Good news on transparency

John Key has indicated that National will likely support Holly Walker's Lobbying Disclosure Bill to select committee. Good. This is an area where more transparency is needed, so we can see whether or not our government is subject to undue influence, and ultimately whether or not they are trustworthy. And while the bill may need to be tweaked, that can be done at select committee, after a national conversation about how much transparency we expect and who should be covered. National's support will make that conversation possible.

Meanwhile, Speaker of the House Lockwood Smith is once again showing us that he is no friend of transparency, by refusing to name the 16 lobbyists given privileged access to Parliament. Which naturally invites the question: what is he trying to hide? If the access was defensible, he would tell us. The fact that he doesn't speaks volumes.

Juking the stats

Last month, the government promised that its actions would be assessed against 10 key outcomes, including "a reduction in the number of assaults on children", and "a reduction in the crime rate". Now we learn how the Police are going to deliver those outcomes: by dropping domestic violence from the annual crime statistics:

Women's Refuge is meeting with police today over a decision to drop family violence figures from crime stats.

Police have told the refuge they're shifting focus to realign themselves with Australia and that family violence incidences will still be recorded - just not publicly.

Domestic violence is a significant area of crime which is growing (partly due to better awareness and reporting, and partly due to the government's recession). Not recording it publicly will mean a drop in recorded crime and in assaults on children, and voila!, target achieved. Of course, its fundamentally dishonest, not to mention sending a clear message that this sort of crime - which used to be a priority - "doesn't count". But pretty obviously, the police don't care about that. What they care about is keeping the Minister happy and their budget secure. And that means showing that crime is falling, regardless of the facts.

And then they wonder why so many people don't trust them...

Climate change: The latest inventory and the net position

The Ministry for the Environment has quietly released its latest inventory report [PDF]. The headline data is shown in the graph below (stolen from page vi):

Gross emissions have remained fairly static. Meanwhile, removals have dropped substantially, meaning a rise in net emissions. We're still well under our Kyoto cap, but its troubling.

Meanwhile, the government also admits that it has basically been fiddling the numbers and engaging in creative accounting in these reports:

New Zealand’s initial assigned amount under the Kyoto Protocol is recorded as 309,564,733 metric tonnes CO2 equivalent (309,565 Gg CO2-e). The initial assigned amount is five times the total 1990 emissions reported in the inventory submitted as part of New Zealand’s Initial Report under the Kyoto Protocol. The initial assigned amount does not change during the first commitment period (2008–2012) of the Kyoto Protocol. In contrast, the time series of emissions reported in each inventory submission are subject to continuous improvement. Consequently, the total emissions in 1990 as reported in this submission are 3.5 per cent lower than the 1990 level of 61,912.9 Gg CO2-e, which was estimated in 2006 and used in the initial assigned amount calculation.

Yes, "methodological improvements" made after the amount was fixed has allowed the government to bank a free 3.5% reduction in reported emissions, without actually doing anything in reality. But while such accounting tricks may allow them to reduce our liability, you can't fool the atmosphere like this, and so they don't do anything to actually solve the problem. Only real emissions reductions will do that.

The government also released its annual net position report, which shows a 10% improvement in our expected Kyoto surplus, again due to methodological changes:

Removals from afforestation, reforestation and deforestation under the Kyoto Protocol are now projected to be 85.8 Mt CO2-e over 2008–2012. This is 3.0 Mt CO2-e higher than projected last year. This increase is primarily due to improvements to our estimates of the rates at which forests sequester carbon.

Looking back through my past analysis of previous Net Position Reports, every significant shift in our position is due to such changes. Actual policy doesn't seem relevant; what matters is accountancy. Again, I have no doubt that these changes will withstand the scrutiny of international peer review. At the same time, the fact that none of them affect the 1990 baseline makes the whole thing a giant fiddle, an exercise in Enron accounting. We - and the environment - deserve better form our politicians than that.

No freedom of speech in the UK II

In October 2011, UK Tweeter Olly Cromwell posted this tweet:

Which cunt lives in a house like this. Answers on a postcard to #bexleycouncil

For posting that, he had his house raided by police, and his computers, mobile phones, and digital cameras seized. He was charged with sending "grossly offensive malicious communications", and has been convicted. The government is asking for a sentence of 6 months imprisonment.

There's no question that that tweet contains offensive language. But 45 days per letter of the word in question? He wouldn't get that if he'd said it in the street (he is unlikely to even have been prosecuted). But apparently bad language is so much worse on the internet.

This isn't an isolated case. Teenager Azhar Ahmed is facing similar charges, not for bad language, but for questioning the UK's war in Afghanistan (a topic deemed "grossly offensive" by the British establishment, especially when raised by a Muslim). Its all made possible by a telecommunications law which extended provisions originally designed to outlaw obscene phone calls to any digital communication. According to the relevant prosecution guidelines, the question of offensiveness isn't up to contemporary community standards, but "whether the message would cause gross offence to those to whom it relates... who need not be the recipients". So it doesn't just outlaw using the internet or other networks for harassment (which is well-covered by other law anyway), or to directly insult people, but saying anything which might potentially offend anybody. Which, as we've already seen, includes speaking out on controversial political topics which the government would rather not hear about. Basically that one tiny definitional shift - telephone to telecommunications network - has effectively abolished freedom of speech in the digital public square.

(For the curious: no, this can't happen here. Our relevant law applies strictly to telephones, and our definition of offensiveness is based on community standards which include a respect for freedom of speech. Let's make sure it stays that way).

New Fisk

The Baghdad street of books that refuses to die

Places to go, people to be

Nothing from me today; I'm off to Wainuiomata to participate in Wellington's inaurgural larp convention.

Normal service will resume Monday.

One state at a time

Connecticut has abolished the death penalty, making it the seventeenth US state to do so. Which means there's only another thirty-three states,a nd the US will be a civilised country.

No money for paid parental leave; $650 million a year for farmers

The government has released its consultation paper on proposed changes to the ETS. The short version: a three-year extension of the current "two for one" "transition" measure to 2015, and a three year extension of the agricultural exemption, to 2018. The latter alone costs us ~$650 million a year at Treasury's nominal $20 / ton carbon price (or $260 million a year at the current artificially-low-because-of-overallocation-and-bullshit-Chinese-CERs $8/ton), in addition to the longer-term environmental effects of not having any incentive to reduce pollution.

And meanwhile, the government is crying poverty over Paid Parental Leave. Yeah, right. As always, its a matter of priorities. And as always, National is willing to throw hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies at its farmer cronies, while leaving ordinary kiwis to go begging.

Some good news

Back in February, UKanians learned that their public service was enabling tax-cheating by senior public servants. I was curious about whether such dubious arrangements were used here, so I did a quick survey of major government departments (SSC, Treasury, MSD, MED, MFAT, IRD, Justice, Health, Crown law, and CERA), asking them how many employees they had who were paid over $100,000, and whether any of them were paid by any means other than personal salary (e.g. through a company or trust). So far I've received responses from half of those departments, and the news is good: none of them use such arrangements. I wasn't expecting to find any, but its good that I can ask and confirm that our public service is as clean and professional as I expect it to be.

Ports of Auckland comes clean

Ports of Auckland has admitted leaking an employee's personal information to a sewerblogger:

The Council of Trade Unions says the Ports of Auckland has admitted leaking personal details about an employee who spoke out against the port.

[...]

President of the Council of Trade Unions Helen Kelly told Radio New Zealand a letter from chief executive Tony Gibson to the Maritime Union acknowledged the port was behind the leak.

Ms Kelly said the letter does not name who was responsible for the leak, but it did state the leak was a response to Mr Walker speaking out publicly against the port.

"They acknowledge they released it. They explain, in their terms, why they released it, and regardless of the fact they clearly agree that it probably breached the Privacy Act, that's implied in the letter. But they don't go on to say that they change, in fact they go on to say that they reserve the right to do it again."

This is absolutely appalling, a gross abuse of power by the company, and they need to be held accountable for it. Some of that accountability will come from the Privacy Commissioner. But there needs to be more. These clowns have just cost Auckland ratepayers tens of thousands of dollars, as well as pissed all over the law. They need to lose their jobs for it. Sadly, given the way Ports of Auckland is run, they'll probably get a bonus instead for their "good work".

If all you have is a hammer...

What's National's answer to child abuse? Public sector reform, of course!

The Government is planning to amend the State Sector Act and the Public Finance Act later this year to introduce statutory boards overseeing a multitude of agencies.

Mr English said: "That group of social ministers are going to be tested, I think, by the focus we have got on children because that's an area where inter-department co-operation is the least developed ...

"These are big organisations used to getting their own cash for their own programmes and keeping off each other's territory. Well, if that worked we wouldn't have as many children suffering serious assault."

The Government is in the process of drawing up a white paper to tackle the problems that face vulnerable children such as child abuse.

Mr English said this was "the positive side" of public service restructuring.

"If we can demonstrate to department structures [that] working in a different way will actually save the lives of our children, or improve miserable lives, I think they will probably make the change.

Because obviously more cuts and another layer of National-appointed cronies will improve outcomes. What happened to actual policy? Instead we have a universal solution, imposed on utterly spurious grounds, in the belief that reshuffling the deckchairs at the top while not doing anything else differently will somehow magically produce remarkably different results.

What next? National will announce plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by appointing Jenny Shipley to oversee the Ministry for the Environment? They'll save Maui's Dolphin by getting Wayne Mapp to oversee DoC? That's the sort of logic they're using, and the link between their planned actions and the desired outcomes is tenuous to say the least.

But hey, it will mean a bunch of National cronies get well-paid sinecures, while further corrupting and politicising the public service. So that's a win in National's books.

Voting on austerity in Greece

Greece's unelected Prime Minister has called elections for May 6th. So, after five months of foreign-imposed "technocratic" (meaning "NeoLiberal") government, Greeks will finally get to vote on the policies being imposed on them, and on the politicians who abdicated their responsibility in the middle of a crisis.

It doesn't look good for either. European Tribune has irregularly been tracking the Greek polls, and their last update (from last month) shows the New Democrats at a record low 25%, and PASOK at 11% (down from 44% in the last election). Meanwhile, anti-austerity parties are rising. Unfortunately, Greece has an unfair electoral system, which hands 16% of Parliament to the single largest party as a "winner's bonus". So we may see a situation where anti-austerity parties win a majority of the vote, but are unable to form a government thanks to this gerrymander.

The results of this will be fascinating - as will the response from the EU's unelected technocrats if the Greek people tell them to shove their austerity. Will the EU try and overturn a democratic election in a member-state because it doesn't like the economic direction they want to take? Just a few years ago, the question would have been absurd; the fact that it can now be asked seriously shows how much this crisis has damaged the EU, and destroyed its democratic legitimacy.

"Shocked"

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is shocked, shocked, he tells us, to learn that Britain’s wealthy are tax cheats. And if you believe that, I have a war in Afghanistan to sell you. Osborne's father is a Baronet. He was educated at public schools, and (along with David Cameron) was a member of the infamous Bullingdom Club at Oxford. And he has a net worth of over £4 million. He knows exactly what Britain's rich do, because he is one of them.

As for his solution, he recently cut the top tax rate from 50% to 45%, in the belief that this would increase revenue. That, I think, speaks volumes about what Osborne's "shock" is worth.

The Ombudsman on privatisation and transparency

Last month, former Ombudsman Mel Smith criticised the government's plans to remove part-privatised SOE's from the OIA, saying that there he "can't see any argument at all to remove them". Today, Chief Ombudsman Beverley Wakem has weighed in in agreement:

The Government's plan to block public scrutiny of partially privatised power companies is unjustified on commercial grounds and will see a valuable part of the democratic process lost, Chief Ombudsman Beverley Wakem has warned.

[...]

Ms Wakem - whose office investigates public complaints against the Government - said the fact that the Crown was maintaining controlling stakes in the companies on behalf of the public demonstrated their importance to New Zealand's interests.

The sale of a minority shareholding in them did not affect the reasoning for them being subject to the independent oversight and accountability provided through the Ombudsman Act and the Official Information Act (OIA).

I agree. There is a clear principle, established in the Local Government Act, that majority public ownership equals transparency. If its good enough for majority council-owned bus companies, forests and airports, its good enough for majority government-owned electricity companies and airlines. We own them; we should be able to see what they are doing. It is that simple.

New Fisk

Shot in the heart - the journalist Assad made into a martyr

The financial veto and the constitution

The prospect of Labour passing its Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months Paid Leave) Amendment Bill over the top of the government has raised the threat of a Crown Financial Veto, of the government disallowing a bill even though there is a Parliamentary majority supporting it. So what is this veto, and where does it come from?

The answer, of course, is Britain. Our Parliament descends from the English Parliament, which began not as an independent, elected, representative body, but as the King's Parliament. It existed basically for one purpose: to approve taxes to pay for the monarch's hobbies (such as drinking, buying palaces, and waging war against his fellow monarchs).

Of course, it grew into something a little different from that. But the underlying feudal mindset remained (and remains to this day in the UK). So when the British drafted our first constitution in 1852, they included a clause saying that Parliament (or the Legislative Assembly as it was then called) could not appropriate money except as recommended by the Governor. When we took control of our constitution in 1986, this clause was re-enacted:

The House of Representatives shall not pass any Bill providing for the appropriation of public money or for the imposition of any charge upon the public revenue unless the making of that appropriation or the imposition of that charge has been recommended to the House of Representatives by the Crown.

In other words, Parliament was (still) simply the financial rubber-stamp of the executive.

But our Parliament grew again, with MMP shifting power from the executive to the legislature. In recognition of this - and the fact that the government no longer had an inbuilt majority to vote down spending - the Standing Orders were changed, introducing the "financial veto". This reflected the law at the time. But then, in 2005, the law was repealed. So now we have a financial veto with no underlying statutory authority.

How does this fit with a country where supreme power is vested in a democratically elected, sovereign Parliament? The short answer is that it doesn't. In modern New Zealand, it is Parliament which rules, not the executive. Oh, Ministers make the day-to-day decisions, and generally shape the laws, but it is Parliament which has the final say. And if Parliament refuses their legislation, or passes something they don't like, the government just has to lump it. We accept that principle for ordinary laws, and we should accept it for financial matters too. The financial veto should be abolished.

But wouldn't this make it difficult for the government to govern? Firstly, arguably if the government has lost control of its spending, then they have lost the confidence of the House (confidence and supply being all about who controls the money). But this also points at the solution: the government, by definition, has a majority on confidence issues. If it really doesn't like Parliament appropriating money for something, it can make it a matter of confidence, and stand or fall on the result. That would be the democratic solution. Sadly, I don't expect autocratic National to take it.

No freedom of speech in the UK

On March 8, British teenager Azhar Ahmed posted the following to his Facebook account:

People gassin about the deaths of soldiers! What about the innocent familys who have been brutally killed.. The women who have been raped.. The children who have been sliced up..! Your enemy’s were the Taliban not innocent harmless familys. All soldiers should DIE & go to HELL! THE LOWLIFE FOKKIN SCUM! gotta problem go cry at your soliders grave & wish him hell because that where he is going..

For posting this, he was arrested and charged with a "racially aggravated public order offence". That charge was dropped when he appeared in court - perhaps because even the Yorkshire police could understand that "British soldiers" are not a racial group - and instead substituted with one of using a telecommunications network to send a grossly offensive message. He will face trial in July, and it is unclear what sentence he may face.

The British government considers Ahmed's message to be offensive. But it is also clearly political, objecting against his country's continued presence in Afghanistan and the civilian casualties it is causing. That is something people should be able to say, and say strongly, in a democracy. But thanks to the UK's participation in America's "war on terror", those doing so now face the risk of arrest and prosecution. So much for the myth that those soldiers are "defending freedom"...

Good news on paid parental leave

Last week Sue Moroney's Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months Paid Leave) Amendment Bill was drawn from the ballot. Now, it looks like the bill will pass its first reading, despite government opposition:

A Labour proposal to extend paid parental leave from 14 to 26 weeks looks set to pass its first hurdle in Parliament after initial backing by United Future.

[...]

However, the Government's support partner United Future campaigned in last year's election on extending paid parental leave to 13 months and could give Labour the numbers it needs to send the bill to a select committee for consideration.

Leader and sole MP Peter Dunne said today Labour's bill was a "step in the right direction".

"I haven't read bill and only had brief discussion with Labour but my inclination is to support its introduction."

Dunne is on the right side on this. The Families Commission recommended an increase way back in 2007, and while Moroney's bill falls short of their recommendation, it is a positive step. And by spreading the cost out, its also affordable.

Unfortunately, while the bill will go to Select Committee, it is highly unlikely to become law. Even if National fails to gather a majority to defeat it, Parliament's Standing orders allow a government to veto on financial grounds any law which would have "more than a minor impact" on the government's books. What constitutes "more than a minor impact" is entirely up to the government, and in the past (particularly in the 93 - 96 term) National has shown a willingness to veto any bill which didn't come from them (often on the spurious grounds of administrative costs). They'll be even more willing to do so when it costs real money which could instead be given to their cronies as tax cuts. So we may very well see a bill with majority Parliamentary backing vetoed by Ministerial fiat. People might want to start thinking about whether that is really appropriate - or democratic.

Going backwards in Wisconsin

Equal pay laws are one of the core protections of a civilised state. Prohibiting discriminatory pay-rates on the basis of gender frees women to pursue a career and frees families to choose their own social arrangements. And while they have not been as effective as we'd want - the stubborn persistence of gender-pay gaps shows that - they're still a vital safeguard against overt discrimination.

Except in Wisconsin. There, the State government, which has been at the vanguard of Republican madness in the US, has just repealed the state's Equal Pay Enforcement Act. Why? Because in the words of one state Senator, "money is more important for men". So therefore obviously his state should treat women worse, to make men feel better.

Just another example of how the US right is hell-bent on driving their country backwards and rolling back the last hundred years of social progress.

New Fisk

Under siege but vicar of Baghdad is still spreading the word