Time to expand transparency

Since the unpleasant discovery that the government's health-sector centralisation has led to greater secrecy, there's been a lot of calls for greater transparency. Weirdly though these have been limited to the health sector, and primarily aimed at restoring the degree of transparency over health decision-making we had before. Which seems rather limited. So, I'd like to ask a provocative question: why shouldn't all government board meetings be open by default, rather than secret by default?

The discussion around Te Whatu Ora has reminded us of the benefits of openness, and we already have an established and well-tested model from local government and DHBs. This sets transparency as the baseline, while allowing secrecy where legitimate withholding grounds exist. The same arguments for using it for local government apply equally strongly (if not more so) to central government. So why not do it?

Largely, I think the government's answer is tradition. They've never done things that way, and see no reason to change. And of course central government business is so much more important than local government, so therefore naturally more secret. But on the first point, "tradition" is a bad reason to do anything - as we've seen in countless other policy areas, being traditional doesn't make something right, or a good idea. As for the second, bigger decisions which affect more people is actually an argument for more transparency, not less.

Democratic government is an act of constantly justifying your decisions to the public. Transparency by default makes that easier, not harder. It lets us see that decisions are well-grounded, that views have been taken into account, alternatives considered, and options tested. The need to withstand outside scrutiny is a good check on policy and helps catch mistakes. And this in turn increases public trust and the legitimacy of government decision-making. These are positive benefits, both for government and our democracy. And we should claim those benefits for central as well as local government, and expand their application as far as they can go.

Climate Change: Labour's policy of murder

Floods in Pakistan have killed more than a thousand people this week and displaced 50 million, and put a third of the country underwater. Locally, Nelson has been devastated by floods. Meanwhile, the latest ice-loss data from Greenland says we're looking at at least 27cm (and maybe as much as 78cm) of sea level rise by the end of the century from Greenland alone. And while this is going on, Labour has quietly extended a fossil fuel mining permit, increasing future greenhouse gas emissions for another 13 years.

The permit is number 38159 ("Surrey"), held by Greymouth Petroleum. It expired on April 4. But its owners applied for and were granted an extension until 2035. According to MBIE, the permit produced 65,000 barrels of oil in 2021 (which means about 32,500 tons of CO2). If that rate of production continues, then the government's decision has just allowed an extra 420,000 tons of CO2 to enter the atmosphere - all of which was completely avoidable. I wonder how those 50 million displaced Pakistanis feel about that? Or the people of Nelson?

But Surrey isn't the only permit. There are two more permits (53803 and 55491) which have also recently expired, and where the owners have also applied for extensions. And based on their current behaviour, it looks like Labour will grant them. Its clear from this that they have no intention of enforcing the Crown Minerals Act against polluters, and no intention of allowing even a gradual shutdown. Instead, they're going to protect the status quo, and let them keep polluting forever. And in the current situation, this is simply a policy of murder.

More labour "transparency"

Back in June, Labour passed the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022, restructuring and centralising the health system. One of the consequences of this? Reduced transparency:

The new national health organisation is being accused of secrecy and spin - and keeping too much behind closed doors.

Before Te Whatu Ora was created in July, the 20 district health boards it replaced held monthly meetings, with open agendas, that anyone could attend.

But Te Whatu Ora releases only a brief summary of its board meeting agendas - and no media or public are allowed in.

All the new bodies are subject to the OIA via the Ombudsmen Act, but the old open meeting provisions (based on LGOIMA) weren't replicated. Its easy to see how: DHBs evolved from local health boards, so the LGOIMA provisions were adapted. But central government doesn't think about that, and doesn't view opennness as a core responsibility (despite a clear requirement in the Public Service Act to do so). And the result is that we've lost opennness that we had before. Labour's centralisation has resulted in more secrecy (which sounds like a good reason to oppose it in general). Having board chair Rob Campbell saying he opposed transparency because he’s not interested in providing “occupational therapy for journalists” just makes it clear how contemptuous Labour is of the open government it promised, and how deeply ugly and undemocratic their attitudes to transparency are.

As for how to fix it, the Pae Ora Act could be amended to include the old open meeting provisions for this agency. Alternatively, a broader Open Government Meetings law could be drafted up, to apply those provisions to all Crown Entity and inter-departmental boards and other entities. People like Campbell would probably shit themselves in rage at that suggestion. And that in itself sounds like a very good reason to do it.

A failed state

People being told to drink sewage sounds like a headline from the early nineteenth century, before the public health revolution, or from a failed state, where it has collapsed. But its actually from modern England:

British people need to be “less squeamish” about drinking water derived from sewage, the boss of the Environment Agency has said.

Writing in the Sunday Times, Sir James Bevan outlined measures the government, water companies and ordinary people should be taking to avoid severe droughts.

He said: “Part of the solution will be to reprocess the water that results from sewage treatment and turn it back into drinking water – perfectly safe and healthy, but not something many people fancy.”

Bevan admitted the move would be “unpopular” and reactions on social media have been mixed but he said there was a need to “change how we think about water”.

The reason they're being told to do this is that decades of failed privatisation has seen a quarter of England's drinking water leak away, while privatised water companies dump untreated sewage into lakes, rivers, and the ocean. But rather than order the polluters to fix these entirely avoidable problems, the government is protecting their profits by telling people to just drink shit. Its a perfect example of how privatisation and deregulation erode the state, and ultimately lead to collapse.

Climate Change: Labour's hopeless helplessness

Writing in the Herald, government minister Megan Woods asks what are we going to do about climate change? I don't know - what could the number four-ranked Minister in Cabinet and holder of the housing, energy and resources, building and construction, and other key ministerial portfolios possibly do to deal with this problem?

Well, for a start, she could stop handing out oil and gas exploration permits, and draw up a plan for the rapid and orderly shutdown of the fossil fuel industry in Aotearoa, to stop making things worse. She could also draw up a plan for the rapid electrification and cleanup or shutdown of polluting industries, to kill industrial emissions at source. And she could provide government funding for a rapid expansion of wind and solar generation, to drive polluting gas and coal completely out of the energy market.

She could ensure that all newly built houses are zero-energy and whereever possible have inbuilt solar generation, further reducing electricity demand. And she could impose stricter requirements on commercial and industrial buildings, while requiring older buildings to be rapidly retrofitted and upgraded.

She could ensure that the agencies under her control support rather than consistently opposing climate change action (MBIE is one of the worst offenders here, and Woods could end that with a sharp word to its CEO).

Most importantly, she could use her position as a top Minister in Labour's Cabinet to constantly push for stronger action, rather than consistently dragging her feet.

But all that would be hard work, and worse, mean change, upsetting the status quo and established interests, who might kick up a stink at the thought of having to change what they're doing to avoid destroying the world. So I guess its just much easier for her to wring her hands and say "what are we going to do" and spout twaddle about "lifting the conversation" - rather than thinking about all the things she can do. Its a perfect example of Labour's learned helplessness - and a perfect example of why they're absolutely hopeless in the face of our biggest challenge.

Labour's stalled Crown Minerals Act review

On Wednesday, the High Court ruled that the Zero Carbon Act isn't worth shit and that the government can continue to approve new fossil fuel exploration without having to consider climate change. The core of the problem is the Crown Minerals Act, and in particular its purpose: "to promote prospecting for, exploration for, and mining of Crown owned minerals for the benefit of New Zealand". This taints every decision made under the Act, while the decision criteria for permit applications rule out considering climate change.

The Greens have responded to the ruling by calling for a review of the Act. The government actually began a review of the Act in 2018, which (among other things) explicitly considered the purpose clause. Submissions on that part closed in January 2020, and according to the summary of submissions 81% of submitters wanted that purpose amended to remove the word "promote" (11% opposed that; they were from the mining industry plus a few shills like the Buller District Council). And since then... crickets. The only thing to come out of the review has been the law to shift decommissioning costs back onto miners (where they belong) - and that seems to have been primarily driven by the Tamarind bankruptcy. As for those who submitted on the review (and I was one of them), congratulations - you wasted your time. Again.

There's an obvious parallel here with Labour's OIA review. In both cases, the government promised change, announced a review, then stalled and buried it. And in both cases, the motive is clearly to protect the status quo and avoid making the change they promised. But that dishonesty and bad faith has a cost in public trust. And when Aotearoa has a problem with conspiracy theorists and disinformation, that seems like something the government should be trying to avoid.

Climate Change: The courts fail again

Last year, two-faced Labour, having declared a climate change emergency, approved further gas exploration in Taranaki. The decision was challenged by Students for Climate Solutions, using the Zero Carbon Act's "permissive consideration" clause. The purpose of this clause was to make all levels of government consider climate change in decision-making. But according to the court, it isn't worth shit:

Justice Francis Cooke agreed that, at least under Te Tiriti, climate impacts “can become relevant”. But it would be unlawful to place substantive weight on climate change, he concluded. Because these issues are being addressed in other ways, Cooke dismissed the judicial review.

[...]

Cooke also dismissed the argument that a section within the Zero Carbon Act allows or compels a minister to consider Aotearoa’s climate goals when making decisions relating to other legislation.

It states: “If they think fit, a person or body may, in exercising or performing a public function, power, or duty conferred on that person or body by or under law, take into account: the 2050 target, or an emissions budget, or an emissions reduction plan.”

Cooke thought Parliament would need to “more precisely” edit the Crown Minerals Act itself.

That looks like a ripe target for an appeal, and maybe Students for Climate Solutions will go down that path. But its not guaranteed to be successful. And effectively, what the judge is telling us is that Labour failed us when they refused to change that "may" to a "must", and that we need to pass Eugenie Sage's Crown Minerals (Prohibition of Mining) Amendment Bill (or something very much like it) as quickly as possible.

Mallard and crony appointments

Writing in Stuff, Luke Malpass defends Trevor Mallard's impending corrupt crony appointment as ambassador to Ireland, saying that he will make a good ambassador. And I agree, he might - but that's not the point. The problem with Mallard's appointment isn't whether or not he is suited to it, but the way in which it has been (or will be) done.

Being an ambassador for Aotearoa is a public role. It should therefore be appointed on merit, rather than as an act of political patronage. That's been the norm in the normal public service for over a hundred years, and its still the norm today, but ambassadorships have been partly exempt - largely due to a lingering legacy of English monarchy which saw them as the personal representatives of the monarch rather than of the state ("partly" because most are appointed on merit, which makes the politicians and cronies parachuted in to certain jobs all the more glaring). Malpass tries to justify this as follows:

There is of course the broader question of political appointments to plumb [sic] diplomatic postings. But it is a practice as old as time and practised by both parties as a way for rewarding old hands and ex-speakers.

In 1912 the system of handing our core public service jobs as patronage was also "a practice as old as time and practised by both parties". That didn't make it right. And the same reasons which justify appointment on merit in the regular public service apply just as strongly to diplomatic postings: in a modern, democratic state, we want the best person for the job, not the biggest crony. No government job should be a "spoil" to be dispensed as an act of political patronage.

If Mallard is as suitable as Malpass suggests, he would have nothing to fear from an open, competitive appointment process, and being appointed that way would add significantly to the legitimacy of the appointment (not to mention public trust in government). Conversely, denying him that process means he will forever be tarred as a crony, his ability questioned because of the manner of his appointment. It does both us and him a disservice.

As for Malpass, maybe a political journalist working for a media agency supposedly in service of the public good should be asking that "broader question", rather than simply seeking to justify public corruption.

Parliament's ugly, outdated protocols

Today Trevor Mallard resigned as Speaker, so he could go off to a corruptly-appointed diplomatic sinecure as a retirement package. Which meant Parliament today began with a humiliating "order" from the Governor-General to elect a replacement. It was entirely ceremonial and unnecessary; our House has its own processes around this, and does not need to be "ordered" by the unelected representative of a foreign monarch to follow them. It can (and should) just elect someone and tell the Governor-General to lump it.

But this is a powerful reminder that many of our political protocols and ceremonies were inherited from an age of absolute monarchy, when power and legitimacy flowed downwards from a monarch supposedly appointed by a god. In modern Aotearoa, we recognise the reality that they flow upwards from the people. And we should change those outdated protocols and ceremonies to reflect that reality, rather than the archiac views of early seventeenth-century England.

Failing the political hygiene test

Yesterday after having a show-trial outside Parliament, Bishop-Pope-Godking Brian Tamaki announced a new umbrella political party. Early members included the (christian theocrat) VisionNZ, and the (anti-democratic and white supremacist) New Nation Party, as well as the (anti-1080, antivax and "sovereign citizen") Outdoors & Freedom Party. Like Advance New Zealand, its basicly a coalition of conspiracy theorists, except with the added violence we saw at the parliament riot: a coalition of rioters. And this morning, National Party leader Christopher Luxon refused to rule out working with them:

National will not rule out working with the newly formed Freedoms NZ coalition party but its leader says he does not anticipate the party making it into Parliament.

Just to make it clear, these are people who want to overthrow our democracy and hang politicians. And Luxon is fine with that, or at least willing to accept it if it gets him the big office (maybe he thinks they won't hang him if he toadies enough?) Refusing to collaborate with political forces explicitly pursuing violence shouldn't be hard, and is a basic political hygiene test. But Luxon has failed even this low bar. He's a man with no morals whatsoever, and clearly unfit for any political office in Aotearoa.

Laughing at the Ombudsman

Back in June, the Ombudsman issued a formal opinion to Police criticising their consistent delay of OIA responses to allow Ministers to be informed under the "no surprises" policy. The Ombudsman found that this was unlawfully and unnecessarily delaying responses, and the police responded by stopping the practice. Which should be a success story: complaint made, practice improved, issue resolved. Except it isn't, because it turns out that having told the Ombudsman they'd stopped doing it, the police simply started delaying responses to please the Minister again:

Police told Stuff and Boshier that they had amended their practices and most requests were now notified to the minister at the same time as they are communicated to the requester.

[...]

However, information released to Stuff shows this is not the case. We requested the work logs for the last 50 requests to the agency (between June and August this year).

Just three were sent to the requester and Police Minister Chris Hipkins on the same day. There was a four-day gap in most instances (23), and a one-day delay in many others (12 requests). Six requests were stalled for three days, and four for two days.

In two instances, there was a five and six day hold-up.

And when we asked police, and the government, about the delays it appears they don’t agree with Boshier.

A spokesperson said: “In response to the Ombudsman’s advice, police initially changed its approach, but found that new approach inconsistent with the no surprises convention as more of the OIAs were considered as matters of significance to the Minister of Police than initially expected.

This is simply treating the Ombudsman and the law with contempt. The entire OIA enforcement regime is predicated on agencies following Ombudsman's recommendations (or, less formally, changing their practices so formal recommendations don't need to be made). Instead, we have an agency which just flat-out lies about what it is doing, and shows no shame about it. And we have a Minister who enables it, by making control-freak demands to be kept "informed" of (AKA to exercise an unlawful veto power over) every release, no matter how trivial. Together with today's story about the Ombudsman again telling Corrections that they can't video kids when they're in the shower - having made exactly the same "recommendation" to the same prison previously in 2016 and 2019 - it calls the entire chummy "good chap" model of oversight and enforcement into question.

So how can it be improved? Well, the Health and Safety at Work Act (and various other laws) let regulators accept "enforceable undertakings" to improve practice, which can later be enforced by a court. And the Privacy Act enables the Privacy Commissioner to issue formal compliance notices requiring specific remedial action where the Act has been breached, violation of which is a criminal offence. The primary reason the Ombudsman does not have these powers, in the OIA jurisdiction or any other, is that they are relatively recent innovations, and the Ombudsman's core legislation and mindset is from the 1970's and 1980's. It would not be especially difficult to splice them into the OIA or Ombudsmen Act, and it can be done without reopening cans of worms that we would rather keep closed. And in the face of consistent government non-compliance and outright contempt of its own oversight bodies, if the government refuses to do this, then someone should put up a private member's bill to do it.

KiwiBank's "new" ownership

This morning, the government announced that it was buying KiwiBank. From itself. Because two of its current government owners - ACC and the Cullen Fund - wanted to sell it to someone else. So they had to shuffle money from one part of the government balance sheet to another to dodge that bullet. But maybe it would have been better not to have had to dodge it in the first place, by not having government agencies which want to privatise and loot public property?

But there is an interesting question about the ownership model chosen. KiwiBank - via new corporate entity, Kiwi Group capital - will be a Schedule 4A company under the Public Finance Act. There are a bunch of these - Predator free 2050 and Green Investment Finance are ones you may have heard of - and its not an especially unusual form of government ownership. At the same time, there are at least two other models that could have been chosen: a Crown-Owned Company under the Crown Entities Act, or a standalone State Owned Enterprise. These each have slightly different obligations, and its no easier or harder to place things under one model than another (its all done with Orders in Council). So why choose one rather than the other? The major differences seem to be that while SOEs and Crocs must be fully government-owned, Schedule 4A companies only need majority ownership - making them easier to part-privatise, or pull National's scam of forcing other government entities to buy them, effectively raiding their dedicated funds for ready cash. SOE's are also subject to an obligation to be a successful business, meaning as profitable as non-government companies, and to "exhibit a sense of social responsibility" (all three however have good employer obligations, as you would expect, and all are subject to the OIA). SOE's are also subject to Treaty of Waitangi obligations, and to a special regime to enable the return of stolen land. It will be fascinating to see which of these differences the government thought was an advantage, and which a disadvantage, and why it chose the ownership model it did.

Labour and the "hat game"

Last night, soon-to-be-former Labour MP Gaurav Sharma made it clear that he wanted to be thrown out of the party. I don't actually care much about Labour's internal backbiting, but there was an interesting bit in his interview:

Another explosive claim from Dr Sharma is that he said the MP intake of 2020 were recently forced to attend a workshop ahead of election year where they were coached on how to handle information.

"One was obviously, shut up, don't talk about anything. Not about this, but anything. Don't say anything for which the Prime Minister has to stand up and do a media stand-up. But also, how not to get an OIA'd issue, so how to talk to somebody without having a track record of it so nobody could track it down the road."

Dr Sharma alleges staff in the Prime Minister's Office wear two employment hats and pick which one they're wearing when they receive information.

"They said the staffing arrangements are done in a way that some staff work part-time for Labour Leader's Office and part-time for Prime Minister's Office and when they want to prevent OIA, they just sort of make it that this is Labour Leader's problem, this is not the Prime Minister's office problem and then they can get away with it."

Combined with his earlier claim about advice from the PM's office to "not give anything in writing and do not expect anything in writing [as] Everything can be OIA’ed", its more evidence of Labour's ongoing information control-freakery and hostility to transparency. And people are already excavating to find the paper-trail on it.

The latter bit though is well known - the "hat game". And while its a problem, its also not as powerful as Labour seems to think it is. Why? Because the Ombudsman has ruled that information held by Ministers is official by default, and that overturning that presumption requires evidence that the information was received or held in a different capacity. So, if the Minister plays the hat game, complain. That way the Ombudsman will look at it, rather than the question just being left to a Minister's self-serving judgement.

(And obviously, if they try playing the hat game on their OIA workshops, then insofar as Ministers, parliamentary Undersecretaries and their staff are concerned, its a non-starter. Because keeping Ministerial records and handling OIA requests are explicitly Ministerial functions, so the information cannot be held in any capacity other than an official one...)

NZDF, the OIA, and "national security"

Last month, peace activist Valerie Morse used FYI, the public OIA request system, to ask NZDF for information about the US "RIMPAC" exercise, including the rank of personnel seconded to a US ship for a command exercise. NZDF withheld the information under s6(a) of the Act "in order to avoid prejudice to the security or defence of New Zealand". Clearly, they regarded it as highly sensitive and dangerous information which would cause significant harm to New Zealand if it fell into the "wrong" hands. So sensitive and dangerous in fact that they then turned around and published it, as well as the names and photos of those staff, in their magazine Navy Today (p10). Which suggests strongly that there was never any prejudice to national security in the first place, and that this was just another example of NZDF's information control-freakery (as we saw so much of during the Operation Burnham inquiry).

Which is just another example of why you should always complain about "national security" refusals: because NZDF's decisions are clearly suspect and self-serving and need independent external review (in fact, this goes for every other reason they cite for refusal as well). The Ombudsman's review may be weak - like the courts, they tend to be overly deferential when the words "national security" are invoked - but it will in theory force NZDF to provide some specific justification, and might embarrass them into changing their practices slightly.

The best way of preventing such patterns of dubious decision-making becoming established would be for regular, random audits of past decisions. The Ombudsman can in theory do that already (except for police and Ministerial offices) using their existing Ombudsman Act inquiry powers. Weirdly, it does not seem to be part of the Ombudsman's irregular series of "practice reviews", which mostly look at policy rather than actual practice. Maybe that's something they should look at.

"Economic stability"

Stuff reports that workers have had the biggest pay rise in more than 20 years. This should be great news - ordinary people are better off! But naturally, the Reserve Bank is there to ruin the party, hiking interest rates to throw people out of work. And they're pretty explicit about why:

"Production is being constrained by acute labour shortages, heightened by seasonal and Covid-19 related illnesses. In these circumstances, spending and investment continues to outstrip supply capacity, and wage pressures are heightened.

Yes, they have to tank the economy because ordinary people are making too much money. And then they wonder why people view the entire institution as scam to keep the rich rich and everyone else poor.

If the problem is too much money in the economy, the government could always tax it away, and do so in a way which reduces rather than exacerbates inequality. We could tax those windfall corporate profits, for example. Or just go all out and tax the rich properly. But apparently that's just not an option, so those least able to afford it get to carry the can so the rich can have "economic stability". Because it turns out that "economic stability" for the rich means instability and insecurity for everyone else.

Climate Change: Are the courts worth anything?

Activist Mike Smith has been in court for the last few days, as part of a case seeking to hold Fonterra, New Zealand Steel, and other large emitters accountable for the pollution they produce. Along the way, the case has raised serious questions about whether the courts are worth anything at all:

After Parliament failed to take effective action to cut emissions, the court is the public's last and best hope for protection, lawyers for green activist Mike Smith say.

Smith (Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Kahu) wants to convince the Supreme Court that his case against seven large fossil fuel users and suppliers deserves to proceed to a full hearing with expert evidence and witnesses.

But the polluters argue they have no relationship with Smith and no duty of care to him.

The full article expands on that last bit, but essentially the polluters are claiming that they have no obligations to the society they operate in, and no obligations not to harm us. Most of us would view that as being both monstrous and absurd. Still, its useful to have the polluters say it out loud, because it makes it clear what they think of us, and that they need to be regulated into less sociopathic views. As for the courts, the headline is right: if this case fails, then it is a failure of the law. If it is legal for a corporation to literally destroy human civilisation, then laws and courts are worthless.

Time to freeze rents

For the past few years Renters United has been calling for rent controls to stop gouging landlords. Now, that call has been taken up by the Human Rights Commission:

The Human Rights Commission/Te Kāhui Tika Tangata is calling for an immediate rent freeze and an increase to the accommodation supplement to give renters a reprieve during the cost-of-living crisis.

Too many New Zealanders are sacrificing their fundamental human rights to pay the rent, says chief commissioner Paul Hunt.

“We’re very concerned that some students, low-income or single-wage families are having to make trade-offs between the right to adequate food and the right to a decent home,” he said.

At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the government implemented a six-month freeze on rent increases to ease the pressure on renters. The commission is suggesting the government re-instate a temporary freeze.

This seems like a good idea. Currently the government is gradually building its way out of the housing shortage, and that's a long-term solution. But in the short-term, people are suffering as greedy Boomers gouge them for every cent they can, while rapacious property managers screw fees out of their captive market. Capping rents and controlling the rate at which they can increase will alleviate some of that suffering. Its what an actual left-wing government would do. The question is whether Labour is still interested in voters, or landlords.

Re-nationalising public transport

Back in 2013, the then-National government imposed the public transport operating model, requiring local authorities to contract out their bus services to the lowest bidder. Now, its being reversed:

The system that bus drivers and their union say has created the “race to the bottom” is on the out, Transport Minister Michael Wood announced on Monday.

A new “sustainable public transport framework” will replace the current policy and legislative framework for the planning, procurement, and delivery of bus and ferry public transport services, known as the “public transport operating model” (PTOM), which has been in place since 2013.

Good. The forced contracting-out under the PTOM has seen contractors lowball their bids, then try and screw a profit out of their workers by cutting pay and conditions. And the result has been regular industrial action and collapsing services because no-one wants to be a bus driver under those conditions. Not to mention councils and contractors blaming each other while the public wait in the rain for buses which do not come. Allowing councils to run their own services in-house should lead to better employment conditions and clear accountability for failure. But then, that's what the PTOM was intended to remove in the first place.

Absurd and offensive

RNZ had a piece this morning about Waka Kotahi's plans for smart speed cameras allowing things like point-to-point average speed tickets and so on. There are obvious privacy issues here, which waka Kotahi seems to have completely ignored, having signed a contract before they were even investigated, let alone addressed. But what actually caught my eye was that the information was that the information was obtained under the OIA, but

Waka Kotahi refuses to specify the total cost of the camera system and new tolling system, saying this was to protect "ministers, members of organisations, officers, and employees from improper pressure or harassment".

Which is a gross misuse of s9(2)(g)(ii). Why? Because that clause is basicly saying "we think the requester or someone they pass the information to is going to do something improper and illegal to one of our staff". According to the Ombudsman's guidelines, it requires the agency to identify a specific threat, to specific individuals, which will seriously interfere with them doing their jobs and be so likely and severe as to justify withholding. Basicly intimidation, death threats, and stabbing territory. These things sadly do happen, and where actual risks are identified, withholding is justified. But the claim that information about costs meets this threshold is as absurd as it is offensive (and that's even before we consider the public interest in accountability for the spending public money).

So what is Waka Kotahi actually worried about? Most likely criticism. But the Ombudsman is crystal clear that "ill considered or irritating criticism or unwanted publicity" does not meet the required threshold.

This is where transparency has descended to under "the most open, most transparent Government that New Zealand has ever had": absurd, offensive, and blatantly unlawful decisions from a government agency which clearly does not care about the law, or fear the Ombudsman. As for who is responsible, the answer is Labour. They're the government, they set the tone on transparency for government agencies. And the tone they set is one of paranoia, secrecy, and compulsive arse-covering. There's a mention in Gaurav Sharma's facebook rant about the PM's chief of staff telling him "do not give anything in writing and do not expect anything in writing. Everything can be OIA’ed." Which is wrong - party communications are clearly not "official information" and not subject to the Act - but its an example of how the government views transparency at the highest levels. The fish rots from the head. And Labour is clearly rotten.

Asleep at the wheel

A couple of months ago, in response to a Newsroom piece about what endemic covid means for Aotearoa, I asked Treasury and the Ministry of Health what advice they'd produced on the impacts of "long covid" on the economy and health system. Treasury responded quickly, admitting that they hadn't been thinking about it at all. And on Wednesday, after months of being dicked around by what is rapidly becoming one of Aotearoa's least transparent agencies, I got the response from Ministry of Health. They actually did have documents to give me, which showed that they had agreed a clinical definition of long covid and established a technical advisory group. As for anything about impacts on the health system, nope, they haven't been thinking about it either.

Which is frankly scary. As of today we've had 1.66 million reported cases of covid. Estimate of the reporting rate vary, from a half to two thirds, but (accidentally due to today's number) that means that between a half and two thirds of the whole country have already had it so far. And then it gets scary, because Ministry of Health says anywhere between 10% and "approximately half" of those people will have ongoing symptoms six months later, and a recent study had nearly 45% of them meeting the criteria for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Even at the low end, that means we're looking at something like 2.5% of the country becoming permanently disabled by this pandemic. So far. That's the sort of thing which might just have an impact on future health system demand (not to mention employment levels, welfare spending, and the entire economy). And the agencies responsible for worrying about such things are ignoring them. The government is basicly asleep at the wheel.

It would be one thing if they were too busy trying to save us all from covid to worry about the long-term effects. But they're not. They've moved from "keep it out, stamp it out" to "let it in and let it rip", to making us "live with it" in the name of "protecting the economy". Well, the cost of that - in addition to over 1700 deaths (so far) - is a pile of human misery and long-term costs. Which they apparently haven't even done the most basic ballpark assessment on before inflicting upon us.

Heckuva job. Really builds confidence in the government's decisions, doesn't it?