Labour on democracy and trust in government

Labour released its democracy and trust in government policy today, and it looks like a good start. They're promising:

• A lobbying register and code of conduct, and stand-down periods for Ministers;
• Limiting urgency and requiring post-enactment referral to select committee of any bill which skips the select committee phase;
• Lowering the voting age for local body elections and abolishing the landlord vote;
• Mentioned in the full speech, reform of the OIA to codify proactive release and include penalties for ministers who conspire to hide things

Which is all good, but note what's not included: caps on political donations or public funding to get money out of politics; stopping the revolving door for senior public servants as well as Ministers; a lower voting age for general elections. I'm also suspicious of any effort to "reform" the OIA which is government- rather than civil society-led, because their interests are not aligned with ours and they will write the law to suit themselves and enable more secrecy.

Lowering the (general) voting age will be because it is hard, but they're unwilling to say "we will put a bill before the House and make National pay the price if they vote it down". As for donation capping, Labour has never really wanted money out of politics, because they're stupid enough to think they'll get a share of it when they're in power. This election's statistics should disabuse them of that notion: the uber-rich are using their money as a weapon to undermine our democracy, and a genuinely democratic party would wage war on that bullshit. You can draw your own conclusions about what Labour's refusal to do so says about them.

On the other hand, with a donation cap a bottom line for TOP, Labour is going to have to attack the rich if they want to be in government. So they'd better start getting used to the idea.

A busy week

Do you hate the regime? Do you hate their tyranny, their transphobia, and their desire to destroy the environment? If so, you're in for a busy week - because submissions on bills on all of those things all close on Thursday.

The details are on Parliament's select committee page. Submissions on the following all close at 11:59pm on Thursday 2 July:

• The Conservation Amendment Bill. This bill allows the regime to sell off the conservation estate to foreign billionaires, repurposes DoC towards economic exploitation of conservation land, disestablishes regional conservation boards, and violates Treaty settlements.
• The Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill: NZ First's anti-trans hate bill, which seeks to legally define trans people out of existence.
• The Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill, which aims to persecute the homeless while also allowing police to ban any public protest.

Also closing at the same time is the Local Government (Port Companies Accountability) Amendment Bill, a members bill which would bring some much-needed transparency and accountability to port companies. That one's worth submitting on too if you're a transparency advocate, though in support rather than opposition.

Stacking up controversial bills like this seems to be a clear attempt to deter submissions. So don't be deterred. We've already seen that if we scream loud enough at the regime, it backs down, and its likely to be even more sensitive in the lead-up to the election. So scream at them. If you don't have time to write a full submission on everything, pick one to do a good job on. For the rest, saying "I oppose this bill, and recommend that it not be passed" is a perfectly valid submission, though it will count for more if you can specify particular things you hate. And if you can, submit early - with so many controversial bills due at the same time, parliament's servers may end up overloaded by the backlash. Submitting early, rather than trying to do everything at once, may avoid this.

Corrupt, criminal secrecy

Fishing is a criminal industry. Fishers routinely lie about catch sizes, illegally dump bycatch, and cover up the murder of protected species. After a long campaign by NGOs in the 2010s, the Ardern government was finally dragged (kicking and screaming, against the wishes of two corrupt fisheries ministers) into putting cameras on boats to ensure criminal behaviour could be monitored and deterred. The fishing industry felt that this was unjust, and immediately began lobbying and bribing to have the footage declared a state secret, so it could never be used by NGOs to hold them to account. And they've got what they wanted. The new Fisheries Amendment Bill, introduced today, includes one of the most draconian secrecy clauses I have ever seen, with protections exceeding those given to classified security information.

First up, all fisheries camera recordings are declared exempt from the Official Information Act. But that's not enough for the fishing industry. There is also a clause that they cannot be disclosed outside the ministry, except to certain agencies or for certain purposes. Any other disclosure, or disclosure by anyone it has been lawfully passed on to, is a criminal offence, with a penalty of a $50,000 fine. And naturally, there's no whistleblower exemption (so if a recording exposes serious wrongdoing, and the ministry refuses to act on it, reporting it to appropriate whistleblower authorities is a crime. Which is one way of the criminal industry preventing anyone bypassing its captive regulator...)

This information isn't a threat to national security. It doesn't endanger the maintenance of the law, or any any person's safety. Its not even commercially sensitive. If it was any of these things, the law wouldn't be necessary. Instead, its potential exposure - and the potential for the exposure of their crimes, and for oversight of MPI to ensure they enforce the law properly - hurts the poor widdle fee-fees of the fishing industry. And that, to this regime, is "an important public purpose", proportionate to the consequent destruction of our BORA-affirmed right to free expression (which includes the right to receive information), and the least infringement on that right, and so a measure which can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

That is simply bullshit. Protecting a corrupt criminal industry and its captive regulator from public scrutiny is not an important public purpose. It is the very opposite of a public purpose. But its what happens when you put a man who has taken tens of thousands of dollars from that industry in the position of regulator.

This bill is simply an affront to democracy. It is an abuse of our human rights, an insult to transparency, and the product of corruption. It should not be allowed to pass.