Another day, another crony appointment - this time, of former National candidate (and general racist arsehole) Paul Henry to the board of TVNZ. Coming in the wake of revelations that a member of the PM's science and technology advisory council got their job by sending the prime minister a text message, it really looks like its cronyism all the way down, and that people simply get appointed to high-paying government positions on the basis of connections and who they can text, rather than on merit.
This is no way to run a country, and it has to stop. As for how, the solution is simple: take appointment decisions off Ministers. Instead, have them made by a neutral statutory appointments body, with total transparency over all applications, decisions, and communications, to ensure that Ministers can't get their grubby, corrupt paws on the process. We already use such a mechanism for the Government Statistician, and weaker, shame-based ones for public sector chief executives and members of He Pou a Rangi. it is time we used them more widely. Because it is abundantly clear that politicians cannot be trusted to make neutral, merit-based appointments, and instead regard this part of the public sector as simply the spoils of office to be used to reward their donors and cronies.
