Kate Wilkinson's crony appointment

Last month, Science and Innovation Minister Paul Goldsmith appointed former National MP Kate Wilkinson to the board of Landcare Research. Naturally, I sent away the usual OIA request. And naturally, it exposed the appointment as the usual crony stitch-up.

Here's how it happened. Back in February, Treasury sent the usual reminder to the Minister that he needed to make a number of appointments to CRI boards, including Landcare Research. The positions were duly advertised, and in May Treasury came back with a short-list of eight candidates for follow-up interviews. Kate Wilkison was not on that list, because she had not applied for the job. Four of the candidates were interviewed, and the Ministry made their recommendations. Then this happened:

The panel determined that Ngarimu Blair and John Rodwell are the preferred candidates for the Board. The panel's assessment of the interviewed candidates is outlined below. Following the completion of interviews you decided to appoint Hon Kate Wilkinson as an additional director to the Board.

[Emphasis added]

Yes, Goldsmith was so impressed by the qualifications of his former colleague (who hadn't even applied or been interviewed) that he decided to create a special position for her, at a cost of $24,000 a year. He then lied to Cabinet about it, claiming that Blair rather than Wilkinson was the additional director.

And that's how public sector board appointments in New Zealand work under National. They're not made on merit, but on politics, dished out as a spoil of office. Just like in the USA.

The return of Ministerial responsibility

The Pike River Commission has released its final report, which is available here. Their conclusion? The accident was preventable, and our health and safety regime is inadequate. Its recommendations look quite reasonable, and its good to see that the government is making the right noises about adopting them. While they're cautious about spinning health and safety off onto a new Crown Entity (as it clashes with their hostility to single-purpose agencies and their quest for efficiencies of scale), who does it is ultimately far less important than whether or not it gets done.

Its also seen a welcome return of Ministerial responsibility, with Kate Wilkinson's resignation. While the lax health and safety environment which allowed the accident to happen was the product of twenty years of deregulation and "reform" which occurred under both major parties (yes, Labour, your refusal to roll back deregulation makes you responsible too), she presided over the final, ultimate failure of that ramshackle system, and its entirely appropriate that she carries the can for that. She was Minister; an unconscionable failure happened on her watch; resigning is the honourable thing to do. At the same time, by doing so she highlights the unethical response of certain other Ministers (*cough* Bennett *cough* Key*) over similarly serious long-term failures in their departments.

If Ministers' jobs were on the line over serious failures in their departments, then I think we'd see a lot less of them. As voters, we should be demanding that more Ministers take responsibility like this, rather than letting them collect their inflated salaries for nothing.

Penny-pinching costs lives

Back in 1998, the then-National government disbanded the mine inspectorate group and shifted its functions to the Department of Labour. The number of mine inspectors was reduced from seven to two, saving $1 million. In light of what has happened at Pike River, and what is emerging from the Royal Commission hearings, that is now looking like a foolish decision. That penny-pinching desire to cull public service positions (especially public service positions which annoy employers) seems to have cost lives.

Meanwhile, Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson is also looking like she's made some foolish decisions. In October 2009, the Department of Labour recommended tightening mine safety, by requiring them to document health and safety systems and hazard management plans, introduce check inspectors, and impose greater employee participation in mine safety. Wilkinson refused. And now, rather than accepting responsibility for her failure, she's trying to spin it, trying to equivocate over a different briefing paper and other recommendations she accepted. Nice try, but it won't wash. When given a choice between believing a public servant under oath, or a spinning Minister, its really no contest, is it?

National to introduce "youth rates" for adults

In 2007, Sue Bradford abolished youth rates, ensuring that workers would be paid on their skills and experience - merit - rather than discriminated against solely for being young. Now National wants to bring this discrimination back. Worse, they want to extend it to 24-year olds:

The government looks set to propose the re-introduction of special lower pay rates for young workers. There are signs it may even extend the definition of a youth so that workers into their early 20s may be forced to accept lower pay rates.

[...]

National isn't ruling anything out.

When asked what her definition of a ‘youth’ was, Wilkinson said the bracket used was "15 to 24," but she had no view as long as they got jobs.

This is simply wrong. You wouldn't pay someone less because they're a woman, or gay, or Maori. So why the hell is it OK to pay someone less because they're young? It is discrimination, oure and simple. But National doesn't care about this; instead, they just want to see wages drop, so their corporate mates can make bigger profits. And they're quite happy to effectively legislate pay cuts for hundreds of thousands of workers to do it.

As for those who think youth rates affect youth unemployment, bullshit. It tracks overall unemployment, though at a higher level. That higher level is an indicatation of the pervasive discrimination against young people in the employment market - discrimination which will not be reduced by officially sanctioning it.

Correction: Corrected obvious braino.

"Closing the gap" - but not for the poor

And to combine today's OIA with yesterday's: Wilkinson's minimum wage review [PDF] includes international comparisons. It notes that

A comparison with Australia is most useful due to its close economic connections with New Zealand and the relatively free movement of labour between the two countries. The Australian federal minimum wage increased by 4.8% from AU$14.31 to AU$15.00 following their 2010 review. The current Australian minimum wage rate equates to NZ$19.31 on 1 November 2010.

So, Wilkinson chose an increase less than that in Australia, one which will result in a relative decline in living standards for those on the bottom. And this is deliberate. A later document notes that

New Zealand's minimum wage is 49.5% of average weekly wages, higher than Australia's by 4.3 percentage points.

Wilkinson has highlighted this in the margin. The obvious conclusion: she sees this as the gap which needs closing. And the way to close it is by eroding the living standards of ordinary New Zealanders.

Choosing the worse option

Last month, the government announced a miserly increase in the minimum wage, from $12.75 to $13 an hour. The increase was half the rate of inflation, and resulted in low-paid workers going backwards in real terms. I was curious about the process used to decide this increase, and what options the Minister considered, so I filed an OIA seeking the advice she had received on the matter. Today I received the response - and it shows that Kate Wilkinson perversely chose the worst option, as assessed by her own criteria.

You can read the full documentation here [PDF]. It consists of a number of reports from the Department of Labour laying out the options and assessing the costs and benefits of each. Wilkinson was presented with four options - no change, and increases to $13, $13.50, and $15 per hour. The first and last of these were clearly salmonella - options designed to be discarded, used to frame the issue; in practice the decision was between option 2 ($13 / hour) and option 3 ($13.50 / hour).

These options were assessed for their impact on employment, wages, and inflation. $13 / hour was assessed as having no impact on economic criteria, as it "does not constitute a real increase" (10/98801, paragraph 20). $13.50 / hour was expected to reduce employment growth by between 480 to 640 people. That's against an expected increase of 22,000, and the effect is regarded as "negligible in terms of total employment". Likewise, inflationary effects are expected to be negligible. A higher minimum would result in higher costs to government - an extra $6 million a year for $13 / hour, an extra $30 million a year for $13.50 - but that's not a significant difference. On the economic analysis, there's no real difference between the two options.

The options were also assessed against principles of fairness, protection, income distribution, and work incentives. And here the difference really shows:

$13.00: This option will maintain existing levels of fairness and income distribution and existing work incentives as it is an increase in line with the change in consumer prices and average wages. It may erode existing levels of protection.

$13.50: This option will increase existing levels of fairness and income distribution. It may increase or maintain work incentives, as it is likely to have a higher percentage increase than benefits. The size of the increase is greater than movements in average minimum wages in collective agreements so it is likely to improve current level of protection.

So, no real economic difference, but better rankings on non-economic criteria. The $13.50 option would seem to win hands-down as delivering better outcomes for no real cost. Instead, Wilkinson chose the lower one. After all, she wouldn't want to increase fairness, would she?

Conservation Minister backs pollution

Lake Ellesmere / Te Waihora is New Zealand's fourth largest lake. Its also our second most polluted, with dairy runoff from adjacent farms turning it into a giant effluent pond unsafe for swimming or fishing. The Department of Conservation, which is responsible for managing the lake under the Conservation Act 1987 and Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998, has been trying to clean it up. One of their methods of doing so is by reducing direct pollution by refusing to renew grazing licences on conservation land adjacent to the lake.

Unfortunately, their Minister won't let them. Documents released under the Official Information Act to The Press show that Minister of Conservation Kate Wilkinson overruled her department last year to force the renewal of the last adjacent grazing licence - in other words, to allow pollution to continue:

[Barry] Clark, whose family had grazed the land for more than a century, said he was advised early in 2010 by DOC that his lease would expire in June and he was asked to reapply – which gave him the impression that a "renewal was available". DOC's decision not to renew the licence was overturned at a meeting in August involving Canterbury-based ministers Wilkinson and Carter, Clark and Mahaanui area manager Bryan Jensen, and a five-year extension was approved.

Extending the lease contravened DOC's policy of removing grazing from the lake edge to protect the environment and upset some DOC staff.

It also contradicted what Clark was told by the department in 2004 – that the next five-year term of his lease would be his last.

Wilkinson's reason? Given the amount of pollution, another five years wouldn't matter. It's an extraordinary approach to take on the issue, and one which directly contravenes the conservation values she is supposed to be an advocate for. It also contravenes the consultation requirements of the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act. But National clearly views the government keeping its word on a Treaty settlement as less important than allowing a wealthy constituent to continue to make money by expropriating and polluting public space.

This also shows that Wilkinson is totally unsuitable for her portfolio. Here's a hint: the Minister of Conservation's job is to conserve. If Wilkinson is unwilling to do that, she should resign and give the job to someone who is. But how many of them are there in the National Party anymore?

Maybe not so heartless after all

On Monday, the government decided to deport Sital and Usha Ram, condemning their kiwi children to life in a slum. Today, they've decided to review that decision. I guess public pressure (and the threat of being tarred as the party which breaks up kiwi families and condemns kiwi kids to a life of poverty) works.

Of course, the Minister may not change her mind. But she's now been clearly and publicly put on notice by the Human Rights Commission of her obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. After this, any decision to deport would be publicly seen to be unlawful, as well as cruel and heartless. With the political deck stacked in that way, hopefully she'll make the right choice and let these kids and their parents stay.

Utterly heartless

The government has decided to deport Sital and Usha Ram, meaning that their New Zealand-born children will be forced to accompany them.

This is an utterly heartless decision. These kids are kiwis. And the government is saying they should be kicked out, sent to a country they have never seen where they will be subject to discrimination, forced to live in a slum, and denied medical care on the basis of their (unalterable) New Zealand citizenship. But in addition to being heartless, it is also almost certainly unlawful:

TDA Immigration, the company representing the family, said the minister's decision went against court decisions on similar cases.

In a 2008 finding, Justice Susan Glazebrook said a citizen had a "cardinal and absolute right of residence" and that a comparison had to be made between the child's living conditions in New Zealand and what they were likely to encounter once deported.

In another finding, she said serious detriment to the citizen child could be sufficient to outweigh the right of New Zealand to protect its borders, allowing an overstayer parent to remain in New Zealand to care for the child.

The reason for those decisions is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which we are a party, which requires that in any decision affecting children, "the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration". The government has utterly ignored that principle in favour of taking a harsh line and punishing these kids for having the wrong parents.

Over on KiwiPolitico, Lew suggests a simple counterstrategy:

invite John Campbell into your home. Let him and his camera crew be present at the time of the forcible separation; in your living room and at the airport, and let the whole world watch, and listen to the wailing.

I agree. If the government wants to deport kiwi kids or break up a family, let it be seen to do so - and pay the political price for it.

Against deporting kiwis

This is absolutely disgusting: the government is about to deport three kiwi kids to live in a slum in India because their parents are overstayers:

Eight-year-old Hemani Mall is terrified – saying she and her twin six-year-old brothers, all born in Hawke's Bay, do not want to live where there are no toilets or running water and that they will not be able to attend school or receive healthcare.

Their parents, Sital Ram, 40, and Usha Rani Ram, 32, have lived in Hastings for 11 years, seven of them as overstayers.

The parents are Dalits (AKA "untouchables"), and likely to be subject to pervasive, though illegal, discrimination. They own no land, meaning their kids will be condemned to a life of poverty. And those children won't be able to benefit from Indian government services, because they're not Indian citizens and can't become one until they renounce their New Zealand citizenship - something our law doesn't allow them to do until they turn 18. The result will be to deny them their rights to health and education affirmed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which we are parties.

Associate Immigration Minister Kate Wilkinson has rebuffed every appeal to decency for fear of being seen to be "soft" on immigration. But there is a clear case here for an appeal to be granted on humanitarian grounds - and on legal ones. The Convention on the Rights of the Child requires that

In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.

That applies to the government, and it applies to immigration decisions. And it is crystal clear that the best interests of these children is that they stay in New Zealand. And if that means letting their parents stay, then so be it.

A decision will apparently be made tonight. Hopefully, it will be the right one. And if not, well, Wilkinson will have made it clear to everyone that she is cruel and heartless and does not care about the rights of kiwi kids.