cook Strait ferries, restoring public transport funding, re-enacting fair pay agreements. There was one new policy: ditching AUKUS (good). But almost all of labour's agenda can be summed up as putting things back the way they were before Luxon came to power. Or, to put it another way, simply restoring the status quo ante.

This is good and necessary, because Luxon has wrecked shit, and that needs to be fixed. But at the same time, its nowhere near enough. Because the pre-Luxon status quo wasn't exactly great - we had a climate crisis, a housing crisis, an inequality crisis, and Labour wasn't exactly moving fast on fixing any of them. We also had a government strangling itself with austerity, running down key government services out of a weird self-flagellating desire to meet arbitrary financial targets in an effort to appeal to people who would never vote for them, and who would accuse them of financial mismanagement and loose spending no matter what they did. And while Labour is talking about one of the big fixes again - a capital gains tax - they're still unclear on whether they want to actually do anything with the money, or just give it away in income tax cuts (in which case, sure, its a redistribution tool, but also makes you wonder what the fucking point is). And of course, they simply have no credibility on that issue, having promised and then backed away from it repeatedly, and there's no reason any of us should believe it will end any differently to the last time: in the party leader getting cold feet and swearing off actual effective change for the rest of their careers.

The core problem is that Labour seems to have no vision of what it actually wants, other than to be in power and get the big offices and big salaries and free limos again. It has a nostalgic vision of things being great when they were in charge, but nothing beyond that. Nothing they want to change. Nothing they want to do. Nothing they actually want to use power for, other than adding the letters "Hon" before their names.

And that is simply not enough. To point out the obvious, there are other opposition parties, who do know what they want, and are working hard to persuade us that we want it too. And a Labour Party which seems to want nothing beyond "put us in charge" deserves to lose to them. While good management is useful (just look at the current clown show), at the end of the day nobody fucking cares about managers.