Aotearoa has been a member of the
Open Government Partnership since 2013. And it has never taken its core mechanism of co-creation with civil society seriously. Our first national action plan was a
hastily cobbled together pile of business-as-usual actions, imposed
without any real engagement. The second was a little better, in that they actually pretended to consult civil society and ask for policy proposals, before chucking anything actually ambitious in the bin and (once again)
doing what they were planning to do anyway. There were some signs that they were beginning to learn, and the third action plan seemed to have some real consultation, which foundered on the lack of any budget or process to get one for anything civil society proposed. It was quite apparent by this stage that civil society was wasting its time on this, and being used as a PR prop by a state unwilling to listen to them, let alone actually do anything real, and top civil society organisations
wrote to then Public Services Minister Chris Hipkins telling him so. Hipkins actually listened, and the fourth action plan actually had some stuff in it suggested by civil society (though watered down by the bureaucracy, of course). Which was then simply
chucked in the bin by the current government, who just saw it all as a waste of money (not to mention harmful to their money-laundering, tax-cheating backers).
And so we come to today, when Te Kawa Mataaho has announced a new "consultation" on a new action plan... which will center on their pre-existing action plan to strengthen Public Service integrity. In other words, the outcome is pre-determined, and its pure business-as-usual, as usual.
I will not be wasting my time with this farce. I have better things to do than making suggestions which will be rejected, or engaging with people who are not there in good faith. I recommend others do the same. When the government actually wants to co-create something with civil society, then I might be interested. But I'm not interested in being a PR prop for their bullshit, so they can tick a little box saying "consultation!" and pretend that it means something. Fuck that, and fuck them.
If this is all they're going to do, maybe they should have quit after all. And if they don't quit, I hope the OGP activates its accountability mechanisms and throws us out.