More cronyism

Another day, another crony appointment for National - this time for disgraced and retiring MP Maurice Williamson:

Controversial National MP Maurice Williamson is the latest in a growing trend of MPs being awarded sought-after diplomatics postings upon retirement from politics.

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has named Williamson New Zealand's next Consul-General in Los Angeles, replacing Leon Grice.

He was one of a number of new diplomatic appointments around the globe, announced on Wednesday.

It comes just a month after Williamson announced he would be retiring from politics at the next election.

Which makes the payoff pretty obvious: Williamson retires, and he gets another few years sucking from the public teat, with an expanded expense account to boot. Its simply a corrupt abuse of office from a government which seems to regard our public service - because diplomats are public servants - simply as a way to reward and favour cronies. And insofar as the position of Consul-General is actually important, that corruption comes at the cost of undermining our government's diplomatic capacity (if OTOH, its not important, and is just a sinecure for washed-up former MPs, then that sounds like a strong case to disestablish the position entirely).

The amusing news is that Winston Peters is threatening to sack all of National's crony diplomatic appointments if he ever gets into power. While I'm not going to pretend he's doing this out of any principle - he pretty nakedly wants such an appointment for himself, but there's a National crony in the way - the prospect of a clean out is refreshing. And maybe we'll even be able to remove Ministers' powers to appoint ambassadors, and have those jobs done by professional diplomats appointed on merit, rather than former MPs who want a publicly-funded holiday...

A serial offender

It looks like former Statistics Minister Maurice Williamson is a serial offender at interfering with police cases:

Maurice Williamson called a senior police officer in Counties Manukau on a separate criminal case in which he "merely wished to pass on" that a complainant in a fraud case was "unhappy" that police were not going to lay charges.

[...]

The phone call from Mr Williamson in October or November 2013 was about a complex financial case where the complainant was advised that it was unlikely the police would lay criminal charges, said Mr Lynch, according to the memo released today under the Official Information Act.

"When Mr Williamson phoned me he reiterated at the start of the conversation that he was not seeking to interfere in any police investigation but merely wished to pass on what [redacted] had advised him that he was unhappy that [redacted] would probably not face charges."

Mr Lynch was unaware of the details of the case and spoke with a colleague who said "the matter was quite complex but his current view was that police would be unable to reach the required level of evidential sufficiency to bring charges."

There was no further contact from Mr Williamson, said Mr Lynch.

So much for an isolated incident. Instead, it looks like a habit. We're well rid of him.

Meanwhile, there's the obvious question: was the complainant Williamson was speaking on behalf of a National Party donor?

"No intention to interfere"

When the Prime Minister found out that Maurice Williamson had contacted police over their investigation of a National Party donor on domestic violence charges, Williamson "assured [him] that he did not in any way intend to influence the Police investigation".

Bullshit:

Maurice Williamson told a senior police officer that a wealthy businessman facing domestic assault charges was "investing a lot of money in New Zealand" and urged police to be on "solid ground", according to internal police emails.

The former National Party Minister, who resigned this morning following Herald revelations that he made the phone call, said that he "in no way was he looking to interfere" with the criminal case against Donghua Liu but just wanted to "make sure somebody had reviewed the matter to ensure we were on solid ground as Mr Liu is investing a lot of money in New Zealand", according to Inspector Gary Davey.

And that's exactly what interfering in a police investigation looks like: someone powerful telling police to "be careful". Sadly, rather than reminding Williamson of the constitutional independence of police, or of the law on perversion of the course of justice, they let him get away with it.

Update: Except its worse than that. Because as the released emails show, the Police gave Williamson exactly what he wanted. In an email sent on 20 January, Inspector Gary Davey says

I would like someone from Family Violence to contact prosecutions, review the file, discuss with prosecutions and then we will need to provide a response to the Minister.

Williamson's head isn't the only one that should be on a spike. The Police who obeyed him need to be fired too.

Two obvious questions

Maurice Williamson was sacked within the space of 2 hours this morning after the Herald revealed he had attempted to interfere in a police investigation on behalf of a party donor. Its exactly what should happen when a Minister behaves corruptly and pisses on our constitutional norms like this. At the same time, it raises an obvious question: why hasn't Judith Collins suffered the same fate? Or is corrupt behaviour only punished when it involves older Ministers the PM would like to dispose of?

And then there's this bit:

In a statement, Prime Minister John Key says he's accepted Mr Williamson's resignation.

"I have been made aware that Mr Williamson contacted Police some time ago regarding their investigation of Mr Donghua Liu," Mr Key said.

Which raises the other obvious question: why didn't Key sack him then? There's absolutely no legitimate reason for a Minister to contact police in this way, and Williamson's "excuse" that he wasn't trying to influence the investigation doesn't wash (why else would he contact them? And doesn't he understand that by doing so, he has exerted influence?). Or is corrupt behaviour only punished if it becomes public? And if so, how many other current Ministers have committed similar offences, but are still in their jobs because we don't know about them?

Williamson shits on our constitution

The Ombudsman is one of our final constitutional backstops. They have the power to hear complaints about any government body, and make recommendations if a decision was unlawful, unjust, mistaken, or just plan wrong. While the law speaks of "recommendations", in practice they are binding rulings, and always obeyed. Until now, that is.

Last year the Ombudsman considered a complaint about levies imposed by the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board. The Regulations Review Committee had heard a similar complaint, and come to the unanimous conclusion that the fees were unlawful and recommended their disallowance (which National voted down). The Ombudsman has now released their full decision [PDF] in which they agree with the RRC, and recommend validating legislation (well, technically that the Board and MoBIE raise it with their Minister) combined with a partial refund of unlawfully-collected fees.

Normally, that's what would happen. But Maurice Williamson, the Minister responsible for this clusterfuck, disagrees. While he is pushing validation, he is refusing any refund, full or partial:

Mr Williamson yesterday dismissed Mr McGee's recommendation.

"I think the Ombudsman's Office is wrong. The board would be technically insolvent if they had to pay this money back," he said.

The Ombudsman notes this, but also notes that the Board should receive government support to compensate the victims of its failure. But Williamson is too cheap for that. And his desire to save a piddling $600,000 is trampling on one of our most important (but unstated) constitutional provisions.

What can be done? Well, if Ministers ignore the Ombudsman, then we need to force them to obey. The OIA has language making Ombudsman's decisions on the Act binding and imposing a public duty on all agencies to give effect to them. Thanks to Williamson, I think its time we inserted a similar provision into the Ombudsman's Act. Because clearly, we can no longer rely on the good will and constitutional impulses of Ministers any longer.

A hole in our defences

Last month we learned that the Minister of Building and housing, Maurice Williamson, is also involved in the construction industry. The Cabinet Manual contains rules on how to deal with such situations, and Williamson claims to have complied with them. We have no reason to doubt his word on that, but an OIA by Labour's Grant Robertson has turned up a problem: while he has instructed the Cabinet Office not to give him papers in the area of his conflict, there appears to be no corresponding instruction to his department:

The government department that regulates the building industry has no record of instructions that the minister responsible for the sector says he made to avoid a possible conflict of interest.

Maurice Williamson said in February that he had "instructed officials" he would withdraw from discussions that could create a conflict between his roles as building and construction minister and director of Holyoake Industries, a large air- conditioning and ventilation company.

[...]

However, in response to an Official Information Act request for a copy of the minister's instruction, the Ministry of Building, Innovation and Employment, which includes the former department of building and housing, said it "does not hold any information covered by this request" and that it was transferring the request to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Think about that for a minute: DBH has primary responsibility for the building industry and is the most likely source of such papers. But if there is no instruction to them, then Williamson's "management" of his conflict is meaningless. It leaves him free to interfere in matters at the level of the department, including deciding what does and does not go to Cabinet (where he would then not be able to view or discuss the papers that he had already had input into as a Minister).

There's no suggestion Williamson has done this, or indeed that he has received any papers on heating and ventilation issues at all during his tenure as Minister (but I expect people are franticly OIAing that as I post). But it does expose a hole in or defences against conflicted Ministers - and its a hole that needs to be plugged.

A fox in charge of a henhouse

Yesterday we learned that the Minister of Building and Housing, Maurice Williamson, is also a secret director of Holyoake Industries, a company which supplies products to the building industry. Its a serious conflict of interest, in that he is directly involved in the industry he is regulating, and could potentially profit from the decisions he makes. He has apparently complied with the Cabinet Manual, by having papers relating to the business sectors Holyoake is involved in dealt with by another person. But I don't think that's enough. Our Ministers must not only be free of conflicts, they must be seen to be so. And merely having papers withheld does not manage that fundamental perception issue of being a fox in charge of a henhouse (a perception which has been magnified by Holyoake's secrecy about Williamson's directorship - though he is listed in the companies register and has declared it in Parliament's Register of Pecuniary Interests, he is oddly absent from the list of directors on their website).

TVNZ quotes Brian Gaynor as arguing that Ministers should not be on the boards of major companies, particularly if that company is in the area they are responsible for. I agree. Regardless of the steps they take to manage it, the perceived conflict is too great. In addition, we pay Ministers very generously, and we deserve their full and undivided attention.

While there's no suggestion that Williamson has done anything wrong, he needs to choose whether he wants to stay a Minister, or stay in business. If he refuses, he needs to be sacked. He cannot retain the public confidence required to be a Minister while wearing two hats.

Only himself to blame

Yesterday, Stuff reported that the Overseas Investment Office was failing to monitor whether conditions on overseas land purchases were being met. Today, the Minister has issued a "clarification", claiming that the information was "dangerous and misleading" and that

OIO monitoring of cases is robust and numbers have remained fairly consistent over the past three years.

The kicker? The information Williamson is complaining about and "clarifying" came from his own office, in response to Parliamentary written questions. Which suggests firstly that he was somewhat less than forthcoming in those answers, and secondly that he really has no-one but himself to blame for this. After all, if the Minister doesn't want stories based on information he describes as "dangerous and misleading", he could not answer questions in that manner, and instead give a straight answer in the first place. The fact that he didn't speaks volumes about his (lack of) commitment to transparency and democratic accountability.