Posts by nzlemming
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We now use amazing analytical tools.
I would love to know what they are ;-)
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Hard News: Media Take: The creeping…, in reply to B Jones,
Have you used a government document management system?
I did say "wit" as well as "will"...
I'll allow that most agencies can't even use document styles properly, but that doesn't mean you don't try. The problem is they won't consider trying.
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Hard News: Media Take: The creeping…, in reply to Tinakori,
There most definitely were not in the Bolger governments.
Not correct. I worked in 2 different agencies under National in the 90s - IRD and MoRST. Both ministers had advisors in their office who were not sourced from the agencies in their portfolios. I am aware of many others.
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Hard News: Media Take: The creeping…, in reply to Russell Brown,
A scorching Dom Post editorial on the same topic:
Hmmm. I think this is more of a straw man than a denunciation.
Wakem is to do a review of the OIA, but these remarks suggest she is not the right person to do it.
They suggest a disturbing timidity in the face of power.1. Attack the watchdog
Above all, this Government has refused to extend the OIA to Parliament, a glaring gap in the legislation.
This change would enable voters to know far more about what MPs did, and especially what they spent their expense money on.
2. Mangle the facts
a) We already get expense information via the Speaker's releases. That's how we know how much it costs the taxpayers for Labour's "men who would be king' to fly around the country.
b) Extending the OIA to MP's not in Government (i.e. the opposition) doesn't wash simply because they are not officials. There is a profound difference between the Government (i.e. the Executive, or "Government of the Day") and the government (i.e. the permanent structure that serves the GotD, which we used to call MoG or "machinery of government"), but there is an even wider and important constitutional gap between government of any stripe and the Legislature, of which the GotD is only a subset. Drawing non-GotD members into the OIA argument is guaranteed to see it fail, and should.
Extending it to Parliamentary Services, Select Committees and other offices of Parliament is a different matter, as they are officials. Sometimes, getting info out of a Select Committee makes the OIA feel like a cakewalk.
I detect a certain amount of self-service in the ComPost's argument - life would be a lot easier for, say, Phil Kitchin if he could routinely demand minutes of Opposition Caucus meetings, for example.
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Hard News: Media Take: The creeping…, in reply to Tinakori,
The appearance under Labour of political advisors in all offices
Fail. There were plenty of political advisors in the 90's under Bolger/Shipley/ et al
You're allowed your own opinions, you're not allowed your own facts.
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Hard News: Media Take: The creeping…, in reply to B Jones,
This would expand the amount of information public servants need to assess for “good reason” from the small amount currently requested to everything they produce.
Not if you build those steps into document creation. Most government agencies use a document management system, many have implemented EDRMS - all the tools are there, just not the wit nor will to use them.
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Hard News: Media Take: The creeping…, in reply to Matt Crawford,
The person who needs to be held accountable here is Iain Rennie. “As State Services Commissioner, I see my role as a guardian of political neutrality across the State Services,”
He has failed, and must be held to account.
The SSC has been a lap puppy/figleaf since the State Sector Act was passed in 1988. We used to say it was where public servants went to die (us excluded, of course ;-) )
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Hard News: Media Take: The creeping…, in reply to Idiot Savant,
And I’ll third/fourth the support for proactive release. If you release stuff, people don’t request it. It saves work, while keeping the public informed. Only pathological secrecry would see that as a bad thing.
The problem agencies face now is that we don't trust them anymore. Even if they release everything, we'll accuse them of hiding stuff, based on their past behaviour.
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Hard News: Media Take: The creeping…, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
I was thinking this same thing as I watched the show last night. If the default was “we publish data”, and then you provided reasons not to, then many OIA requests would become irrelevant – you’d simply direct them to the place that all the data got dumped.
Correct. We were trying to promote this interpretation when I was in the E-government Unit at SSC, but got no traction with agencies or ministers. We had not 'teeth' to make it happen.
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Hard News: Media Take: The creeping…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
The Auditor-General’s mandate and responsibilities are determined by the Public Audit Act 2001. I’m sure someone will promptly correct me if I’m wrong, but that doesn’t include OIA/LGOIMA compliance.
I wasn't talking about OIA compliance but actually adhering to the legislation and due process that agencies are presumed to be based on.