Winston is right

Winston Peters is in court today, suing a bunch of former Minister and civil servants over their pre-election leak of his superannuation repayment. He's characterised the leak as malicious, and said that it is repugnant that his information was passed on to Ministers to use for political advantage. And he's absolutely right. WINZ had a legal duty to protect his privacy. And instead of doing that, they handed private data about a past issue which had been resolved to their satisfaction and which they had decided was not worthy of prosecution or further action to Ministers to be used for a shoddy political smear. They absolutely deserve to be taken to the cleaners over this, and the one disappointment is that the government is protecting those involved, rather than letting them carry the can personally for their bad-faith actions.

As for former ministers Anne Tolley and Paula Bennett, by leaking the information (and even by not immediately sacking the "public service" crawlers provided it to them) they demonstrated that they are unethical shitbags. They deserve to be taken to the cleaners too - and personally, rather than being protected by the government. which just smacks of a cosy establishment pact to protect each other from the consequences of wrongdoing. And that's the point where I disagree with Matthew Hooton: yes, Bennett and Tolley clearly can't help themselves. But that doesn't mean we should excuse their shitbaggery. To the contrary, it signifies their need for punishment, to deter other would-be shitbags. But it also demonstrates their absolute unfitness for public office: because someone who would abuse people's private data in this way is absolutely unfit to have access to anything.

Meanwhile, WINZ seems to be in full-on victim-blaming mode, which is just irrelevant. Because the issue here isn't how the error happened in the first place - they've previously accepted it was not Winston's fault when they decided to deal with it with a simple repayment - but that they decided to leak it to Ministers. Their choice of "defence" strategy shows that they still suffer from a sick culture of hating the people they are meant to be assisting. The current government has promised to change that culture, and "bring kindness back". Clearly, they still have a lot of work to do on that front.

Headdesk

Last year the Ministry of Social Development started imposing new contracts on community agencies requiring them to hand over highly personal information on their clients in exchange for funding. The decision had massive privacy implications. So did they consult the Privacy Commissioner first to ensure they weren't violating the Privacy Act? Of course not:

CARMEL SEPULONI to the Minister for Social Development: What advice did she receive from the Privacy Commissioner during the development of the private client data-sharing requirements for contracted social services?

Anne Tolley: I did not directly receive any advice from the Privacy Commissioner during the development of the proposal to collect individual, client-level data. I did however receive a letter from the Privacy Commissioner on the 10th of March this year regarding his provisional conclusion of his inquiry into the proposal to collect individual, client-level data...

In other words, she only talked to the Privacy Commissioner six months after the decision had been made, once it was being investigated as a complaint.

This is a serious and basic failure of governance at MSD. The decision obviously had serious privacy implications, and that means that they should have checked whether it was OK. I'd ask how it happened, except we already know: WINZ's systematic dehumanisation on beneficiaries and attitude that they have no rights. This attitude is completely inappropriate for a government department (or indeed, a decent human being), and it needs to be stamped out.

National refuses to investigate its odious homelessness debt

How much odious debt do beneficiaries "owe" WINZ for emergency housing (or, alternatively, for WINZ failing to do its job properly)? A lot of people have been asking that question since learning of this particular scam. But conveniently, the Minister of Social Development says that its just too much work to find out:

I am advised that the Ministry is unable to breakdown recoverable debt where it is specifically related to the provision of Emergency Housing. This information is held on individual files, and substantial collation would be required to provide this information. I am not willing to commit the resources required to respond to this question.

And yet, she knows it will have "big financial implications" for WINZ. Its a perfect example of how refusing to store information properly reduces accountability and enables politicians to just make shit up as they go along.

But this debt is odious debt, gouged out of beneficiaries who don't have a choice, at inflated rates, as a result of a basic failure of a government agency to do its job. It should never have been imposed in the first place. And that means we have a duty not just to forgive it, but to repay its victims.

"No surprises"

Radio New Zealand this morning informs us that tens of thousands of beneficiaries have been under (and in some cases over) paid tens of millions of dollars due to a "coding error". In a way, this isn't really surprising; WINZ are relentless fuckups, and this is just their ordinary, everyday incompetence made systematic. What is surprising is this bit:

The mistake was discovered in September 2014 and was fixed a few months later, though Social Development Minister Anne Tolley was informed only in March this year.

So WINZ uncovered payment errors totalling tens of millions of dollars, which create legal liability and potentially require urgent legislation to "fix" (by pretending they didn't happen, of course), and they don't tell their Minister for six eighteen months? So much for the "no surprises" policy. I'd expect Tolley to be asking some pretty pointy questions of her Chief Executive over this - and perhaps demanding their resignation.

Correction: So, its even worse than I thought. How can a chief executive not tell their Minister about a spending problem totally tens of millions of dollars for eighteen months? Isn't that head-on-a-spike time?

Outrageous and unbelieveable

That's the only response to this morning's news that Anne Tolley wanted to pay Paula Rebstock $3,000 a day to tell her how to further victimise the poor. Its an obscene amount of money, and getting it so you tell the government how to shit on people who get that in 3 months simply makes it more obscene. And it really makes you wonder what Rebstock has got on Tolley to make her offer so much.

But it gets worse;

Based on a standard eight hour work day, that constitutes a rate of $375 an hour: three times the normal maximum daily fee specified by Cabinet's guidelines.

State Services Minister Paula Bennett, objected, saying it was out of line.

[...]

Mrs Tolley said she was prepared to pay for the best, but now realised her request wasn't justifiable.

"Well it wasn't in the end, and we renegotiated. The papers show [Mrs Bennett] came back to me, saying it was way out of kilter - I had no idea there was a structure in place," she said.

"I had no idea there was a structure in place"? Tolley has been a Minister for seven years. In that time she's been Minister of Education, Tertiary Education, and now Social Development. In that time, she's made dozens of appointments. And she "had no idea there was a structure in place"? Bullshit. The fee structure is clearly set out in a Cabinet Office Circular, and its her job to know it. If, after seven years, she's still ignorant of the basics of that job, then I think its time we got a new Minister.

Dirty politics continues as usual

Two of the central allegations of Nicky Hager's Dirty Politics were that the National Party was using a "two track" strategy of using "independent" bloggers such as Cameron Slater and David Farrar to deniably smear its opponents and intimidate its critics while keeping John Key's hands clean, and that it exercised a two tier system of access to official information, whereby it was withheld from critics but provided freely to its friends (including those deniable attack bloggers) to scoop or discredit the former.

We had a great example of the former before the election. Anne Tolley released an anti-gang strategy, but the numbers in it were deeply dubious. When sociologist Jarrod Gilbert pointed this out, he was repeatedly smeared by Farrar in an effort to silence him.

And now we have an example of the second. Because it turned out the Minister's figures were wrong. And news of this was leaked to Farrar early, so he could premptively apologise and forestall criticism.

In other words, despite a book detailing National's dirty tactics, they're still using them. And they'll keep doing it until voters start punishing them for it.

(Someone is looking into this, but no doubt they'll be told that the Minister was wearign her "MP" hat, even though she was providing official information which she does not legally hold or have access to in that role).

Let the game of whackawhale commence!

So Twitter has suspended WhaleDump. Once again I'm astounded by how fast the police can act in defence of the powerful. Not. But if anyone thinks this stops anything, they're wrong. Whaledump accounts are already proliferating across Twitter. While they're probably all fake, eventually the real one will emerge. And as RawShark has been in contact with journalists, it should be easy to verify its authenticity (particularly if they've been using PGP). And then the dumping will commence again.

(Disclaimer: I have no idea who whaledump is. But I have some idea how the internet works, and in particular how it interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. This sort of suppression never works, and anyone who thinks it does is a fool).

As for what else might come out, Networkonnet has a fascinating look at Cameron Slater's apparent collusion with the Minister or Ministry of Education to target school principals. Anne Tolley established a "hit list" of principals opposed to National Standards, and principals on this list were attacked through Whale Oil and the media so as to build a case for commissioners or force a resignation. There's a list of Slater's targets in that post, and it would be interesting to see who was providing information about them. If it was anyone in her office, then Tolley's head should be on the block, just like Collins'.

Update: That was quick - they're back on @whaledump2. And if you have any doubts about their identity you can confirm it with PGP here.

Tolley lies about gangs and human rights

Its election year, so naturally the government is launching a crackdown on that favourite law and order ogre, gangs. More police funding, more police powers, more searches, and special laws which appear to completely duplicate the Arms Act, only with the vote-getting "gang" in the title. And then there's this bit:

Police Minister Anne Tolley hasn't yet had advice on the human rights implications of stricter targeting of gang-related criminals, but she maintains it's a necessity.

Which is as laughable as her claim that this is nothing to do with the election and the timing is just a coincidence. Since its enactment in 1990, the BORA has been put at the heart of the policy-making process. Policy is scrutinised at every level for human rights implications, because public servants at least take the BORA seriously (if only to prevent or limit later disasters in court). Its a formal requirement that any paper going to Cabinet has a section on human rights implications, identifying any prima facie inconsistencies and the justifications for them or steps taken to limit them. Tolley says these measures have been signed off by Cabinet, so either she's lying that there was no scrutiny, or she hasn't been doing her job properly as a Cabinet minister. Which is it?

But apart from that, this flippant attitude from the Minister is more weight to the argument that the BORA needs to be enforceable by the courts. The law currently has politicians as the ultimate guardians of our human rights, and is predicated on the idea that they will give laws proper scrutiny and pass infringing measures only after due consideration. But here we have a Minister who apparently does not give a shit, who claims that human rights haven't even been considered. If she wants to have that job taken off her and given to the courts, I can't think of a better way of convincing people.

Part of the problem

Yesterday Justspeak released data showing systematic racial bias in prosecution rates by the New Zealand Police. In all but one offence category, Maori were noticeably more likely than Pakeha to be prosecuted once apprehended (the exception was "miscellaneous offences"). Some of the differences e.g. for robbery, property damage and drug offences - do not appear to be statistically significant (in that while they show a pattern, it is not so overwhelmingly one-sided that it is almost certainly not the result of chance). Others - unlawful entry, theft, and public order offences - very much are. At the least, this is prima facie evidence of racial bias in prosecution decisions by police.

So guess what happened when Police Minister Anne Tolley was confronted with this in Parliament yesterday?

Mrs Tolley rejected accusations of institutional racism.

She said the data did not take into account many factors such as whether the crimes were committed by repeat offenders or whether evidence was available to help with a prosecution.

Take a minute to unpack that: she's saying that either more Maori are repeat offenders, or that magically there is usually more evidence against brown people than white ones. The latter is laughable (or rather, its difficult to see how that "evidence" would track so closely the colour of the accused's skin - unless it was the colour of the accused's skin). The former is simply a claim that "Maori are criminals". In other words, the very racism that is being complained about.

Anne Tolley is part of the problem. Can we have a Police Minister who isn't a racist asshat please?

Massive ECE fee hikes on the way

When National ripped $400 million out of ECE funding, Education Minister Anne Tolley tried to pretend that it wouldn't hurt anyone, and that it wouldn't result in lower quality education or in parents having to pay higher fees to make up the shortfall.

Bullshit:

A new survey, conducted by the Labour Party and released exclusively to the Herald, shows most centres facing the cuts plan to compensate by making staff redundant, passing costs on to parents or a combination of both.

The survey, which questioned 435 of the centres facing cuts, found 89 per cent planned to pass costs on to parents by increasing fees.

Those increases varied from $2 to $80 per child per week. In Auckland just over half of the centres indicated fees were likely to increase by $15 to $30, 14 per cent were $40 to $50 and 5 per cent were planning on increases of more than $50 a week.

There are about 2,000 early childhood education centres nationwide, so this is a fairly comprehensive survey. And what it clearly shows is that parents will be paying more due to National's cuts. The equation of working to pay for childcare so you can work is already tenuous enough, and the inevitable result will be people (mostly women) pushed out of the workforce as they can no longer afford to work. It will also utterly hamstring National's proposals to force solo parents back into the workforce - you just can't do that without access to cheap, affordable childcare. But worse than all of that, it will undermine the educational opportunities (and future prospects) of an entire generation of kiwi kids.

As I have said before, early childhood education is one of the best investments a society can make. It leads to smarter, better educated, healthier kids, who have higher average incomes and are less likely to go to jail. It also increases social mobility, and decreases inequality. But National isn't interested in any of that. All they care about is tax cuts now, for their rich mates - and the rest of us can go to hell.

The usual story

Anne Tolley's response to the teacher's strike: there is no money for higher wages. Meanwhile, her Chief Executive Karen Sewell gets a $20,000 raise. Its just the usual story: the people at the top tell us to tighten our belts, while gorging themselves at our expense.

"Extremely supportive"

That's how Education Minister Anne Tolley described school trustees attitude to her national standards last month:

"The trustees, who govern schools on behalf of communities and parents, were extremely supportive," says Mrs Tolley.

"They have a positive approach to the Standards, and are clear that parents should be given plain language information about how their child is progressing in reading, writing and maths.

Meanwhile, Ministerial correspondence uncovered with the OIA shows a different picture, with 96% of school boards who wrote to Tolley opposing the standards, and only one supporting them. So if 2% is "extremely" supportive, what's 96%? Universally opposed? And if the government's standard for action is 75% (as expressed by Steven Joyce) does this mean they'll dump this stupid policy?

One thing is clear: Tolley's support exists primarily in her own mind. She's delusional. And that is not a good trait in a Minister.

Tolley to Principals: STFU

Anne Tolley went to the annual Principals Federation Conference today. But instead of listening to their concerns about her imposition of national standards, she simply told them to shut up and stop complaining:

Education Minister Anne Tolley has told principals they should stop talking to the media and focus on implementing the controversial national standards.

[...]

The Minister then went a step further, saying "and while we're on that subject, you are pretty unique among public servants who can speak freely in the media. May I remind you that I made representations to make sure that continues."

"However, no public servants have ever been granted the privilege of picking and choosing which Government laws they choose to administer. Lawyers, accountants and all the other professionals working in Ministries can offer opinions, but it's the Government that makes policy decisions."

The Minister is mistaken. While principals and teachers nominally work for the government and are paid by the Ministry of Education, they are not public servants. The SSC code of conduct has never applied to them, or to school boards. They are free to speak, and advocate in the interests of their students, and of education generally. By trying to silence them, Tolley is merely showing yet again that she is an authoritarian bully, uninterested in the views of anyone who disagrees with her, regardless of their validity. Which is par for the course for the National Party.

Primary school principals seem to have some pretty strong views that Tolley's national standards will be bad for schools and bad for kids. They're the experts in this area, and a smart government would listen to them, rather than trying to steamroller through contentious changes. Otherwise, they may just find themselves having to mind their own kids all day for a while.

Tolley loses her luggage

First interesting bit from Stuff's crowdsourcing of Ministerial expenses: another case of lost luggage. In June last year, Anne Tolley [PDF; pg 10, 17-19] went on a long trip to attend an informal OECD Minister's Conference in Oslo, an export education fair in Bangkok, and the Commonwealth Education Ministers conference in Kuala Lumpur. While on this trip, both she and her accompanying staff member managed to lose their luggage, requiring $994 and $153 respectively to be spent on replacement clothing. If that sort of thing happens, its a legitimate expense - you can't have the Minister attending a conference in their travel clothes. OTOH, its amazing how often it seems to happen to Ministers. maybe the baggage handling staff have it in for them.

Also on that trip, Tolley was paying 21 bhat Ringgit (~$9.50) a copy to have the Dominion-Post airfreighted to her room every morning. naturally, her staff member needed their own copy as well. And this, from a government which is supposedly cracking down on "waste". can't they just use the internet like everybody else?

Correction: Corrected currency.

Missing the point on teaching qualifications

Fresh back from a fact-finding trip to the United States, Education minister Anne Tolley is proposing a new solution to the teacher shortage: untrained teachers!

Prospective teachers could skip specialist university training and be fast-tracked into the classroom under a plan to cope with an ageing workforce.

Under the scheme, anyone who already has a master's degree could bypass teacher's college and learn on the job.

Because obviously, throwing them in at the deep end and letting them figure it out for themselves will result in better educational outcomes for students. I have to ask: is Tolley on crack? Or does she just not give a damn?

I'm also dubious about her fetishising of higher qualifications. A masters is not an undergraduate degree, only better. It has a completely different focus, on self-directed research rather than basic knowledge. It is true that once upon a time a masters was the licence to teach - but that was 750 years ago, when universities were rather different beasts. Being good at research doesn't necessarily make you a good teacher, and having completed a thesis doesn't give you a broader base of knowledge to work from. Quite the opposite, in fact: a masters is the first step down the road to knowing everything about nothing.

The push for lower standards is driven by the teacher shortage, and is clearly aimed at increasing the supply of new teachers. But this misses the point entirely, because the problem isn't supply - its retention. Our teachers colleges churn out more than enough new graduates each year. But huge numbers of them drop out in the first few years, going overseas for more money, or deciding that teaching really isn't the career for them. There are obvious ways of solving this problem, most notably by offering more money and better conditions. MPs like Tolley are happy to make such arguments when justifying their enormous salaries as necessary to attract the "best and brightest" into Parliament. But I forget: the equation of money with talent applies only to the rich - not to mere plebs like teachers.