A dysfunctional watchdog

The reality of any right depends on how well it is enforced. But as The Post points out this morning, our right to official information isn't being enforced very well at all:

More than a quarter of complaints about access to official information languish for more than a year, as the OIA watchdog fails to keep up with high complaint numbers.

[...]

In 2023/24, the Office of the Ombudsman completed just 37% of OIA complaints within three months. Four out of 10 complaints took longer than six months ‒ similar to when Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier took over in 2015, promising to fix the “bugbear“ of long waits for resolution.

On average, OIA complaints took 244 days to complete, while Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) complaints took 261 days.

And as the article points out, its actually worse than that because the Ombudsman is juking its stats, trying to get people to abandon their complaints (I can confirm that strategy), then counting them as "completed". And this accounts for a quarter of all "completed" complaints.

This matters. Many OIA requests are time-sensitive - seeking information while an issue is still in the news (rather than merely being a historical curiosity), or in order to participate in government consultations and select committee processes. The denial of information thwarts that. And the failure of the Ombudsman to enforce the Act and investigate and make decisions on complaints in a timely fashion thwarts it still further. Their juking the stats to make the situation appear better than it is is simply icing on the cake.

How do we fix this problem? Better resourcing and better triaging of complaints to focus on the right to participation is part of the solution. But ultimately, the Ombudsman is a mediator, not an enforcer, predicated on an utterly outdated and colonial model of government where everyone is a good chap who will be reasonable if another chap tells them to. Our government structure hasn't worked like that for decades, if it ever did; nowdays that model seems positively prehistoric, and completely unsuitable.

We know how to properly enforce rights; through the courts. And that means replacing the Ombudsman with a UK-style Information Commissioner, with appeal rights through the judiciary, and decisions enforceable by court order. The problem is, why would Ministers, who currently get to laugh while their pathetic "watchdog" dithers and "recommends", vote for that?

Climate Change: The threat of a good example

Since taking office, the climate-denier National government has gutted agricultural emissions pricing, ended the clean car discount, repealed water quality standards which would have reduced agricultural emissions, gutted the clean car standard, killed the GIDI scheme, and reversed efforts to reduce pollution subsidies in the ETS - basically every significant policy to reduce emissions. And now they're plotting to end the carbon-neutral public service policy:

New documents show the government is considering removing its goal of carbon neutrality across the public sector by 2025.

Released to the Green Party under the Official Information Act (OIA), the advice to Climate Change minister Simon Watts was redacted, but the file name was left on the PDF: "[REDACTED] BRF-3950 Briefing Note - Removing the 2025 neutrality goal of the Carbon Neutral Government Programme and reviewing programme setting". <

[...]

Watts confirmed in a statement he had requested advice on how the programme aligned with his government's climate strategy, but no decisions had yet been made, with advice from a number of agencies due back in October.

The public service is not a huge source of emissions, and this is small potatoes compared to the other policies National has ended. At the same time, the article makes clear that the policy had been effective at reducing emissions by removing dirty coal boilers, upgrading government vehicles to EVs, improving energy efficiency, and reducing flights. More importantly, doing all of this shows that it can be done, giving the lie to the climate deniers who constantly carp that it's all too hard and emissions can't be reduced. National clearly can't tolerate the government being a good example, so they’re going to stop it. Just another example of the sheer pettiness of National's climate denial policies...

Dangerous ground

The Waitangi Tribunal has reported back on National's proposed changes to gut the Marine and Coastal Area Act and steal the foreshore and seabed for its greedy fishing-industry donors, and declared it to be another huge violation of ti Tiriti:

The Waitangi Tribunal has found government changes to the Marine and Coastal Area Act are characterised by a blind adherence to pre-existing political commitments at the expense of whānau, hapū, and iwi.

[...]

The tribunal found the government dismissed official advice, failed to consult with Māori and breached the principle of active protection and good government by failing to properly demonstrate "Parliament's original intent" and seeking to amend the act before the Supreme Court could hear the matter.

The report said the Crown's consultation with commercial fishing interests, while failing to consult with Māori, was a breach of the principle of good government

The Crown exercised kāwanatanga over Māori rights and interests without providing any evidence for one of its key justifications - namely that the public's rights and interests require more protection beyond what is already in the act - the report said.

They recommend killing the bill and engaging with Māori in an effort to identify and address an actual policy problem, rather than unilaterally attempting to eradicate their rights.

Combined with similar reports on Oranga Tamariki, Māori wards, and the Treaty Principles, and you're left wondering if there's any significant national policy regarding Māori which isn't a flagrant breach of te Tiriti. And looking back at those reports, they all identify the same underlying problems: National putting its obligations under its coalition agreements above the state's obligations under te Tiriti; a refusal to consult; and the systematic abandonment of good government practice and ignoring of evidence in order to ram through its policy. it seems that the government no longer recognises its Tiriti obligations, particularly the principles of active protection and partnership, and is actively reneging on our founding agreement, with all that that entails.

...And the Tribunal recognises this. It ends its letter of transmittal with a clear warning:

At present, the Crown’s actions are such a gross breach of the Treaty that, if it proceeds, these amendments would be an illegitimate exercise of kāwanatanga. We caution the Crown that, on the strength of the evidence we have received, to proceed now on its current course will significantly endanger the Māori–Crown relationship.

[Emphasis added]

Which is as clear a warning as you can get that the government is on very dangerous ground here. Te Tiriti is the foundation of our constitution. It effectively gives the government its right to exist. The government messes with that at its peril.

Climate Change: National wants to cheat on Paris

In 2016, the then-National government signed the Paris Agreement, committing Aotearoa to a 30 (later 50) percent reduction in emissions by 2030. When questioned about how they intended to meet that target with their complete absence of effective climate policy, they made a lot of noise about how it was a "responsibility target", and that we would pay other countries to do it for us. But now they're back in power, they're openly talking about refusing to meet that commitment:

Since 2015, Aotearoa has pledged to purchase additional overseas mitigation to meet the target, most likely from developing nations, as domestic reductions were considered too expensive.

But [Climate Change Minister Simon] Watts told the Climate Change and Business Conference on Tuesday that purchasing mitigation offshore would be unpopular with the public.

“When I stand up and say, ‘Guess what, I'm going to write a cheque for $4 billion in your taxpayer money to some country overseas,’ you know people go: 'I sort of want my hospital and I want my health care over that. You know, I love it, but I sort of want other stuff.'”

The problem for Watts and National is that while climate denial and abandoning Paris is a shibboleth of the international right (see Peter Dutton in Australia, Poilievre in Canada, and of course former president Trump in the US), abandoning your international commitments has consequences. And not just diplomatic ones. Notably, the NZ-EU FTA commits us to meeting our Paris obligations and not doing anything which undermines the agreement. So if National refuses to meet them, their farmer base may find themselves locked out of European markets. And since they're both the biggest polluters and the biggest deniers in the country, that will be a little bit of justice for these environmental criminals.

Of course, if Watts doesn't want to pay other countries to reduce emissions for us, he has another option: he could reduce them here, and build a better, cleaner, healthier society in the process. Labour had a plan to (sortof) do that; it wasn't enough, but it was a solid foundation to build from, and was actually working - and overachieving. Of course, National repealed all that the moment they got into power, leaving them with a de facto policy of "economic collapse" as an emissions reduction strategy. And the less they do, the harder it will be for the next government to make up the ground, and the larger that 2030 bill will be. But clearly, National doesn't think it'll be their problem. And rather than doing anything to meet our obligations long-term, they're going to wreck everything, openly talk about cheating the world, so they can snipe from the sidelines when the adults have to clean up their fucking mess. They're saboteurs and criminals - not a responsible government.

A government-funded hate campaign

Cabinet discussed National's constitutionally and historically illiterate "Treaty Principles Bill" this week, and decided to push on with it. The bill will apparently receive a full six month select committee process - unlike practically every other policy this government has pushed, and despite the fact that if the government is being honest in its intentions, it will then be immediately voted down. Its clearly intended to be a six month-long anti-Māori hatefest. And it will cost us millions:

A conservative estimate suggests it will cost about $4 million to progress the controversial, and doomed, Treaty Principles Bill to a second reading at Parliament.

The estimate, calculated by Council of Trade Unions (CTU) economist Craig Renney, suggests just 12 people would have been working to create the bill since the government was formed in November last year, and includes the legislation passing through a six-month select committee process.

It does not include costs such as contractors, consultants and lawyers, or any involvement from Crown Law, the Waitangi Tribunal, or the Human Rights Commission.

Rimmer of course calls this the cost of "democracy". What it actually is is a government-funded racial hate campaign. It is disgusting and illegitimate, just like the racists pushing it. And by proceeding with it, National will bring both Parliament, and the New Zealand state, into disrepute.

National's automated lie machine

The government has a problem: lots of people want information from it all the time. Information about benefits, about superannuation, ACC coverage and healthcare, taxes, jury service, immigration - and that's just the routine stuff. Responding to all of those queries takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money. But now National has a solution: it will simply get a computer to lie to them:

The Government is venturing into the world of artificial intelligence, launching a virtual assistant dubbed Gov-GPT, modelled on Chat-GPT.

Technology Minister Judith Collins announced the new tool at the Aotearoa AI Summit in Auckland on Wednesday morning.

Callaghan Innovation will run a pilot of the chatbot, designed to help Kiwis easily find information about the government and its agencies.

"GovGPT is an exciting first step towards a vision of a 'digital front-door', where individuals can find answers to their questions about government in a convenient and timely way," Collins said.

The problem, of course, is that "AI" doesn't help people easily find information, or answer people's questions. Instead, it produces plausible information or answer-shaped objects, based on its input data. And whether those answer-shaped objects are actually correct is entirely a matter of accident. Which can have catastrophic consequences. In this case, it is likely to lead to people not getting benefits or entitlements they are entitled to, not doing things they are supposed to do, and (in the latter case) potentially going to jail. It is likely to have catastrophic consequences for people's trust in government. But Judith Collins clearly doesn't see that as her problem, and may view it as an advantage, another way of saving money.

The problem for the government is that once it has built an automated lie machine, people may wonder why we are paying our political class enormous amounts of money to lie to us on a daily basis, when such lies can so easily be generated by a machine. But Judith Collins has an enormous parliamentary pension package, so she probably doesn't see that as her problem either.

Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day. First up is the third reading of Dan Bidois' Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill, which will be followed by the committee stage of Deborah Russell's Family Proceedings (Dissolution for Family Violence) Amendment Bill. This will be followed by the second readings of Katie Nimon's Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (Improving Mental Health Outcomes) Amendment Bill (which will whizz through) and Camilla Belich's Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill (which National will vote down because they love wage thieves). If the House moves quickly it will make a start on Tracey McLellan's Evidence (Giving Evidence of Family Violence) Amendment Bill, and if it gets that far, there will finally be a ballot tomorrow.

Motorway madness

How mad is National's obsession with roads? One of their pet projects - a truck highway to Whangārei - is going to eat 10% of our total infrastructure budget for the next 25 years:

Official advice from the Infrastructure Commission shows the government could be set to spend 10 percent of its total budget for new infrastructure for the next 25 years on one roading project.

The project "Accelerating Northland Expressway" is a four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei, which the government has agreed in principle to speed up as part of its Roads of National Significance programme.

[...]

Sent in early July, the advice document reads: "Based on historic annual investment by central government and Treasury's projections of future GDP, we estimate this project alone could consume 10 percent of the total non-maintenance/renewal investment for the next 25 years across all types of central government infrastructure (roads, hospitals, schools, defence, justice, public admin, etc)."

[Emphasis added]

And of course, there's a high risk of cost overruns, meaning it could cost twice as much.

The opportunity cost of this is appalling. Every kilometre of this road we build is schools, hospitals, and new government buildings we don't. Not to mention the train tracks and other public transport infrastructure needed to decarbonise our cities. If it actually gets built, people should be thinking "there are our hospitals" every time a truck goes by on it.

This project is simply madness. There are many, many, far better things to build - including, no doubt, other roads in Northland (or maybe some bridges). We should build them instead. National's truck-highway obsession is simply wasteful madness.

The cost of flying blind

Just over two years ago, when worries about immediate mass-death from covid had waned, and people started to talk about covid becoming "endemic", I asked various government agencies what work they'd done on the costs of that - and particularly, on the cost of Long Covid. The answer was that they just hadn't done any and were basically asleep at the wheel. And today, we get to learn that it could be costing us $2 billion a year:

Researchers estimate long covid is costing the economy $2 billion a year in lost productivity.

[...]

"The research suggests that long covid is likely costing the Australian economy approximately A$9.6 billion, equivalent to 0.5 percent of Australia's GDP. And that's a conservative estimate."

The economic impact in New Zealand was likely comparable, equating to $2b per year she said.

"While this is an estimate, it's plausible that long covid significantly impacts productivity here."

They're having to use Australian figures because there hasn't been any primary research in NZ, because no-one profits from it. Private industry won't fund it, because there's no money; and the government certainly won't, because all it does is show them that they did a shit job. But all the same, it needs to be said: this is a staggering amount of money. And the lost taxation on it alone would go a long way towards paying for those extra hospitals we need. And we're paying it - or rather, not getting it - because governments put no effort into working out what it would cost, and therefore could not make a "business case" for not paying it. Kindof as if they'd just ignored the ongoing costs of climate change (oh, wait...)

(OTOH, even if they'd done the work, we'd still be up against the bipartisan status quo party consensus opposing either spending money or regulation. Which again, sounds a lot like climate change policy...)

As Marc Daalder said when he took a deeper look at the government's inaction on this:

Long Covid is poised to place significant demand on the welfare and healthcare system through increased demand, on the economy through lost wages and labour shortages and on society through the sudden spike of disability. Responsible agencies would be preparing to manage these impacts, not plunging their heads in the sand and pretending they don't exist.

Sadly, it appears that multiple key government agencies were and are irresponsible. Faced with a significant threat of ongoing costs, they ignored it, ensuring we would pay them for decades. Heckuva job. Really earning those salaries there.

Councils reject racism

Last month, National passed a racist law requiring local councils to remove their Māori wards, or hold a referendum on them at the 2025 local body election. The final councils voted today, and the verdict is in: an overwhelming rejection. Only two councils out of 45 supported National's racist agenda of immediate disestablishment. The rest basically told central government to go fuck itself. Some of them even wanted to say so explicitly. And many have directed their council bureaucracies to explore the option of just not having the required referendum - effectively threatening outright rebellion.

And the reason for this is simple: Māori wards work. In meeting after meeting, councillors stood up to say so, that the permanent presence of Māori representatives was a vital part of democracy which ensured the whole community was represented, gave them a useful perspective and valuable input and stopped them making mistakes. And in meeting after meeting, it was local National Party representatives saying this. Which tells you how off-side National's racist policy has put it with its own base.

So, in October next year, people in 43 council areas covering most of Te Ika-a-Māui will effectively be having a referendum on the National government. Which ought to make them decidedly uncomfortable. National can of course avoid this by repealing its racist legislation. If they don't, then here's hoping for a bloody defeat at the polls next year.

Government of deceit

When National cut health spending and imposed a commissioner on Te Whatu Ora, they claimed that it was necessary because the organisation was bloated and inefficient, with "14 layers of management between the CEO and the patient". But it turns out they were simply lying:

Health Minister Shane Reti’s office has admitted an organisational chart of Health NZ - Te Whatu Ora, which allegedly proved the organisation had become bloated and inefficient “does not exist”.

Reti used the chart to justify painful spending restraint at Health NZ. He now claims that there was not one organisational chart as initially claimed, but that he was referring to an amalgam of the many Health NZ organisational charts he had seen.

As Ayesha Verrall points out, this matters. We expect the government to justify their policies, ideally with some reference to actual reality. Instead, like a pack of second-rate corporate managers, they're just lying to our faces, spewing bullshit to provide cover for their cruelty. And then, when confronted with this fact, they basically say "what are you going to do about it?"

This sort of public lying shows a fundamental disrespect for voters, and a fundamental contempt for the norms of democracy. We should not tolerate it. These liars need to be democratically eradicated.

As for what we're going to do about it, I think the answer to that is obvious. There's an election due in two years, and sooner if Rimmer shits the bed. We should take that opportunity to vote this pack of lying arseholes out on their arses.

A missed opportunity

The government introduced a pretty big piece of constitutional legislation today: the Parliament Bill. But rather than the contentious constitutional change (four year terms) pushed by Labour, this merely consolidates the existing legislation covering Parliament - currently scattered across four different Acts - into one piece of legislation. While I haven't gone over it in detail to check for fuckery, it looks like quiet, boring legislation. There seem to be two significant changes:

• Giving parliamentary Security - those nice people who x-ray your bags on the way on to make sure you're not bringing in anything dangerous or planning to go on a stabbing spree on the tiles - formal statutory powers to do what they do. This is modelled on the existing framework for court security - who are in a similar role, but for courtrooms - and seems perfectly reasonable. Codifying their powers will help avoid mistakes and over-reach, which is a good thing in a democracy.
• Shifting funding for Parliamentary agencies to the model currently used for Officers of Parliament, preventing the executive from just cutting off funding to the legislature. Not that that was likely, but the possibility was not acceptable.

There's also some boring stuff about extending public service immunity for good faith actions in the course of their duties to the Parliamentary Service, and shifting functions under the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act from the Clerk to the Electoral Commission.

The worst thing you can say about this bill is that it is a huge missed opportunity for transparency. There have been repeated recommendations from multiple agencies to extend the Official Information Act to cover Parliament's administrative functions, ensuring we have a right to transparency from the legislature, rather than the current grace-and-favour arrangement. It would also help ensure the accountability of the Parliamentary Service for public money, and for its actions as an employer and a custodian of public property. Sadly, that seems to have been ignored. Which makes it an excellent amendment to raise when this bill gets to select committee...

Climate Change: Failed again

National's tax cut policies relied on stealing revenue from the ETS (previously used to fund emissions reduction) to fund tax cuts to landlords. So how's that going?

Badly. Today's auction failed again, with zero units (of a possible 7.6 million) sold. Which means they have a $456 million hole in their budget. Better, its now looking even likelier that the next auction will fail as well - meaning the entire pile (which will have grown to 11.1 million tons, plus the 7.7 million ton cost containment reserve) will be cancelled at the end of the year. Meaning nearly 19 million tons which won't be able to be emitted.

Polluters will still pollute this year, thanks to government pollution subsidies and stockpiled and forest credit bought on the spot market. But the ETS settings have been changed to aggressively reduce the stockpile, and eventually it should run out. If National cut subsidies - which are a cost to government - rather than continuing to support dirty, outdated and inefficient polluters, then maybe, eventually, they'd be forced to clean up their act. If they don't, then we know whose side they're on.

Open Government: National reneges on beneficial ownership

One of the achievements of the New Zealand’s Open Government Partnership Fourth National Action Plan was a formal commitment from the government to establish a public beneficial ownership register. Such a register would allow the ultimate owners of companies to be identified - a vital measure in preventing corruption, money laundering, and tax-evasion by the rich.

So of course, National has decided to renege on this commitment. A recent Cabinet paper on Modernising the Companies Act 1993 and Making Other Improvements for Business effectively abandoned the idea:

The register would also add a compliance burden to companies (albeit a small one). As such, it does not fit well with the overall scheme of the package. In addition, its complexity would delay the finalisation and introduction of the other reforms. I will work with my Ministerial colleagues in the Justice sector to determine the best way forward for this work.

Which is Minister for "we are throwing this in a deep hole and you should never expect to see it again". Exactly why a government which was funded by the rich to deliver tax cuts and beset by corruption scandals would do that is left as an exercise for the reader.

The problem for National is that this isn't just a previous government's policy - its an international commitment under the Open Government Partnership. The refusal to abide by it will be formally reported on by the OGP's Independent Reporting Mechanism. It will also likely cause problems with the Financial Action Task Force, who can actually stick us on a blacklist for failing to meet accepted standard for preventing money laundering and terrorist financing. And that is something which would actually hurt, and stop rich National MPs from moving their money overseas.

Climate Change: "Least cost" to who?

On Friday the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment released their submission on National's second Emissions Reduction Plan, ripping the shit out of it as a massive gamble based on wishful thinking. One of the specific issues he focused on was National's idea of "least cost" emissions reduction, pointing out that it ignored some costs in favour of others, and only considered short-term rather than long-term costs - and in particular, ignored the costs of future environmental devastation.

...which makes perfect sense. Because the one-sided framing of emissions reduction as a "cost", rather than a way of avoiding future costs, is climate denier framing. The original "least cost" policy was "do nothing". But that's politically unviable now that the world is burning down around us, so it has become "do as little as possible". So measures which require any polluter to do anything differently are out, in favour of an "ETS only" approach, with a carbon price set too low to force change, and wishful thinking about cheap future technology which will allow the status quo to continue unchanged. And if it doesn't arrive, or doesn't work, or costs too much? National doesn't care. Somebody else's problem. Except it's our problem, now, if we want to have a liveable planet in twenty or fifty years.

But it's also worth asking the question: "least cost" to who? And for National, the answer is "to current polluters". It is all about protecting current incumbents from the true costs of their activities. Wider society and the future just don't get a look in. But "least cost" (to polluters now) now means higher costs for others and later: more air pollution deaths, more fires, more floods, more droughts, more cyclones, and so much, much more money spent cleaning up those avoidable disasters. Current polluters won't be paying for that directly. But the rest of us will be, and the bill will go up the more Fonterra and BP and Todd Energy and Methanex and the rest are allowed to pollute.

"Least cost" is just another iteration of National's meta-policy of denial, delay, and kicking the can down the road for someone else to deal with. The Deputy Prime Minister is nearly 80, so he doesn't expect to have to deal with the consequences of any of his actions. And while other government Ministers and MPs are younger, they don't expect to be in government when the bills they're racking up come due. So like so much else done by this government, they're just strip-mining the present and leaving the bill for the next government. Which they'll then no doubt use as a stick to beat that government with, because they're spending so much money paying National's environmental debts.

This isn't rational. It isn't moral. it is short-sighted, and greedy, and stupid. But isn't that National in a nutshell?