Last month, the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee reported back on the Inspector-General of Defence Bill making numerous changes which significantly improved the transparency and credibility of the Inspector-General. When I posted about this, I said that NZDF was likely to be unhappy with this, and that
the danger now is that the Minister will listen to them and abuse Labour's majority to undo the committee's recommendations and restore the coverup regime.Unfortunately, this seems to be exactly what has happened. Defence Minister Andrew Little has introduced a supplementary order paper which unpicks key amendments made by the committee. The SOP will:
- Allow the Minister to censor the Inspector-General's reports;
- Reverse the presumption of transparency and make investigations private by default;
- Remove the IGD's investigations from the coverage of the OIA.
The result will be an "inspector" which is effectively a stooge of the Minister, which exists to cover up rather than bring to light NZDF wrongdoing. And the Inspector-General will lack credibility as a result.
If this passes, I'd hope that a pro-transparency party will put an "Inspector-General of Defence (Transparency and Credibility) Amendment Bill" in the ballot. Meanwhile, the sooner we get back to "normal" MMP politics and coalition government, so governments have to actually listen to Parliament rather than over-ruling it by the whip, the better.
