Failure

When John Key floated the idea of a national cycleway last year, he talked big, promising that it would create 3,700 jobs. In fact, it has created only 70. And instead of stretching from one end of the country to the other, only 10km of track has actually been constructed.

So much for Key's big idea.

Key's big idea fails

A year ago today, John Key came up with a big idea to save the New Zealand economy: a cycleway the length of New Zealand, costing $50 million and creating 3,700 jobs. A year on, the reality is a bit different: the cycleway has been reduced to a collection of local tracks, and not one cent of the money appropriated has been spent:

A year after John Key announced plans for a national cycle trail, not one metre of trail has been built using money from the new cycleway fund.

The New Zealand Cycle Trail Project has given a preliminary nod to 13 new stretches of trail, and agreed to give money to six others that were nominated for quick start funding to get the project off the ground.

A spokeswoman said none of the money had yet been paid.

As for the jobs, not one has been created.

A cycleway, or even a collection of them, isn't a bad thing to have. But as a response to the recession, it was just a joke, a flashy piece of PR designed to make it look like the government was doing something, while in reality they sat on their hands and left the market to sort itself out. The consequence of that can be seen in the unemployment statistics: there are now 59,000 more people out of work than when National came to power. Rather than protecting jobs, National has just abandoned us to the market.

Cycleway: costs and secrets

As should be clear from the response [PDF] to my latest OIA request on the cycleway - the one which showed conclusively that the Prime Minister had lied to Parliament - there were actually some documents included. These were:

• An aide memoire [PDF] on the New Zealand Cycleway (26 May 2009), giving a quick progress update.
• A briefing to the Minister of Tourism and Kevin Hague of the Green Party, titled "New Zealand Cycleway" (3 June 2009), giving a progress report, details on the organisation of "regional clusters" of councils, and a project timeline.
• A briefing to the Minister of Tourism and Kevin Hague of the Green Party, titled "New Zealand Cycleway: Engagement with Local Government" (9 June 2009), giving further details on relations with those "regional clusters".
• A comprehensive briefing to the Minister and Associate Minister of Tourism and Kevin Hague of the Green Party, titled "New Zealand Cycleway: Report Back on Initial Projects and Actions to Date" (26 June 2009; too long to scan, sadly), seeking formal agreement from the Minister for the initial selection of "quick start" projects and reproducing and expanding on the information here [PDF].

None of these documents contain any cost-benefit analysis. The final briefing does contain information on the projected benefits of those projects - but the response cover-letter notes that this information "is not based on full feasibility studies, and... should not be viewed as conclusive". More importantly, without any information on the project costs, there is no way of judging whether they are an effective use of public money. And now that the Prime Minister has made a public commitment to those projects, we're stuck with them - without any real analysis ever being done.

What is most interesting about these documents is not their content, but how they are handled: apart from the Aide Memoire, every single one of them is classified "In Confidence". According to Cabinet guidelines, this should only be done where

Compromise of information would be likely to prejudice the maintenance of law and order, impede the effective conduct of government in New Zealand or affect adversely the privacy of its citizens.

None of this applies in any way to this information (something made even clearer by the official DPMC classification guidelines). So why is it secret? Either ego, or good old-fashioned paranoid information control-freakery. But neither the Prime Minister's sense of self-importance or his desire to suppress public oversight and criticism is a good reason to classify this information. Instead, it is a waste of government resources, and an abuse of the security classification system.

Misleading the House

At the beginning of last month, Question Time saw the following exchange in the House:

Hon Phil Goff: What analysis did Treasury do on the cost-effectiveness of the national cycleway scheme in producing jobs, and is he prepared to provide the Treasury analysis, oral and written, to members of this Parliament; if not, why not?

Hon JOHN KEY: Rigorous analysis was done.

Based on a previous OIA response showing a complete absence of any cost-benefit analysis on the cycleway project, I called bullshit - and sent away another OIA request for the "rigorous analysis" the Prime Minister was referring to so I could prove it. The response to that request arrived on Saturday. I had expected it to contain either some new analysis, or nothing. I had not expected it to open with a candid admission of guilt from the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff [PDF]:

The response to the question was only "that rigorous analysis had been done", and not that this analysis was by Treasury, or that it was a cost-effectiveness analysis.

As stated in Clause 3 of the Executive Summary of the Cabinet paper provided in response to your previous request of 14 may 2009, the objective is to develop a series of 'Great Rides'. The actual development of a joined up network is part of a long term vision and may be achieved through branding supported by signage. Consequently, no economic analysis has been undertaken for a continuous 'national cycleway'.

(Emphasis and link added)

So, it turns out that the correct answer to Phil Goff's question was in fact "none". But that answer would have looked bad for the Prime Minister and his pet project, so instead of admitting it, he responded in a way designed to give the impression that a) there had been a cost-benefit analysis; and b) that analysis was performed by Treasury - both of which are false (and it is unthinkable that Key would not know that to be so unless he is a total lightweight who does not pay attention even to his own pet project). In short, he lied. But while you can get away with that in the business world, when you do it in Parliament it is called "misleading the House". And it is a very serious contempt of Parliament. This is where Key's government by spin gets us: casual lies, and contempt both for Parliament, and its function of overseeing the executive.

Unfortunately, from the discussion here, it looks unlikely that Key will face formal sanction for this. According to Standing Orders, a complaint of breach of privilege must be laid "at the earliest opportunity", and before the next sitting of the House. When it takes 20 working days to OIA the evidence, then Ministers can effectively lie with impunity. But if they can't be held to account in the House, they can at least be held to account in the court of public opinion. John Key lied to Parliament. And we should remember that every time he opens his mouth there.

Update (04/08/09): This OIA has now led to a complaint of breach of privilege against the Prime Minister. It will be fascinating to see where it goes.