Something to be proud of

New Zealand has been ranked the least corrupt nation in Transparency International's global corruption perceptions index for the seventh year in a row. Its good news - but also a reminder that we need to keep working to maintain that status. In recent years, we've had an MP prosecuted and convicted for taking bribes, we've reduced transparency around political donations, we've got a bipartisan culture of cronyism in appointments to government boards, and the current government seems to be extending that to contracts and policies as well. In other words, we're heading in the wrong direction. We need to reverse that, and force our politicians to clean their act up - or we may find ourselves falling down the rankings to end up beside Australia, or worse, the US.