OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance
397 Responses
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
So … are we not in a functioning democracy?
Not a democracy functioning appropriately in the sense that individual rights are adequately protected from the abuse of executive power ... according to the New Zealand Law Society, that is:
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Brent Jackson, in reply to
Maybe a rephrasing: Media isn’t (necessarily) responsible for the failure, but they are responsible for making it work again, because it’s their raison d’etre.
I think that you are wrong about this, but only insofar as it is no longer media's reason for existence. Media is a business providing a return to its shareholders. The media is no longer part of the fourth estate, but are part of the entertainment industry.
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Jack Harrison, in reply to
Well said.
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izogi, in reply to
I do agree that the Police should be reluctant to get involved in politics.
I see where you’re coming from and the Police were just a hand-wavey idea. I don’t know the perfect solution.
It just seems strange to me that there’s apparently no effective type of authority holding the PM and Cabinet to account when it comes to actually following the law and the documented rules, except themselves. Having the PM determine the power and extent of an investigation of his own political colleagues for a range of allegations in which he allegedly has his own hands dirty just seems insane.
Sure, he’s popular, but all these laws and rules and process are also there to protect the people with whom politicians aren’t popular. Following them shouldn’t be optional, or subject to a popularity contest. If it is revealed by members of the media or someone else, then consequences shouldn’t be restricted to the possibility of resigning or being voted out during years when there’s a competent opposition.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
So … are we not in a functioning democracy?
And not for two election periods in Canterbury where regional governance is concerned.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/3526047/ECan-councillors-sacked
AND
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/no-ecan-election-until-2016-keep-flow-water-management-bd-127847
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I spent most of the last few days wondering how getting 29.8% of the country to vote for you, gaining less than a majority of votes cast and then cobbling together a shonky coalition to gain a one seat advantage in parliament can be termed a "landslide". http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11328916
And it has been a week of right-wingers, starting with TV3's Matthew Hooten on election night, shouting from the rooftops that Labour needed to move back to the centre to attract more voters. IMO the decision among many kiwis not to vote was driven by a dawning realisation that for 30 years we've had centre-right governments of both hues following almost identical policy platforms. The media are now faithfully demanding that the most left-leaning choice for leader, Cunliffe, be dumped for one of the Anyone but Cunliffe Brigade - some of whom helped Roger Douglas rob workers during the 80's: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11331350
I think that if Labour continue to offer more left-wing policies that offer a different future than we'd have under a National government and build up trust in the Labour brand again, more kiwis may turn up and vote.
The media is currently doing a wonderful job of ignoring the fact that if Labour had come to an accommodation with Hone Harawira, the left-wing parties plus NZ First would now have a majority - or at least a hung parliament. I think we are about to be raped and pillaged and our rights sold to the highest foreign bidder via the TPPA and all governments of the past 30 years' mantra, that we should "do our utmost to increase foreign investment" with no safeguards or any need to not trust said foreign investors. -
Tinakori, in reply to
"You are kidding right? You are referring to the Brash defeat presumably, even Craig admits that National deserved to lose that one."
Nope - 2002 National disaster 20 something per cent of the popular vote and a shower of media shit for the party and its leaders before and after the election. Perhaps you were overseas or too young or had yet to immigrate
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Danyl suggests an enforceable ongoing audit of OIA responsiveness as one answer to Dirty Politics.
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Maybe a new look at the role and provision of Official information. This is our information. Transparency of protocols are a must. Front page, herald , picture of a blinded face. Imagine.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Danyl suggests an enforceable ongoing audit of OIA responsiveness as one answer to Dirty Politics.
Not a bad idea -- though I'd like to see it applied all the way across the board. The Official Information and the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Acts aren't suggested guidelines (if you can be bothered getting around to it) but legislation, and a little regular naming and shaming for public bodies that don't obey the law wouldn't be a bad thing.
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Require all government departments to proactively publish all OIA'able material on their websites and have the Ombudsman police them to make sure they really are putting all such material up? And require all government departments to have an effective and easy-to-use directory and search function? Surely all the information that is OIA'able should be out in the public domain anyway, regardless of whether anybody actually wants it?
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
No problems. I could've been clearer.
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John Farrell, in reply to
Are putdowns a regular part of posts where you come from?
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Jack Harrison, in reply to
Our e-mail culture amongst our polis needs to be clean and productive . They need to be the ruling Adults that they are paid to be.
OIA transparency is a a part of the cleaning.
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nzlemming, in reply to
Require all government departments to proactively publish all OIA’able material on their websites and have the Ombudsman police them to make sure they really are putting all such material up?
Would also save millions on processing OIA requests. The problem we are at now, with government agencies, is that the public thinks they're hiding something even when they are not. They've taken "perception is reality" as a prescription, not a diagnosis.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
“Secretly”? What was he supposed to do, announce each call at a press conference?
Key's words. He used "secretly" because he was told by headquarters not to. Wouldn't want to misquote him now.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
Or perhaps the more relevant question would be, on which date were Parliamentary Services notified that Ede was no longer in their employ?
If he was employed by Parliamentary Services, then is the Speaker is ultimately responsible for his conduct? This issue of Parliamentary Services staff not understanding which branch of government they work for, Parliament or the executive, was made very apparent during the Kitteridge report leak.
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Is there a reason why it needs to be journalism that’s responsible for this? Why not (I don’t know)
The whole bloody lot need to address it at least. The Ombudsman seems interested finally, but yes scrutiny in the Public Service , FMA, SFO, etc
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A S, in reply to
Danyl suggests an enforceable ongoing audit of OIA responsiveness as one answer to Dirty Politics.
It's a nice idea, but ultimately futile. There is already a defacto audit, the Ombudsman tables a report in Parliament each year that names all those who have not complied with their legal requirements under the OIA.
The only way the OIA is ever going to be effective is if the sanction for flouting it is greater than being named in Parliament by the Ombudsman.
Make it carry a maximum prison sentence sufficient to bar them from Parliament, and Ministers will actually have something to lose when they flout the law. Same goes for public sector CEs, who will play their legal requirements with a very straight bat if such a sanction exists.
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Damian Christie, in reply to
I thought The Herald giving its whole front page (large border around three sides, large square advertisement within actual page) to the National party on its online edition on friday before the election was pretty nakedly partisan.
Yeah that's called advertising it - they sell it, someone buys it - stuff.co.nz had EXACTLY the same takeover on exactly the same day. Either we ban political advertising (which some say we should) or that's totally okay. I don't think there was anyone saying "okay guys we can't write anything bad about National today because they bought an ad here".
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No it isn’t. The point is this is simple math that is reported incorrectly all the time. I’m not saying National does not have a mandate, those are your words not mine. What I am saying is that repeating endlessly that National have the support of half of New Zealand is overstating the mandate they do have.
Given that the only count we have is that National have the support of 48% (which we'll call, for simplicity's sake, "half") of people who voted, I'm not sure what evidence there is for any other conclusion. It may be that people who don't vote, don't enrol, and aren't able to enrol would be overwhelmingly opposed to national and vote for left-wing parties. But that would be wishful speculation as compared to an actual count taken as recently as a week ago. You could just as easily say that they have a mandate from more than half of the population, if you assumed that those non voters would have voted right.
But this assumes we should want the media “to persuade” their audience about news stories. I don’t know how comfortable I am with that idea. And (some in) the media did hold those in power “to account” … see Felix’s comment above. It’s just that those to whom they must account – the people of New Zealand – didn’t follow through on their end of the bargain.
I'm with Keith. It does indicate a bigger problem, at least as I see it. If the media feel that the current government and associated parties do things that are dirty/dodgy/corrupt, and report it as such (lets just say that's what has happened), and the public back the government anyway, something in the system is broken. It feels like 1974 and nobody decided to threaten to impeach Nixon, so he finished his term.
In terms of fixing it - I'd like to see more of the reporting like we're currently seeing on The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight - often using politician's primary sources and statements against them. Sure that's comedy, but it's tremendously effective in conveying corruption. The US voting public as a body seems to be relatively immune to it, but I think it would impact here.
And no more live crosses - please use all the airtime to give us the information rather than pretend your news is better because you cross live to a reporter standing outside a building that closed an hour earlier.
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A S, in reply to
The whole bloody lot need to address it at least. The Ombudsman seems interested finally, but yes scrutiny in the Public Service , FMA, SFO, etc
The Public Service has been hammered over the last decade or so. The days of free and frank advice are largely gone, replaced by a generation of public sector leaders who do as they are told, and who don't question.
Hardly surprising really when you think about the public servant being hung out to dry by Collins as described in dirty politics and the deafening silence from the State Services Commissioner about it all. If the senior most public servants aren't brave/willing/capable of doing their job, why should we expect it of anyone else?
This culture didn't spring up overnight, and sadly both main political parties get to share some of the blame here, but I will say that things are a damn sight worse under this government and there aren't any signs of improvement on the horizon.
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tussock, in reply to
I'm always amused/appalled by those people who declare that they registered a protest against the system by refusing to vote. No you didn't, dude. Everyone just ignored you.
Well, no. The people who get the biggest share of the voters worked to discourage them from voting for anyone else. Spent a lot of time on it, really. The people who had very little votes worked to encourage them to vote, on the grounds it couldn't possibly be any worse.
But when you look at the history of New Zealand voting, when our main parties move together to chase the same centre voters, we get low turnounts. When they diversify and present genuinely conflicting options, we get high turnouts. The trend for low turnouts since MMP is simply a trend for the main parties to chase the centre voter rather than work their geographically isolated bases into a fever by being different.
The left loses votes this way because the centre voter in NZ is moderately conservative and very right wing, mostly because of our hourglass age profile and all the 30-somethings living overseas. -
nzlemming, in reply to
If he was employed by Parliamentary Services, then is the Speaker is ultimately responsible for his conduct? This issue of Parliamentary Services staff not understanding which branch of government they work for, Parliament or the executive, was made very apparent during the Kitteridge report leak.
If he was employed on the government dime, it would have been by Ministerial Services rather than Parliamentary Services, which is part of DIA. There is some doubt as to who actually was paying his wages.
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nzlemming, in reply to
The whole bloody lot need to address it at least. The Ombudsman seems interested finally, but yes scrutiny in the Public Service , FMA, SFO, etc
The Ombudsman's Office is in no way at fault. They are completely under-resourced. I've had a lot of dealings with them over the last 5 years fighting the Kapiti Expressway and I have complete respect and sympathy for those that work there. Their legislation makes it difficult to act proactively (and that would be impossible anyway) as they are the last resort if a department has not dealt fairly with an inquiry.
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