Posts by izogi
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We need to strengthen the OIA and remove ministers from the ability to control the manner of their departments’ releases.
I don’t think the OIA will be a complete fix for this (whatever ‘fix’ entails), but IMHO as part of strengthening the OIA, the Office of the Ombudsman also needs to be strengthened. Right now it’s chronically underfunded for the work it’s lumped with, and the amount of funding available to it is reliant on Parliament, and consequent political interference.
In 2012, Shane Jones presented a Bill based on an idea that the Ombudsman should be able to invoice its time back to the entities it investigates. Maybe the Bill needed some tinkering from the first reading but I think the premise was good. It would have isolated most of the Ombudsman’s funding from parliament, and at the same time created an incentive for Departments and Minsters to actually follow the law lest they be lumped with an extra bill for having it investigated. Obviously some stuff will always be naturally controversial, but when that comes up, a Department’s going to be in a much clearer position to budget for expected complaints from that project than the Ombudsman.
National basically laughed the Bill out of parliament at its first reading, saying that it’d just be used by people to sabotage deparments’ funding by lodging gratuitous complaints. Apparently the solution for gratuitous complaints is to keep under-funding the Ombudsman, making sure that those complaints can’t go anywhere because the hinges on the gate for all complaints are crippled.
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Hard News: Why we thought what we thought, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Key acts like that kid in your class that disrupted everything all the time, and ultimately marred your education, as they chewed up time and patience…
I've been reliably informed by the National Party that he's talking about policy.
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Hard News: Why we thought what we thought, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Saw a bit and unfortunately JK was on a roll and I turned it off
Cunliffe was on FirstLine this morning, complaining that Key was making stuff up about Labour’s CGT policy and he had to give Key the benefit of the doubt on the night without being able to check. That’s all I know of the debate.
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Hard News: Why we thought what we thought, in reply to Bart Janssen,
That’s why I really really want The Greens to become much stronger on evidence based policy, it takes away the “fear of loonies” that is “forcing” the reasonable center voters to vote National.
I was dismayed when ACT’s was given Ministerial posts, for similar reasons. In my mind it’s one of the looniest parties to have been elected to parliament, even if its general looniness changes each election according to who buys the shelf corpo^H^H^H^H^Hparty in any given election for its voter support. But the world still hasn’t ended, despite encounters with the likes of Rodney Hide, even if some things have been messed up along the way IMHO.
I was mildly disappointed to see the Greens’ Love NZ campaign. Not that I wouldn’t expect it to have that policy, but I thought that people who might be affected by that type of policy would already be fully familiar with the Greens. It could have made things more interesting to see the GP pro-actively pushing itself into economic debates and stuff as its main line. The standard claim from National is that embarasses itself when it tries because “we’re the party for good economic policy and the Greens are loony dope-smoking stone-aged environmentalists”, or something like that, but it needs to prove otherwise.
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Hard News: Why we thought what we thought, in reply to Michael Meyers,
So if a right-leaning voter such at Matthew Hooten were to defect from National, where’s he going to go?
To me this is why it’s not enough just to investigate and prosecute those [allegedly] involved, or to tell everyone to vote them out. Investigating stuff that's already happened won't necessarily improve what happens in the future, and voters need to weigh too many conflicting things to always be able to prioritise something like integrity.
We should be able to vote based on policy, without being concerned that those being elected might not actually adhere to the law once they’re elevated to the top of the accountability chain.
There could be plenty of policy to discuss about this, but so far there’s been little if anything from any party on how they might actually improve the accountability of what happens in Ministerial offices, and lessen the political conflicts of interest, no matter who’s in office at any given time.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Simon Sjorn,
The consequences for Nationals fortunes are so clearly wrapped up in the result.
Are they? I hope I'm pleasantly surprised, but I'll believe that it's going to significantly affect National's support when I see that actually happen. Mostly because I'm struggling to see a typical National supporter voting for anyone else for the same reason they probably wouldn't have done so before any of this happened: they don't want to, at least unless another party provides good policy-backed reasons for it.
Few people follow or care about politics day to day compared with those who hang out in the political blogosphere. It's easier to resign to the belief that all politics is dirty (plenty of apologists are already out there reinforcing this), screw up your face and vote for National even if the way it's run disgusts you, than it is to vote for a party you really don't want in government for policy reasons.
This is why the checks and line of accontability for the conduct of Ministers and their staff need to be more stringent and constitutionally embedded than simply saying "people will vote them out if they do badly".
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Paul Williams,
I have long argued with Australian friends that NZ politics is clean… guess not so much anymore.
Is it naive on my part to have an impression that NZ’s public service is actually pretty good, and it’s the political branch which is most susceptible to dodgy practices and conflicts of interest when handling accountability?
Apart from an election and (symbolically) the Queen, I’m still having difficulty seeing who the Prime Minister is actually accountable to, in a way that’s actually effective, when it comes to following the law and ensuring that it’s followed by himself and his minions.
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Hard News: Earning Confidence, in reply to Simon Sjorn,
I am not sure if you are critisising me
Not at all. The debate seems pointless if the intent is for viewers to all be influenced by what other people thought instead of by what they actually heard. Having a poll that's fundamentally flawed and meaningless just makes it worse. Either party could probably have achieved better results by rigging the poll result than by actually arguing, and maybe they tried.
But yeah. It fits with the MSM's absurd need to impose the whole 'politics is a race' metaphor because it's probably easier to discuss who's ahead than to discuss policies. Also with TV's obsession of including the audience just for the hell of it, because they can, even in ways that add no value.
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Hard News: Earning Confidence, in reply to Alfie,
It was a pointless addition to the debate, along with the dry ice. While TVNZ used their best efforts to turn the event into some sort of game show, the text poll was a bad joke.
But.. but… How can I possibly know what to think if TVNZ hadn’t provided a simplified interpretation of what other people thought???
I have to decide who I’m voting for somehow!
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Hard News: UPDATED: Media Take: Election…, in reply to kw,
Did anyone ask Rugby News why they thought it was a good idea, which is what I seem to recall was Key’s explanation?
More seriously, there’s a very elongated response from the editor posted here, originally posted as a comment on an earlier post of that blog, if you click through the link.
Apparently they had to have the PM on the cover because they were so lucky to get permission to do it, or something like that. On the choice of cover:
The front cover came about through a synergy of ideas. As the issue was about the Rugby Championships, it HAD to have the All Blacks on it. Another article (by Craig Dowd) highlighted the importance of the forwards in the Championship. Hence, the choice of all forwards in the cover picture. We also wanted the PM on the cover issue as having him in the magazine – regardless of his/you/our politics – was something of a coup.
The poses struck were showing the players in a ‘V’ shape – this was to symbolise ‘Victory’. Having the PM at the front of the V (in his supporters jersey) was symbolising all NZ rugby fans – from the lowest/youngest right up to the PM – were right behind our All Blacks, as they went for a world record of wins and in to the (very hard) Rugby Championships.
Um, okay.