Today, political scientist Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning will examine:

At a micro level, how ‘Post-Colonial Blowback’ has impacted on New Caledonia, Gaza, South Africa, India and even New Zealand.

And at a macro level, Paul and Selwyn will assess how ‘Post-Colonial Blowback’ is a power giving rise to the Global South and its worldwide influence in global geopolitics.

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Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the government – works in the public interest, and doesn’t encourage corruption and lobbying that produces poor decisions.

A bright light needs to be shone on the whole process, in which three ministers will be able to greenlight projects such as mining or housing development without the usual resort to the Resource Management Act processes. As I wrote about in early March, the whole new Fast-Track process will inevitably encourage closer linkages between vested interests and politicians, risking cronyism in decision-making – see: The Government’s new fast-track invitation to corruption

Because the normal democratic processes will be bypassed for projects chosen by the three ministers, what will be sorely needed is scrutiny from outside. I’m therefore proposing to run a campaign of analysis and awareness about everything to do with the new Fast-Track process, but especially of the projects that are being lined up for inclusion in the Schedules being inserted into the Bill. So far there has been a dangerous lack of transparency about this process – especially about which businesses and organisations are being invited to submit projects. Overall, the ethos of this reform programme seems alarmingly secretive and anti-democratic.

The name that I’m proposing for this campaign is “Fast-Track Watch” (Hashtag: #FastTrackWatch), to be hosted by the Democracy Project, which I run at Victoria University of Wellington. The main vehicle and output for this investigation and scrutiny will be a series of columns I’ll send out on the Substack platform, which I will make available to all media for free publication. Together, I hope that this campaign will be something of a watchdog on the Fast-Track activities.

In order to analyse the various organisations and businesses involved, and particularly their linkages with each other and politicians, I’ll be using the research databases I am developing as part of my broader programme of work on vested interests at the University. I will try to identify potential conflicts of interest and dubious relationships involved.

But I will also need the help of others: I’m hoping to crowdsource information about the potential Fast-Track projects and processes. Therefore, hopefully whistleblowers and well-informed citizens will provide additional information. Please send me your tips, ideas, feedback, or offers of assistance.

Likewise, if you’re a journalist or involved in media, please contact me if you want to collaborate in any way to help get material out to the public that helps keep scrutiny on the Fast-Track processes.

There will, of course, be many bona fide projects and proposals that deserve to be given resource consents or even fast-tracked by the government. This campaign isn’t against development per se, but merely being done to provide additional scrutiny and transparency, so that there is less chance of unscrupulous and damaging projects getting through the Fast-Track process simply because they’ve employed smart lobbyists, or have good connections with politicians and officials.

If you’re interested, please get in touch, in confidence. Contact me: bryce.edwards@vuw.ac.nz or just reply directly to this email. And please forward this “call” to other interested people, to grow #FastTrackWatch

Dr Bryce Edwards

Political Analyst in Residence, Director of the Democracy Project, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington.

Sex

Whoever would have predicted that the definition of ‘male’ and ‘female’ could ever become a matter of contention? My professional life has been in political economy, which includes social science and humanities: philosophy, economics, history, statistics, demography, and geography. Demography in particular, requires a biological definition.

The objective science of sex is simple, and genetic. Males have a Y-sex-chromosome as well as an X-sex-chromosome; females instead have two X-sex-chromosomes. To get around the fact that some people want to play-down this observation, commentators and politicians often refer to sex as ‘biological sex’ or ‘sex assigned at birth’. Some organisations refer to ‘gender’ when they mean ‘sex’. Statistics New Zealand doesn’t have any of these problems; for example, the first set of data in the New Zealand cohort life tables: March 2023 update is simply labelled ‘Estimated births, deaths, net migration by sex‘.

Confusion exists because there is a different concept, ‘gender’, which also uses male-female categorisation. When it is necessary to avoid confusion, a person’s sex may be characterised as their ‘genetic sex’ (or ‘reproductive sex’) rather than their biological sex; this is because ‘gender’ may also have a biological basis, and some people whose gender differs from their sex may gave gained this gender variation at conception, in the womb before birth, or even in the birth process itself.

Gender

Gender differs from sex in that it is subjective. A sense of divergent identity from within may arise from any mix of biological or cultural influences. On the biological side, possible influences include aspects of the species genome other than the Y-chromosome, environmental influences within the mother’s uterus, and the birth process itself (eg caesarean birth versus natural birth). Endocrinological and neurological variation can occur before, during, or after birth. One important driver of this gender variability is most likely the microbiome: the changing bacteria and other microbes which inhabit especially the gut, the brain, and the birth canal.

Unlike sex, a binary concept, gender is a spectral concept. And gender is not fixed for all time, it’s fluid. The microbiome is mutable; cultural memes amplify, deamplify and reamplify over time.

It seems to me that a good way for demographers to document gender is through a scale from one to nine. One through to three could be characterised as ‘female gender’, four-to-six as ‘non-binary gender’, and seven-to-nine as ‘male gender’. So a somewhat ‘macho’ male might be described as ‘male sex, male (9) gender. And some ‘trans’ women might be best described as ‘male sex, female (3) gender. For short, for data-coding purposes, these two example people could be listed as ‘m9’ and ‘m3’. F1 through to f3 would translate to ‘cis-female’ in the jargon now used by many as gender identifiers. The mere use of this new jargon is of itself a cultural self-identifier.

It is important to note that the prefixes ‘cis’ and ‘trans’ do indicate that the gender-diverse community does in fact make the distinction between sex and gender, and therefore does not fully deny the reality of genetic sex; the issue is deemphasis, not denial. The issue that impassions that community seems to be to render the concept of sex as unimportant, even unnecessary. But, in the sciences of biology, demography and epidemiology, sex can never be redundant.

Demography

The ‘bread and butter’ of demography is reproduction, migration and death. In this context, ‘age’ and ‘location’ are the most important statistical characteristics of people.

‘Sex’ is in the next tranche of important demographic variables, because genetic sex is an important determinant of the reproduction of populations. Sex should be an easy identifier, because sex is an objective attribute; a person’s genetic sex is a matter of observation, just as whether a person has died is a matter of observation.

Another second-tranche demographic variable is ‘ethnicity’, although to be objective it needs to be ‘ancestry’, and ancestry is often not fully-known. (Many people not know who both of their biological parents are, let-alone their great grand-parents; some people do not know that they do not know this information.) In early United States censuses, the description of a person as ‘black’ or ‘white’ was regarded as central to their demographic identity as whether they were male or female. There certainly is an argument, nowadays with most people having multiple ethnicities of different proportions, that ethnicity should be treated as a subjective ‘third-tranche’ demographic variable. Likewise, religion. (The counterargument is that people who are substantially of a single ethnicity, or who were born into particular religions, do have life outcomes – maybe health outcomes or culturally-determined food choices – which reflect in part the ethnic genetics or religious faiths of their parents.) The important thing is that persons’ designated ancestries or religions should never become the basis for differences in their democratic rights. Demographic attributes should be kept separate from democratic attributes (with the exception of the designation of a young person as a ‘minor’).

Gender, a subjective attribute, distinct from sex, may nevertheless be important in a number of social studies. From a demographic viewpoint, gender may be classed as a third-tranche variable. It may be an interesting scientific question to compare and contrast the life experiences of genetic females (ie people without a Y-chromosome) who are gender-female, gender male, or gender non-binary. Likewise, the gender-diverse life-outcomes of genetic males.

Demography is a very important, though underappreciated, social science; a sibling discipline to epidemiology, and also to human geography. Optimal public health outcomes depend on good-quality demographic research. (Demography provides the all-important denominators needed to make sense of public health data.) Further, like all social-science disciplines, demography is intrinsically historical. Demography is closely intertwined with the disciplines of economic history and economics.

Identity Documentation

Sex or gender are widely used in identity documents; too widely, perhaps. For important demographic purposes, sex is necessary in birth certificates, death certificates, and documents used for travelling between countries (especially passports, now the basis for statistics of international migration). Demographers need to know the age and sex distributions of countries’ populations to be able to make population projections. (I congratulate Statistics New Zealand for well-crafted questions on sex and gender in the recent 2023 New Zealand census.)

Additionally, some kind of reliable documentation should be available for persons using spaces which are reserved for specific demographic subgroups. (We should note that women should not be too precious about ‘their spaces’. Those of us old enough remember the racially segregated toilets that used to exist in South Africa and parts of the USA; many white women and white men did not like their spaces to be transgressed by black women and men. Nevertheless, there is no argument at present for the removal of remaining reserved spaces.)

Does a person need to declare their sex or gender if, say, buying a flight ticket, or enrolling at an educational establishment? (How do the recipients of this information use it? Do they use it?) Sex may be useful on a document used to determine entry into restricted spaces. It may be worthwhile to have a bespoke identity document – a voluntary document – that helps people who need to inform others of their sex, gender or age.

The gender-diverse community wishes to play down excessive gendering in our administrative lives, and, for the most part, prefers to have access to unisex toilets rather than have to use sex-exclusive facilities. (Ask any parent with a young child of the ‘opposite’ sex about gauntlets they have had to run re public toilets. Unisex toilets, much more common today than last century, represent commonsense progress.) If, when buying an airline ticket, does the airline really want to know a person’s sex or gender? Yes, maybe; knowledge of their passengers’ sexes (but not genders) could help an airline to estimate the take-off weight of an aircraft.

Finally, in this section on documentation, we probably should not be using birth documents as general identity documents. While a passport should refer to birth documentation (which should designate ‘sex’), I see no reason why other identification documents – eg documents used by banks – need such information. Thankfully, we do not require a person’s ‘race’ on a drivers’ licence or an airline ticket.

Cultural Wars I

In noting that ‘gender’ is very much a subjective attribute of people (and not only people), that is not saying  there are no biological aspects to gender. Nevertheless, to use modern parlance, the confrontations about sex and gender which we are seeing at present are taking place very much in the human ‘cultural space’.

I was intrigued to read Bryce Edwards’ The ugly stoking of a culture war in election year(Evening Report and others, 27 march 2023). It’s a good non-partisan piece of writing. I was intrigued to see that an academic source to whom Edwards referred was a lawyer called Thomas Cranmer.

Much of my time this year has been spent in reading about the historical origins of modernity. It turns out that the culture wars of the sixteenth century in Europe – otherwise known as the protestant Reformation and the catholic Counterreformation – represent central events that created the global modernity which (for worse and for better) we now take for granted today.

The first true battles of that culture war took place in Tudor England, in particular in the years 1547 and 1558, during the short reigns of the young King Edward VI and then his older sister Queen Mary. (In the kinds of dramas about the Tudor period seen on television and in the movies, this critical and difficult period is rarely touched on. Instead we see various reruns of the 1530s’ story about Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and, in the later Tudor period, about the contested lives of Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots.)

A central figure of the mid-sixteenth century cultural war in England was the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. In New Zealand, his role in that cultural war is commemorated through the name of Cranmer Square in Christchurch, alongside that of another protestant martyr, Hugh Latimer, who is commemorated in the same city through Latimer Square. This cultural conflict, ostensibly a war of religion but really about much more, lasted a very long time. (Port Chalmers in Otago is named after Thomas Chalmers, a central figure in the Scottish religious schism in the 1840s.) In my historical judgement, this particularly nasty war only ended in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement in Belfast, Northern Ireland. If we start with Martin Luther in 1517 and end in 1998, we may call this the 481-years-war.

(And a piece of historical trivia that does foreshadow the events in England from the 1530s to the 1550s. So many of the prominent people in England in those days had the given name ‘Thomas’. This is because it became fashionable from the 1470s and 1480s to undertake pilgrimages to the then magnificent shrine of Thomas Becket, archbishop and martyr, who was killed in 1170 at the behest of King Henry II. See the reference to this in Chris Trotter assesses what happened on Saturday at Auckland’s Albert Park and what it means, interest.co.nz, 27 March 2023. Becket won fame for standing up to his king, speaking for the separation of church and state as institutions of authority. Indeed, a number of the later Thomases also met their ends through displeasing their monarchs. It’s too late to visit the shrine of St Thomas of Canterbury; King Henry VIII looted it to destruction in 1538.)

It is also important to note that the culture war referred to here peaked in Europe in the period from the 1560s to the 1640s; the military component being the ‘Eighty Years War’ between the Spanish Empire and the ‘rebels’ of the Dutch United Provinces (the forerunner of the modern Netherlands), with the last part of the Eighty Years War also being the descent into near-perpetual violence in central Europe known as the Thirty Years War.

While the Reformation is correctly attributed, more than anyone else, to Marty Luther from 1517, the most important figure in the ensuing culture war was Jean Calvin (cis-male), in Geneva, whose principal publication was in 1539 (the second edition of Institutes of the Christian Religion). Calvin’s disciples became evangelists for his more direct and more strident protestant variant of Christianity, becoming a direct and immediate threat to the established (Catholic) Church as well as to the Lutheran reforms. Much of the British ‘intelligentsia’ quickly became attracted to Calvin’s message. But they had to bide their time as King Henry’s administration of the Church in England became very conservative in his last years.

The evangelicals got their chance when the nine-year-old King Edward ascended the throne. They ‘came out’ and basically ran the country. The rhetorical wars commenced and much of the language was inflammatory and belligerent. The Pope who had hitherto been the leader of the Church was now routinely lambasted as the Anti-Christ, the Devil if you will, and Catholics were rhetorically condemned as ‘papists’. (The result was the creation of a climate of rumour whereby the Devil could be anywhere and in any disguise.)

Much of the conservative Establishment bit their tongues and bid their time. Many clerics had been able to go along with King Henry’s sacrilege of the Church’s property (and many of its clergy) so long as the overall doctrine remained substantially unchanged. Others of the Henrician establishment – mainly the ones who would have been seen as ‘progressive’ but who did not naturally take to belligerence – merged into the world of the radicals after 1547. Thomas Cranmer was prominent among this decreasingly ‘moderate’ group. He wrote the new Church prayerbook to fit the new prevailing culture.

Everything changed again when Edward died, aged 15, in 1553. With no male contenders for the throne, the Edwardine radicals tried to install a cousin – Jane Grey – as Queen. But the peasants – the ordinary folk – would have none of that; and for the most part the people were unconcerned about the escalating culture war. They knew very well that the next in line for the throne was Edward’s older half-sister Mary; they wanted their country’s leaders to abide by the rules (of succession), even when those rules were inconvenient. Basically, 1553 was a case of coup and counter-coup. Jane Grey’s key supporters were dispatched by her opponents, and soon enough she was executed too.

Mary was what we might call a ‘cultural conservative’ and she surrounded herself with those former establishment conservatives who had been biding their time. With the ensuing reinstatement of the ‘Heresy Laws’, things heated up, literally. I will say no more, other than to note that Thomas Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury) became the most renowned victim of this Marian prelude to the Counterreformation. There were many other evangelicals, artisans as well as intellectuals, who chose to die; rather than rejoin the catholic Church, rather than breaking with what they understood as their direct relationship with God. Passions prevailed over pragmatism.

Queen Mary and the ensuing Archbishop of Canterbury (Reginal Pole) both died on 17 November 1558, victims of a pandemic that had all the hallmarks of a coronavirus much like the Covid19 virus. The culture war in England subsequently defused, under the new Elizabethan administration. That defusal in England was facilitated by the self-exile of culture radicals and counter-radicals to Europe, especially to the lands we now call Belgium. And it was there in the 1560s that the religious massacres in Europe really got underway.

Culture Wars 2

I tell the above story as a cautionary warning about how matters can escalate in a culture war when the participants are intentionally inflammatory, belligerent, provocative, and intolerant of people who see certain issues differently. And for too many of the people who could be debating the issues to be intimidated into silence instead. Inflammatory speech, which overlaps with the contemporary concept of ‘hate-speech’, is a form of violence that can have profound consequences. (In the Nazi context, an important consequence was the Holocaust.) Inflammatory speech includes comments – especially comments about groups of people – that are true, but which are said for the purposes of initiating or exacerbating a cultural conflict.

The principal issue in today’s culture war, as I see it, is the determination of a small group of people to eradicate the demographic concept of sex – of genetic sex, of XY sex – as an identity marker.

The most poignant moment that I saw in the television coverage of the events in Auckland on Saturday (refer to Bryce Edwards and Chris Trotter above) was of an older (though not elderly) woman – probably dismissed by the cultural radicals as a TERF – with a placard which simply read:

• XX = female
• XY = male

Completely and incontestably true. The foundation facts of reproductive biology. And not in any way inflammatory.

Yet this placard-holder was crowded out, disrespectfully, by others a generation-and-a-half younger than her. Few people with access to the news media that most people see or hear have spoken-up to support her message. “Bad things happen when good people remain silent.”

And to those who unknowingly or knowingly aggravate the problems which they claim to be addressing, remember the first law of holes: ‘Stop digging’. Like other wars, culture wars drag on because few protagonists of these conflicts have a vision for what success actually looks like. If you must instigate or perpetuate a culture war, then please at least lay out your vision of your utopia. In particular, how should your cultural enemies live and behave? Should your cultural enemies live?

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – It’s the prerogative of Cabinet ministers and politicians to be friends with wealthy individuals, and then to accept their generous donations of money, travel, and accommodation. But those relationships and gifts do come at a cost. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, as politicians of the political right used to say – meaning “free” things always have an associated cost.

Those costs are under the microscope at the moment, with a bombshell report by Matt Nippert in the Herald yesterday about a foreign-owned company making a generous donation to the National Party, despite the supposed existence of rules banning foreign donations – see: Former trade minister Todd McClay helped arrange $150,000 donation from Chinese racing industry billionaire Lin Lang to National Party (paywalled).

The basic details are this: Todd McClay became associated with Chinese billionaire Lang Lin in 2016, meeting him in Beijing while on official government business as the Minister of Trade. McClay then worked with then party fundraiser and MP Jami-Lee Ross the next year to facilitate a donation from Lang. $150,000 was deposited into the Rotorua National Party branch bank account – which is McClay’s electorate. The donation came from the company owned by Lang, “Inner Mongolia Rider Horse Industry NZ”, which is registered in New Zealand. It was declared by National to the Electoral Commission, as per the rules about donations.

McClay has also subsequently accepted other generous gifts from Lang, or his company, such as a fact-finding trip to China in 2018. And McClay says he has had further interactions with Lang “in a social capacity”. Lang’s company has described McClay as a “friend” to the billionaire owner.

The main controversy over the donation to National is that donations from foreign individuals are banned under the current electoral finance rules, however donations from foreign-owned companies are not banned, as long as they’re registered in New Zealand. The question therefore is: was the $150,000 donation from Lang’s company to National a case of exploiting a “loophole” in the law?

The cost to National of the scandal

The potential costs of this particular relationship between McClay and Lang are many and varied. And this connection, along with other similar relationships between politicians and wealthy individuals, also illustrates some significant issues in New Zealand politics at the moment.

There is obvious embarrassment for National from this scandal. It has handed their opponents the opportunity to admonish the party for acting unethically. The Prime Minister has been able to make the point that although no laws appear to have been broken, there’s something untoward going on: “Arguably, what happened here was legal but I would argue that it was equally outside the spirit of what our law intends when it comes to foreign donations” – see Jason Walls and Boris Jancic’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says National’s $150k donation was ‘against the spirit’ of the law.

This article also reports that “National is pushing back, with leader Simon Bridges saying the donation was completely legal and National’s hands are clean.” And McClay has been forced onto the backfoot, having to defend himself about allegations of a conflict of interest. Nippert has reported his claims of innocence: “McClay said a potential donation was not raised in Beijing when he was on official business, was first broached only in the latter meeting in Rotorua and he did not meet Lang again while a minister”.

McClay is using the fashionable “hats” argument, saying that he was essentially wearing a different hat when involved with fundraising, and when he was helping facilitate the money being given to his party he was simply acting in his capacity as a National MP, not as a minister, nor as the MP for Rotorua.

National is already vulnerable on the issue of its connection to wealthy donors. After all, the Serious Fraud Office is still investigating, on Police recommendations, the donation allegations raised last year by Jami-Lee Ross.

The current scandal will dredge up memories of other questionable financial arrangements of the National Party. And Claire Trevett has done just this, going back through other infamous incidents in her column, Political donations – just a quid, or a quid-pro-quo? (paywalled). She also says: “Putting big donors in the public eye made it easier for political rivals to take pot shots at motives, alleged conflicts of interest and fundraising practises, from dinners with ministers to more intimate events.”

The Greens have been able to use the latest scandal to push their own policies of electoral finance reform. Newshub reports: “Green Party Electoral spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman has described the revelation as ‘deeply alarming’ and said it highlights why New Zealand needs stronger and more transparent political donation laws. Ghahraman is calling for a cap on individual donations to $35,000. She also wants to ban overseas donations, and reduce the anonymity threshold to $1000” – see: Jacinda Ardern describes $150,000 donation to National ‘outside spirit of the law’.

Helen Clark, too, has used the opportunity to campaign about the problem, tweeting: “Money politics is a curse the world over. It’s corrosive of the democratic process. In NZ people have long decried it & feasted on whatever compromising information comes to light, but where are the media calls for public funding & tighter donation rules?”

The cost to New Zealand’s governing system

The McClay donation raises questions about what impact such generosity from private individuals and companies might potentially have on New Zealand’s system of government. As reported in Nippert’s original article, Lang’s company made a statement “saying he expected nothing in return for his company’s donation.” The Chinese-owned company stated that the donation was simply in appreciation for National “promoting trade between the two countries”.

However, the possibility of a government gong for the Chinese billionaire was also raised by the company statement: “Lang also considered that he made so much effort to open the China market in exporting NZ horses to China, the NZ Government should award him an honour.”

So, does the involvement of Cabinet ministers in the procurement of such donations raise problems for the integrity of New Zealand’s governing system? Nippert quotes University of Otago law professor Andrew Geddis, saying that this, and the rules around it, seemed to be a problem: “Geddis said the involvement of Cabinet members in personal and political fund-raising was a long-standing concern, and he hoped the ‘hat juggling exercise by ministers’ who played multiple roles at different times, would cease. He said the issue of involvement by ministers in party fund-raising was curious as the Cabinet manual was ‘completely silent’ about the matter. ‘I suspect it’s not an oversight. Successive governments have decided maybe the less said about it the better,’ he said.”

The cost to New Zealand’s democracy

Nippert has written about conflicts of interest in the Lang donation, saying that this type of activity is a challenge to the status quo: “New Zealand is rightly proud of its democracy. Our nation has fair and free elections, a vibrant culture of opposition, orderly changes of power, and is regularly ranked among the least-corrupt countries on Earth” – see: $150,000 donation – Money in politics and why it matters (paywalled).

Nippert argues that the episode raises questions about whether “our current legal framework governing donations is fit for purpose”. For him, it shows the laws have been designed to allow foreign donations (via companies registered in New Zealand) despite the apparent ban on foreign individuals donating here: “This is not a loophole – the law was intentionally written this way – but it is worth weighing whether we should really be treating this as a feature of our electoral finance system rather than a bug. Resolving the issue is not straightforward, requiring either a potentially blunt hard-and-fast rule or a complicated test of control or ultimate ownership, and will run into vested interests of its own.”

The cost to New Zealand’s sovereignty

If donations are allowed from foreign sources, is this a problem for New Zealand’s sovereignty? It seems so, according to Security Intelligence Service director-general Rebecca Kitteridge. Yesterday she made an appearance at the Justice Select Committee at Parliament, which is currently examining the electoral laws, including those involving donations.

Kitteridge had earlier voiced alarm about the role of donations to political parties, saying the intelligence services were worried about their impact. She said: “One of the main reasons we become concerned about these activities is because as relationships of influence, or a sense of reciprocity is established, they may be used as leverage to facilitate future interference or espionage activity.” She warned that “grey areas” of the existing laws were being exploited and suggested that “total transparency” for political donations was now required.

Kitteridge spoke yesterday about how it wasn’t simply a case of wealthy individuals having an influence, but also the possibility of foreign states actually being behind those donations. She told MPs: “We’ve seen relationship-building and donation activity by state actors and their proxies that concern us… This activity spans the political spectrum and occurs at a central and local government level” – see Craig McCulloch’s NZ spy agencies call for greater transparency on political donations.

Debates over electoral finance reform 

For Kitteridge, a greater ban on foreign donations – as recommended by the Green Party – isn’t enough, and instead she recommended that more transparency was the answer. Kitteridge said: “You can see how a foreign actor could easily use a New Zealand based proxy to work around such a ban… We know that foreign states are adept at understanding and working around regulatory regimes.” Therefore, “more stringent disclosure requirements” were preferable.

Others are suggesting that donation bans could be implemented – either for companies per se, or for any entity other than an individual in New Zealand.

But don’t necessarily expect any such stringent reforms to be quickly agreed upon and implemented. As Nippert says, both Labour and National dominate the current Justice select committee looking at this issue, and as those parties are reliant on wealthy sources of funds, there will be a temptation “to do nothing in order to keep the taps flowing.”

Claire Trevett has also argued that the “disease of self-interest” is likely to stymie any reform. Furthermore without buy-in from the main players, it’s difficult to push through reform: “Changing the rules can be fraught unless there is consensus, as Labour found out when it pushed through the Electoral Finance Act in 2005. One-sided reforms are easily seen as an attempt to protect one’s own funding sources while drying up a rival’s. Labour would not want a change that would restrict the trade unions donating any more than National would want companies restricted.”

So how well is the current select committee process going in evaluating the electoral finance laws and the risks of foreign interference? Today Sam Sachdeva reports that the committee seems “dogged by dysfunction” and unlikely to fix the numerous problems prior to the next election, which he says “seems unpalatable to say the least” – see: Politicians must pick up pace on donations reform.

But both the Justice Minister, Andrew Little, and National’s spokesperson on electoral matters, Nick Smith, are apparently keen on urgency and might push for faster reform.

Sachdeva also argues that there are questions about Labour’s fundraising too: “its hands are not entirely clean either. As reported by Stuff before the last election, the party has received tens of thousands of dollars through the auction of art at over-inflated prices, naming the artist as the donor rather than the person forking out the money – something which also seems to breach the spirit if not the letter of the law.”

And as an indication that the problem of ministers being used to fundraise isn’t limited to the National Party, there has been another report of the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, taking off his finance hat and asking the wealthy to give to the Labour Party – see Jason Walls’ Minister Grant Robertson was just one of the MPs who spoke at the ‘President’s Dinner’ event (paywalled).

According to this article, those invited had to pay $750 to attend and hear a speech from Robertson, who was speaking in Auckland but wearing his “Wellington Central MP” hat.

Finally, clearly a bigger debate is required about how to fix the problems of money in politics – and for a good discussion of some of the possibilities, written late last year, see Simon Chapple’s New Zealand politics: how political donations could be reformed to reduce potential influence.

The 2018 census has had such a low compliance rate, that it really acted as a large convenience sample (therefore a biased sample) of the New Zealand population. (See my Census Survey from March 2018.) Despite the assurances we are getting, many researchers will have little confidence in its population tallies for towns, districts, and cities. Truths about population redistribution within New Zealand remain elusive.

Unbiassed and factual sources of 2014-2017 population trends are the last two general elections, contested under the same electoral boundaries. My chart for October 2017 – Migration within New Zealand: Evidence from the Election – shows that, based on election votes cast, population growth was slower in Auckland (except Auckland’s outer fringe) than in any other region in the country.

The two main points of this month’s chart are the Māori population decline in Auckland, and the big increase in the south (probably mainly in Wellington, which is in Te Tai Tonga). The Wellington influx probably reflects growth of the bureaucracy, rebuilding after a substantial decrease in its numbers after the 2008 election. Māori have probably been disproportionately affected through this bureaucratic population cycle, given the greater emphasis this decade on biculturalism within the government sector.

While this month’s chart looks only at the Māori electorates, and notwithstanding the Wellington issue, this population dynamic serves as a proxy for all second‑to‑fortieth generation New Zealanders. The big story that the demographers seem to have missed is the recent diaspora of both Māori and Pakeha from Auckland. While the 2018 census was well-timed to capture this, the census‑repair‑process may not.

I was prompted to revisit this issue of demographers’ assumptions after having read an interview with Paul Spoonley – Changing Demographics – in the Winter 2019 AA Directions magazine. Spoonley says “this country is entering [my italics] an era of change”. He adds: “The continual growth of Auckland is predicted. It’s expected that within the next two decades, 40% of all New Zealanders will live in the City of Sails”. And “many regions will experience population stagnation”.

The election data clearly show that the population of central and suburban Auckland has decreased relative to the rest of the country. Māori electorate demographics suggest that only about 15 percent of Māori live in Auckland. Further, the combined population of Auckland’s former cities and borough – Auckland, North Shore, Waitakere, Manukau, Papakura – was most likely (in 2018) less than 30 percent of the national total.

As well as an inexorable Aucklandification, Spoonley describes an imminent process of brownification (Pasifika and Asian, rather than Māori). In fact, that process dates back at least to the 1990s. To back up his view that this change is recent, Spoonley says: “Between 2006 and 2013 our population grew by 35,000 from migration, which is considered modest. Between 2013 and 2018, growth was by 270,000”.

Based on data collected from Statistics New Zealand this week, the 2006‑13 increase was 95,742 and the 2013‑18 increase was 328,133. (These are net passenger statistics, the only truly accurate measure of net population inflow.) But if we adjust the years cited and take the nine years 2001‑09, we get a net inflow of 257,694, giving a somewhat different picture of immigration in that 2000s’ decade. From 2010‑18 – the next nine years – we get a net inflow of 290,054.

2000 itself was a grumpy year in New Zealand, when the $NZ fell below $US0.40, and immigration was substantially negative. Looking at the whole period after 2000, New Zealand experienced an annual average immigration‑sourced population increase of 0.8 percent per year. This was equally true in each decade of this century. (Of course, there was variation in individual years, with the biggest source of variability being the movements of New Zealand citizens; especially variation in the trans‑Tasman flows of New Zealanders.)

Auckland’s Māori population diaspora may or may not show in the coming census data, due to be published in September 2019. And the Aucklander exodus may or may not continue. The main cause of the exodus has most likely been people taking advantage of high prices to sell their houses and make windfall gains. While Auckland real estate prices remain very high, they have been falling relative to the rest of the country since 2017. With much new medium‑high‑density housing coming on stream near to transport nodes, I expect Auckland’s growth will resume, in pace with the rest of the country.

Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – This week the Minister of Justice, Andrew Little, declared that stripping all prisoners of their right to vote had occurred as part of a “fascist” political climate during the last National-led Government.

Speaking on the AM Show about whether prisoners should be allowed to vote, Little explained that the 2010 blanket ban on prisoner voting came in at time when “kind of the more fascist sort of policies with criminals” was going on – see Dan Satherley’s Restoring prisoners’ right to vote still not a priority – Andrew Little.

Back then, Parliament decided to extend what was then a partial-ban on prisoner voting to a blanket ban. Previously, prisoners serving sentences of more than three years were taken off the electoral roll. A bill was then passed to extend that to all prisoners. It was supported by the National and Act parties, and opposed by Labour and the Greens. I covered this issue in detail in December, in the column, Political Roundup: Suffrage reality check – prisoners still can’t vote.

The question now is whether the current Government is willing to go against that so-called “fascist”, or anti-democratic sentiment, and give prisoners the right to vote. Previously, Little had made it clear that the Government was unenthusiastic about giving votes back to prisoners, saying that the issue wasn’t a priority.

There’s a core philosophical – or values – issue at play, that Labour and National politicians seem to be in broad agreement over: that voting is a privilege not a human right. Across the political spectrum, nearly all politicians are endorsing the commonly held view that an individual’s right to democracy is contingent on their good behaviour.

Hence a person’s ability to vote should be stripped away if they commit certain crimes. This is a view held from Simon Bridges through to Jacinda Ardern, with only the Green Party saying that New Zealand should extend suffrage to those in jail.

Of course, although Labour and National politicians have a similar philosophy about taking away votes from prisoners, they differ over the circumstances in which this should occur. National wants to retain the current blanket ban on prisoner voting, and Labour’s policy is to ban those serving sentences of more than three years.

Labour’s middle-way position on prisoner voting

The Prime Minister has made it clear this week that she doesn’t believe in giving all prisoners the vote, saying “We accept that prison does strip away a person’s freedoms for a period of time. I don’t think anyone would deny that is one of the roles as part of paying that price to society” – see Derek Cheng’s Jacinda Ardern against blanket right to vote for all prisoners.

For Ardern, a line can be drawn between those prisoners who are worthy of the right to vote and those who aren’t, concluding “The balance is about right at three years.” And responding to the question of whether all prisoners should be given the right to vote, Ardern has also pointed out: “There hasn’t been carte blanche voting rights for decades for all prisoners as the Waitangi Tribunal recommend”.

On the AM Show, Andrew Little elaborated on the logic of giving the vote to some prisoners but not others: “I think there was always an exception, certainly since the 1990s, for prisoners on short-term sentences because eventually, they were going to come out. The argument was they should have a say on the people who are running the country they are going to be entering into once they get to the end of their prison sentence.”

Similarly, elsewhere Little has explained that Labour’s position on which prisoners should get the right to vote relates to the timing of the electoral cycle, and when that prisoner is due to be released: “there is a rationale to say that if you’re in prison and during the course of an electoral term you’re going to be released then you have a right to say who is governing the country”.

Little’s logic, however, would also mean giving the vote to those long-term prisoners set to be released at some time during the cycle of the next Parliament.

Why has the prisoner voting rights issue arisen again?

The 2010 extension of the ban on prisoner voting continues to receive scathing edicts from judicial bodies. The first to declare the ban to be a problem was the High Court in 2015, then came the Supreme Court last year, and on Monday the Waitangi Tribunal released “He Aha Perā Ai? The Māori Prisoners’ Voting Report”.

This report is covered very well in Derek Cheng’s article, Banning prisoners from voting hits Māori harder: Waitangi Tribunal, which explains the report’s findings that the ban “had disproportionately hurt Māori and breached the Crown’s Treaty of Waitangi obligations”.

The article explains how, because of disproportionate incarceration rates, Māori are more likely to be taken off the electoral roll. This was already a problem before the voting ban was extended in 2010, but was made much worse: “In 2010, Māori were 2.1 times more likely to have been removed from the electoral roll than non-Māori. In 2018, they were 11.4 times more likely.”

Among other recommendations, the Waitangi Tribunal report therefore urged that the entire ban on prisoner voting be lifted. Andrew Little responded immediately to say that the Government would consider this option, but would also look at the possibility of simply repealing the 2010 legislation, leaving only longer-term prisoners unable to vote – see Māni Dunlop’s report, Call for repeal to law banning prisoners from voting.

According to this article, Little believed that the Tribunal had made a “compelling” case and action was likely: “My hope would be that we would take some action sooner rather than later. Up until now addressing this issue hasn’t been seen as a priority, but I think the benefit of the Supreme Court decision and now with the Waitangi Tribunal report – it is an issue we have to consider.”

A number of voices have come out in favour of abolishing the ban on prisoner voting. Writing today on the Newsroom website, constitutional law lecturer Edward Willis argues that the Government has been handed an historic opportunity to do the right thing, given that the Waitangi Tribunal report has authoritatively shown the ban on voting is both “unconstitutional” and “officially racist”. He says the latest report, together with previous judicial findings, “casts a long shadow over any Government that claims to respect our fundamental rights. It can’t make that claim in any genuine sense until the ban is repealed. And it knows it” – see: Prisoner voting a ‘moment’ in NZ constitutional history.

Similarly, law professor Andrew Geddis has argued that all sides of politics should accept the challenge to fix this problem, as the latest report “delivers a fierce reminder of the need for urgent change” – see: The Waitangi Tribunal just ripped to shreds a populist, pointless, pernicious law.

Here’s Geddis’ plea for action: “for the government, it’s time to put up or shut up. Shortly after being elected, the attorney general, David Parker, and the justice minister, Andrew Little, made a public commitment to do things differently. Issues like the rule of law and individual rights would get given far greater priority under their watch. Well, here’s where those fine words need to cash out into action.”

An editorial in Stuff newspapers has also expressed the strong view that the right to vote “should be inalienable”, but acknowledges that public sentiment is probably at odds with this  – see: Prisoner voting: the legal case advances; public sentiment not so much.

This newspaper editorial complains that New Zealand politicians and the public are too ready for the country to be signed up to high-minded conventions and constitutional safeguards without the intention of actually abiding by them. For example, “New Zealanders really need to work out whether the Bill of Rights is exactly that, or really more of a liberal wishlist, the functional authority of which depends greatly on which party is in power, and what the prevailing popular sentiment might be.”

What happens next?

It is clear that the National Party is not going to vote to reverse the blanket ban on prisoner voting, let alone give all prisoners the right to vote. Like Labour, they are well aware that the majority of public opinion is likely to be against such a move – see Derek Cheng’s National won’t support granting prisoners voting rights.

In this article, National leader Simon Bridges states his core philosophical belief about voting rights: “We will oppose change. National believes that if the crime is serious enough for someone to go to jail and lose their liberty, they should also, while in jail, lose the right to vote”. And in terms of the constitutional decision-making question he states: “Ultimately this isn’t a legal question. It’s one of values. Parliament is supreme and gets to work out its values in law.”

In contrast, the same article states that the Greens want a complete reversal of the ban: “Green Party justice spokeswoman Golriz Ghahraman plans to put up an amendment to the Electoral Amendment bill currently before the Parliament to allow prisoners to enrol.”

If Labour and the Greens want to give voting rights back to prisoners, they will still have to persuade New Zealand First to support them. Winston Peters is currently refusing to state his party’s position, and Jo Moir reports: “Peters said his caucus would discuss the issue of prisoner voting when they met next week but he couldn’t promise they’d make a final decision” – see: NZ First tightlipped on prisoners’ voting rights.

Peters is giving little away about what their stance might be: “There are certain aspects of it which don’t make any sense no matter what your view on law and order is or what your view on punishment is. But I want my caucus colleagues to have a full-scale discussion of it and then we’ll tell you what our answer is.”

Peters has also floated the possibility of giving prisoners the right to stay on the electoral roll, but not allow them to physically cast a vote. This may at least deal with the problem identified in the Waitangi Tribunal report of prisoners being taken off the electoral roll while in prison and never returning to it once out of jail.

Similarly, the Stuff newspaper editorial, above, also raises the possibility of various compromises being developed by the Government: “Quite likely, there may be something coming by way of a sop. Perhaps looking at encouraging and simplifying re-enrolment. A stronger, justifiable and politically achievable measure would be re-setting the bar to distinguish between crimes of sufficient, and insufficient, severity.”

Finally, the issue of prisoner voting rights is an international one, with the latest proponent being US Presidential candidate nominee Bernie Sanders – you can watch his very impressive arguments here: Why Bernie Sanders wants to give voting rights to incarcerated Americans. And for an interesting backgrounder to this, and prison voting rights in the US in general, see The Democratic debate over prisoners’ voting rights, explained.

The most important case study of the New Zealand lobbying-politician nexus has become that of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s relationship with lobbyist GJ Thompson, who she hired for five months last year as her Chief of Staff. They are friends, she has huge trust in him, and she continues to use him as a confidante.

Her trust in Thompson is so great that Ardern reportedly involved him in choosing who to give ministerial roles to. That’s right, a lobbyist was involved in choosing who became ministers in this government and what portfolios they got. And he got paid for it. Months later he went straight back to his role as a director of his lobbying firm, free to lobby those very same ministers.

In other countries – even in Trump’s Washington – this would almost certainly result in jail time. If you think that’s hyperbole, consider the scandal if we were suddenly to learn that Trump’s first Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus, had been a director and shareholder of a lobbying company drawing income from foreign and domestic clients, not disclosed to the President, while working in that role.

In contrast, here in New Zealand, anything goes. Most of the media turns a blind eye to it all, or even gives their stamp of approval to the existence of these relationships, often because the individuals involved are likable and “trustworthy”.

The particularly brazen relationship between lobbyist GJ Thompson and the Prime Minister has been examined in a new article by Newsroom’s Laura Walters, published a few days ago. It raises some important new information about the continued power of that lobbyist, by virtue of his close links with Ardern – see: Questions over relationship between PM and lobbyist.

The most important revelation to come out of this article is that when Thompson came in to help run Ardern’s government, management of his potential conflicts of interest didn’t seem to occur, despite him remaining a director of his firm Thompson Lewis.

Normally, the most basic attempt at managing these conflicts is for full disclosure to be made of any clients a lobbyist might have. But the PM’s Office confirms that the opposite actually took place: “The Prime Minister and Mr Thompson apply their rule strictly to never discuss his clients or his business”.

As an example of this, Walters reports: “it’s understood the Prime Minister did not know Huawei was a client of Thompson Lewis until her office was approached by Newsroom.”

On Friday, 1News reported Ardern’s explanation of her relationship with Thompson. The PM confirmed the lobbyist is a friend and that she doesn’t check who his clients are: “This just happens to be a case of New Zealand being small and I have an old friend who works in his own company… I already know that GJ works alongside companies external to Government. I don’t know, by in large, what those companies are” – see: Jacinda Ardern’s links with high-powered lobbyist ‘a case of New Zealand being small’.

Ardern also says Huawei is “not even a company I had any familiarity he was working with”, and “New Zealand is a small country, there will from time to time be overlap. The important thing is that we manage ourselves those conflicts. I do not discuss… nor does he discuss with me, his clients’ issues. That would be totally inappropriate.”

This is an even less convincing assurance than at the time I last covered Thompson’s controversial role in the PM’s Office in my Political Roundups last year – see: The Government’s revolving door for lobbyists and Lifting the lid on lobbying in politics. Then, the public was told that the conflicts were being “managed”. But we are now told the PM has never known who Thompson’s clients were and are, which makes this impossible. So, for example, the public might now wonder if the Prime Minister discussed relations with China, and whether Thompson passed those details onto Huawei.

Although at the time the Prime Minister’s Office claimed Thompson had temporarily stepped aside from his lobbying firm to help run the government, crucially he remained a director and shareholder of Thompson Lewis when he was Chief of Staff, with a legal obligation to act in the best interests of the company and with a legal claim on its profits.

The decision by Ardern to use a lobbyist as her most important paid adviser was always a massive problem, even with him claiming he would stand aside from his lobbying roles. You simply cannot take “leave” from these roles. And he and his mobile number remained advertised on his firm’s website as a lobbyist, while he was also Chief of Staff.

So while the Chief of Staff was apparently advising on the appointment of the Cabinet and staff, and possibly had access to all government documents from the likes of Treasury, DPMC, MFAT, SIS etc, his firm retained and profited from private clients, including foreign ones such as Huawei.

Responding to these latest revelations, senior investigative Herald journalist Matt Nippert (@MattNippert) has tweeted that “This is honestly jaw-dropping”. He asks if the Prime Minister’s Office is “really saying ignorance is a defence when handling conflicts of interest? The lines need to be clear if you don’t the Prime Minister wandering over them.”

Furthermore, Nippert complains that the Cabinet Manual, in terms of conflicts of interests, “now doesn’t seem to apply to the PM for some reason.”

Laura Walters, has also gone on RNZ to talk about why issues around lobbyists should be taken seriously: “When you’ve got your firm taking on a really sensitive client that is actively courting meetings with ministers and trying to make some big moves in there, trying to influence decisions of those ministers of the government, it does really raise some questions – especially around the disclosure of clients” – you can listen to her 10-minute discussion with Emile Donovan: PM’s connection to lobbyist raises flags.

Donovan suggests that “Someone who has worked closely in terms of actually setting up a government would be a lobbying company’s golden goose”, to which Walters says, “Absolutely”.

Walters’ article also reports on what others in the lobbying industry say about Thompson’s ongoing close relationship with the Prime Minister, with one lobbyist labelling it “totally unprecedented”. Walters reports that “Those in the industry say he is open about the influential role he played in helping pick cabinet ministers and their staff.”

She says that “in reference to the ongoing relationship, and Thompson’s movements between the Beehive and his Auckland office” other lobbyists are uneasy. Although others seem to like and trust Thompson, the lack of rules and procedure in these types of close lobbyist-politician relationships weren’t enough, “especially when it came to transparency and avoiding unwanted accusations of corruption.”

The Prime Minister’s Office responded to concerns raised by Walters about Thompson, saying that “Mr Thompson does not offer any professional advice to the Prime Minister, however like many of her long-term acquaintances, the Prime Minister seeks out Mr Thompson as a sounding board from time to time”.

Herald political editor Audrey Young included Thompson in her profile of “the special crew that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern turns to most often” – see: Meet Jacinda Ardern’s inner circle – the people she relies on most (paywalled).

Here’s Young’s entry about Thompson: “Gordonjon (GJ) Thompson was a press secretary for Helen Clark at the same time that Ardern worked for Clark, but their relationship was forged in Opposition when Ardern was a first-term MP.  Thompson had moved with Labour to Opposition in 2008, first as Phil Goff’s chief press secretary and later his chief of staff.  He left to take up public relations roles with Fonterra and Sky City then set up his own PR company with David Lewis, another former press secretary to Helen Clark, and later Wayne Eagleson, the long-serving chief of staff to former Prime Minister John Key. Thompson spent five months as Ardern’s chief of staff in the early days of Government, helping with the transition to Government before deciding to return to Auckland to run Thompson Lewis.”

Some in the media agree with the Prime Minister that there is no need for questions to be asked about Thompson and the unregulated nature of New Zealand’s lobbying industry in general. For example, on Saturday the Dominion Post published an editorial in support of Ardern and Thompson – see: Lobbying – trust in the system, but maintain a close watch. The editorial says Thompson’s relationship is on a par with “almost five million lobbyists in this country” and we are all free to see MPs and “chew their ears” on issues we feel passionate about.

However, there is likely to be ongoing concern about the precedent set by Ardern in the various ways she has utilised her lobbyist friend. As an example, on the Reddit social media site, one person with apparent expertise in handling potential conflicts of interest discusses the Walters article, and argues that it should be investigated by the Auditor General – see: Questions over relationship between PM Jacinda Ardern and high-powered lobbyist.

That person also explains what measures should have been taken when the lobbyist was employed by Ardern: “As a minimum I would expect to see: A list of all clients he represents; A risk assessment of where those clients deliver to government and to what portfolios; A review of the work he was doing; A management plan; A deed of confidentiality for him and his company; A plan detailing how he could firewall information (which in reality he couldn’t). The acid test for COI is really is there a fiduciary interest and since he is being paid by his clients to lobby there is one.”

Finally, there is some good news about lobbying transparency, with the release last week of the first batch of records of who ministers have been meeting with. For the best coverage of this, see Tim Watkin and Kate Newton’s Ministerial diaries: Who influences those in power? It’s worth noting that one of the lobbyists who “stands out” as meeting with Ministers more than most is “former press secretary for Helen Clark, David Lewis”, who is the business partner of GJ Thompson.

Certainly some of his past conduct and allegations against him make for sobering reading – including physical assault, attempts to sabotage the employment of opponents, and sexist bullying.

And some of the terms that have been applied to Mallard – such as “Knee Capper”, “Head Kicker”, “Bully” and, most commonly, “Bovver Boy” – from journalists and commentators (leftwing, rightwing and neutral) give a clue to his temperament and raise questions about his appropriateness for the role of Speaker.

Since yesterday’s report came out, his critics have had a field day drawing attention to the irony of Mallard trying to deal to bullying at Parliament. Former MP Tau Henare went on TV3’s The Project to say that “I think that we have a Speaker that is the epitome of the word irony”. Of course, it was Henare who was punched by Mallard outside the debating chamber back in 2007 – for which Mallard was convicted and fined.

Henare claimed: “This guy was the biggest schoolyard bully in the place. If there was a programme called ‘The Biggest Bully’, he would have won it ten years in a row… When it was announced by him that he was going to do a report on bullying, I literally nearly wet myself” – see Jamie Ensor’s Former National MP Tau Henare lets rip on bullying in Parliament after review release.

Mallard went on the AM Show this morning and responded to criticism, admitting his bad behaviour and claiming that he’s trying to improve – see Jamie Ensor’s Speaker Trevor Mallard acknowledges his behaviour hasn’t been perfect after bullying review.

Mallard claimed his own bullying is a result of his upbringing: “When I was first here it was in the immediate post-Muldoon period, the system up until there had been run by Second World War veterans, it was very stratified, it was very structured, and as was our society”.

AM Show host, Duncan Garner, has also drawn attention to Mallard’s bullying and says he must take more responsibility for what goes on: “He effectively controls the entire Parliament, how it operates, behaves and is perceived. Yet history shows Mallard is always near the centre of controversy, or a dust-up” – see: Speaker of the house Trevor Mallard must lift the lid on bullies.

Garner says: “Mallard still protects the club. He should be naming and shaming our worst MPs and, if he’s on the list, own it – call yourself out. Instead, we slam the door shut. This inquiry is no better than the behaviour itself. Mallard must lift the lid and stop protecting the bullies, otherwise, he’s only encouraging them.”

Over the years there have been a number of significant episodes that might be characterised as bullying by Mallard. Two particularly important ones were his treatment of senior public servant and whistleblower Erin Leigh, and former head of WINZ Christine Rankin.

In 2007 Erin Leigh accused the politician of destroying her reputation. She won her Supreme Court case against Mallard in 2011 – see this Dominion Post editorial from that time: Likeable larrikin becomes a bully.

The former head of WINZ, Christine Rankin, has spoken out in recent times about Mallard’s treatment of her, saying “He was a bully… They were all bullies and they revelled in it” – see Anna Bracewell-Worrall’s ‘He was a bully’: Christine Rankin accuses ‘crude’ Trevor Mallard of bullying. According to this article, Rankin “says ministers would whisper and laugh about her during meetings – with Mr Mallard using language that still makes her too uncomfortable to repeat.”

His targets also include the media – as the Speaker has a history of personally attacking commentators. He has no compunction in launching personal attacks against people in a manner that makes it hard for them to fight back – the hallmark of a bully.

Of course, the story has rapidly moved on today following Mallard’s shocking allegations this morning that a rapist has been working in the Parliamentary complex – see Derek Cheng’s Parliamentary staffer stood down after historic assault allegation. Mallard went on TV and radio this morning to talk about this, saying on RNZ’s Morning Report that “We’re talking about serious sexual assault. Well that, for me, that’s rape.”

Politicians and political parties are reeling and have demanded action. According to Stacey Kirk, National’s deputy leader Paula Bennett “has accused Speaker Trevor Mallard of ‘harbouring of a criminal’ and urged him to call in police” – see: Paula Bennett says police should be involved over Parliament rape allegation.

According to this article, “The National Party was taking it ‘really seriously’, said Bennett, but Mallard had a duty of care to any victims. Bennett said she had no idea who the potential perpetrator was. But people were now feeling unsafe, following Mallard’s comments, and Bennett said she was personally dealing with staff.”

Mallard also took the chance to lash out at Act Party MP David Seymour’s criticisms of Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman saying he is guilty of bullying behaviour that has crossed a line – see 1News’ Speaker Trevor Mallard says David Seymour bullied Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman.

Is Trevor Mallard also a biased Speaker?

In addition to being known for bullying, Mallard is increasing gaining a reputation for bias in his role running Parliament and the debating chamber. Of course, most Speakers get labelled as biased, but a consensus is emerging that Mallard is the worst in living memory. And some commentators worry that he is bringing the institution of Parliament into disrepute.

The Herald’s political editor, Audrey Young, has recently said that Mallard is both extremely good and bad: “I have covered Parliament under seven Speakers and Mallard is both the best and worst of Speakers rolled into one. When he’s good, he’s brilliant but on a bad day he is a House-wrecker” – see: Is it time for fresh challenges for Speaker Trevor Mallard?

Young says Mallard is at his worst “when he abuses the inherent power of the chair by insulting Opposition MPs and then punishes them for reacting under extreme provocation.” She suggests Jacinda Ardern should solve the problem by making him a Government Cabinet Minister in her upcoming reshuffle.

Similarly, in a column late last year, Young declared Mallard “has an inbuilt bias against National Party leader Simon Bridges and a soft spot for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern” – see: Bridges punishment was fair but Mallard’s intolerance is an ongoing problem.

Around the same time, Heather du Plessis-Allan gave her own evaluation: “Speaker of the House isn’t proving a career highlight. He’s been accused of bias towards Labour. And even worse, of trying to protect the Prime Minister. And, much as I like the guy, I have to admit he deserves the criticism” – see: Trevor Mallard is protecting Jacinda Ardern. She outlines the ways in which the Speaker has been biased towards his own side in Parliament, arguing however that this prejudice has actually backfired on the Government.

The most cutting criticisms of Mallard’s bias came in a recent blog post by former parliamentary colleague and opponent, Peter Dunne – see: Parliament’s resident bully boy. Dunne says “time and time again, he seems too quick to intervene to cut the Opposition short, to the benefit and delight of the Government. That is not as it should be.”

Dunne says that Mallard has taken on the role as protector of the Prime Minister: “Faced with a new government and a totally inexperienced Prime Minister he seems to have taken on the role of her protector in the cut and thrust of Parliamentary debate, Question Time in particular. While his paternalistic approach towards the Prime Minister may be understandable in the circumstances, it is, at the same time, not only utterly patronising, but, worse, it is completely inappropriate and totally compromising of the presumed impartiality of the Speaker.”

Going with the analogy that the Speaker’s job is akin to that of a sports referee, Liam Hehir wrote earlier this month that “It is as if the referee, in his excitement, is occasionally catching the ball and kicking a drop goal. It’s not hard to see why the opposing team might feel aggrieved” – see: Parliament’s ref continues to drop the ball and it can’t continue.

Along with many others, Hehir points to the problem of Mallard not being able to make the transition from being one of the hardest Parliamentary brawlers to being in charge: “When he was appointed speaker, the hackneyed cliché of “poacher turned gamekeeper” got a good workout. But for the transition to be sincere, the poaching really needs to stop. It should not remain an occasional sideline.”

Also using a sporting metaphor, legal scholar Andrew Geddis wrote a useful blog post last year about Protecting the umpire, in which he examines the extent to which the Speaker can and can’t be criticised. He points out that Parliament could, in theory, decide to hold critics of Mallard to be in contempt, but in practice this would be highly unlikely to occur.

Nonetheless, the whole debate around Trevor Mallard’s fitness for the job has brought up some important debates about the role of the Speaker and how they are appointed. For the best discussion of this, see John Armstrong’s Mallard and National’s falling out exposes deep flaws in the way we select Parliament’s ‘referee’.

Armstrong argues that the spats from last year have “exposed a yawning gap in the fabric of New Zealand’s democracy. Quite simply, the current procedure employed to select one of Parliament’s number to fill the role of Speaker is archaic, unfair and unacceptable in falling well short of meeting acceptable constitutional standards. In short, there is a drastic need for reform. The New Zealand Parliament needs to take a close look at how some of its overseas counterparts choose their Speaker and – perhaps of even more importance – the steps taken to bolster the independence of the holder of that office.”

But don’t expect reform of the Speaker’s role – or any other parliamentary procedure – any time soon, says Danyl Mclauchlan. He argues it’s not in the interest of the government and nor will it be in the interest of the next government – because they always benefit from the backward arrangements – see: How the Bennett vs Mallard standoff exposes a paradox at the heart of politics.

Finally, despite bullying and bias, the current Speaker is modernising Parliament in some ways, especially through the inclusion of dogs and babies in the buildings – see Lucy Bennett’s Speaker Trevor Mallard on a mission to humanise Parliament, and Wendyl Nissen’s Babies and the Beehive: Trevor Mallard’s big plans for a child-friendly Parliament.

The survey, from November last year, says that only 13 per cent of New Zealanders ‘would speak highly of Parliament’ and only 7 per cent ‘would speak highly of MPs’. Furthermore, only 27 per cent of the public say they trust Parliament. For plenty of other statistics about how poorly the country thinks of our foremost democratic institution, see: Survey of the New Zealand public.

The point is that the public generally has a very negative attitude to Parliament, being aware of the toxicity of how politics operates in this country. And today’s bullying report, authored by Debbie Francis, is only going to reinforce the belief that there is a major problem, particularly with MP behaviour.

The report emphasises this bad behaviour is a serious problem for democracy. It points out: “Many of those who contributed to this Review drew a direct link between the culture and behaviours within the parliamentary workplace and the healthy and productive functioning of New Zealand’s democracy during a time of great challenge.”

One parliamentary staff member is quoted about the lack of political leadership: “Never has there been a moment in history when we most needed our leaders to engage constructively on the existential and profoundly complex issues that threaten the planet – climate change, nativism and economic inequality being just a few.” You can read the whole report here: Bullying and Harassment in the New Zealand Parliamentary Workplace.

Overall, a particularly ugly picture is painted, and this is best reported on by Andrea Vance – the journalist who has followed this topic more closely than any other – see: Parliament a toxic workplace with systematic bullying problem – Francis Review. She reports, “Parliament is a toxic workplace with a systematic bullying and harassment problem, a sweeping new review has confirmed.”

MPs come out of the report very badly. For example, the review reports the view of staff that MPs are “treated like gods” with a “master servant relationship”. Debbie Francis “described hearing about unreasonably aggressive behaviour, language or gestures, that staff found intimidating and threatening. There was frequent shouting, abusive calls or texts, character assassination – like one staffer who was ‘constantly’ told they were stupid.”

Lucy Bennett has also summed up some of the statistics from the report describing the life of parliamentary staff: “Of the more than 1000 respondents, 29 per cent had experienced some form of bullying or harassment from either an MP or a manager, 30 per cent from peers and 24 per cent from a member of the public. Some 56 per cent had experienced destructive gossip, 47 per cent demeaning language, 53 per cent a lack of co-operation and support and 41 per cent aggressive behaviour” – see: Francis review into harmful behaviour in Parliament released.

There was a particularly gendered nature to a lot of the harassment. Bennett reports: “Sexist behaviour was prevalent, Francis found, with 60 per cent of those interviewed saying they had experienced offensive remarks, comments, jokes and gestures that were sexist. Some 35 per cent had experienced the same but of a sexual nature. The report also said that sexual harassment and sexual violence were likely to be under-reported.”

There are plenty of examples in the report of bad behaviour by politicians. For example, Anna Whyte reports the view of one staffer: “This workplace is so ridiculously demanding that only 24-year-olds and older people can survive in here and then only with self-medication. Anyone sane or with a family just gets out” – see: Bullying and harassment widespread in Parliament, report finds.

Of course, it’s hard to know how representative such examples are. But Whyte also quotes Debbie Francis saying she was not “cherry picking stories about a bad day or an off-coloured joke.” Instead, there was a clear picture “of a small number of Members whose behaviours fall well outside the normal range to be expected in a workplace”.

A number of MPs are apparently identified – but not named – in the report as being particularly toxic to work with. These MPs are apparently well-known within Parliament, with one staffer saying: “Everyone will give you the same list. It’s well known but there’s a conspiracy of silence about these few.” Likewise, another staffer said: “The few who are various shades of shits… and everybody knows who they are, and no-one every challenges them… at least obviously or effectively.”

All political parties and all MPs will now be looked at with suspicion. “How well do you treat your staff?” might very well be asked of all MPs. This report certainly doesn’t give clearance to any MPs, but instead says that some of them are very bad. Which ones will now be speculated on.

The staff involved have also been given anonymity in the report. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to see any current or former parliamentary staff standing up publicly to condemn behaviours or even particular politicians or parties.

On Twitter, a number of former staffers have posted to give their support for the report – for example, two former Green Party workers. Jack McDonald (@tautokai) has tweeted: “As a former parliamentary staffer for four years and my team’s staff rep on our management committee, this absolutely aligns with my experiences. Parliament is a toxic place for staffers to work and I’m so glad to no longer be there.”

And Asher Wilson-Goldman (@AsherGoldman): “As a former parliamentary staffer and union delegate for parliamentary staff (though I left just before the scope of this review began) I’m really glad this stuff is out in the open now. Looking forward to reading the recommendations.”

Finally, one of the most interesting commentaries on the report comes from blogger No Right Turn, who is particularly unimpressed that the badly-behaving MPs are not being outed: “The report of course refuses to name those MPs, meaning that the independent reviewer is effectively part of this conspiracy of silence as well. Which is not acceptable. Naming names is the first step towards accountability, and that needs to happen if anything is to change” – see: A toxic workplace.

And he has a theory about what might be contributing to the toxic nature of parliamentary working conditions: “it’s worth noting that both of the publicly-identified parliamentary bullies (Jami-Lee Ross and Meka Whaitiri) previously served as member-support staff, meaning their bullying behaviour may have been institutionalised into them. Its rather like intergenerational child-abuse: today’s abusive MP’s were normalised to abusive habits by their past exposure to a toxic, abusive institution.”

By Glenda Willie in Port Vila

Voters in Vanuatu will be given the opportunity to vote for political reform laws in the country’s first ever referendum in June this year.

The Chairman of the Task Force on the Constitutional Review, Minister Ralph Regenvanu explained that the voting process would be similar to the general elections.

All eligible voters will vote in the existing polling stations. According to the Task Force Chairman, on voting day which is June 4, 2019, a question in relation to the reform will be asked.

READ MORE: Public consultation on Vanuatu political reforms

Referendum planned for June 4. – Vanuatu Daily Post

“Those who agree with the question will indicate their answer with a green card and those who disagree with a red card,” he told the Vanuatu Daily Post.

Minister Regenvanu confirmed a budget had been secured for the national referendum.

-Partners-

There is also a budget for mass national awareness into this historic event.

“This week the government will commence with the consultations with national institutions such as the Vanuatu National Council of Women (VNCW), Vanuatu Christian Council (VCC) and all the provincial centers prior to the final national consultation on Political Parties Bill which is scheduled to take place at the Chiefs’ Nakamal on February 22, 2019,” he said.

‘Mass awareness’
Regenvanu further stated that based on the outcome of the final consultation, the bill and constitutional amendment would be taken before Parliament in March to be passed.

“Once it’s passed, we will organise the national mass awareness ahead of the referendum. The awareness will take place in April and May.”

A timetable has been prepared on the consultations schedules of all the respective provincial centers. The consultation in Shefa Province will be held on January 31 at the Shefa Provincial Headquarter.

Minister Regenvanu is currently conducting consultations on this proposed political reform law in his capacity as a Member of Parliament for the Port Vila Constituency.

Prime Minister Charlot Salwai initially asked all MPs to consult with their constituencies and obtain their views regarding the proposed package when he introduced the proposed political reform package in Parliament last December.

This is part of the government’s efforts to introduce laws for the purpose of reducing political instability and enhancing the integrity of Parliament and its members.

The proposed political reform package consists of one new law, an amendment to the Constitution, and amendments to two existing laws.

The four proposed Bills are:

1. A new law, the Bill for the Political Parties (Regulation) Act
2. An amendment to the Constitution, The Constitution (Seventh)(Amendment) Act
3. Bill for the Representation of the People (Amendment) Act
4. Bill for the Charitable Associations (Incorporation)(Amendment) Act

Glenda Willie is a Vanuatu Daily Post journalist. This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

by Dr Bryce Edwards

There’s always been a strong tension in politics between politicians’ right to privacy and the demands of political accountability. The difficult question is: which of these ideals should be paramount? This ethical question has been ever-present throughout the whole Jami-Lee Ross mega-scandal. And one of the most contentious media questions has been about whether National MP Sarah Dowie should be identified publicly as the woman who apparently had an extra-marital affair with Ross for over two years. 

This has now been decided, with the publication [Friday] morning on the New Zealand Herald front page of a story by David Fisher, in which he explains: “Ross, 33, has previously named Invercargill MP Dowie, 43, as one of the women with whom he had an extra-marital relationship while National MP for Botany” – see: Police probe text allegedly sent from phone of MP Sarah Dowie to Jami-Lee Ross.

Fisher reports: “Ross and Dowie were understood to have been in a relationship for more than two years. It is believed to have ended around May. During that time, Dowie and Ross were both in marriages with children each. Dowie and her husband later separated.”

Previously, Fisher explains, even though Ross had told journalists about the affair “the Herald and Newstalk ZB obscured Dowie’s name from statements made by Ross. The decision to disclose her identity now comes after police have confirmed that a text message allegedly sent from the phone of Dowie – a sitting MP – is under investigation by police.”

The text message to Ross included the statement “You deserve to die”. Fisher explains why this is important: “The text message raised questions over whether there was a breach of the Harmful Digital Communications Act, passed under National and voted for by Dowie. The law regulated digital communications, including text messages, making it illegal to urge someone to self-harm.”

The police investigation was revealed on Tuesday by Newshub and Stuff – you can see both reports and interviews here – see Tova O’Brien’s Jami-Lee Ross says abusive text triggered his mental breakdown, and Tracy Watkins’ Police investigate text sent to Jami-Lee Ross as disgraced MP eyes return to Parliament.

Both of these items revealed important parts of the story. For example, Ross is reported in Watkins’ story as explaining his suicidal feelings on the night that he read the text message: “I just didn’t feel like existing any more, I didn’t feel like I had anything left. So on that night the police were contacted. I didn’t know at the time but they had deployed the police dogs, there was a police helicopter, there were ground units looking for me, they had stopped the train on the train tracks because I told my wife that I was on train tracks.”

The media’s decision to identify Dowie

There will be plenty of debate about whether the media outlets have done the right thing in “outing” Sarah Dowie. For instance, on Twitter, lobbyist Neale Jones‏ responded to the news: “This makes me uneasy. I realise a police investigation does create a public interest, but given what we know about how JLR victimises women I don’t think Dowie’s name should have been released.”

Yet the decision by media outlets to name Dowie became virtually inevitable once a police investigation into the texting became known. After all, has there ever been a case of the media not identifying an MP who is known to be under investigation by the police?

As Barry Soper has explained today, “It’s not the Parliamentary Press Gallery’s job to protect MPs when a police investigation is under way” – see: Sarah Dowie, the police inquiry, and the text from her phone. Soper, who is the political editor of Newstalk ZB – the radio stablemate of the Herald – also adds: “The decision to name Dowie in no way countenances the behaviour of Ross towards the women who have anonymously made claims of harassment and bullying against him.”

The contents of the text to Ross are also republished by Soper: “Before you interpret this as your usual narc self – don’t. Interpret it as me – you are a f***ing ugly MF pig. Shave that f***ing tuft of hair off your f***ing front of skull head and own your baldness – you sweaty, fat, toe inturned mutant. You deserve to die and leave your children in peace and your wife out of torment – f***er!”

Virtually all other media outlets have followed the Herald’s lead today. For example, Stuff’s political editor Tracy Watkins published the following story: Sarah Dowie named as National MP investigated over text to Jami-Lee Ross. In this, Watkins reports “National’s Invercargill MP Sarah Dowie has been widely linked to the text on social media but has only been named by news media now because of the police investigation. She has not responded to texts and calls and Stuff has been told she will not be speaking publicly.”

The Herald has also followed up David Fisher’s revelation with another report about how the police have not yet contacted Dowie in their investigations, and National Party activists in Dowie’s Southland electorate aren’t talking to the media about the issue – see: Text message investigation: No immediate show of support for National MP Sarah Dowie over Jami-Lee Ross text.

Previously, Dowie’s local newspaper, The Southland Times, has taken a close interest in the story, publishing two very sharp editorials aimed at the local MP, but without identifying her. The first, Another issue arises from the Ross case, raised the question of whether the then-anonymous MP should face charges for her text under the Harmful Digital Communications Act. The newspaper concluded: “When more information is provided, as it must be, the appropriate consequences for the text sender – including whether she can stay in her role – then become a legitimate issue.”

A second Southland Times editorial was much more pointed, accusing the unnamed local MP of “hypocrisy” – see: ‘Moving on’ is not acceptable. The editorial included a list of questions for the MP and her party:

• “Has a separate investigation been launched to speak to the MP who reportedly sent his text?
• What discussions has the party had with the MP who reportedly sent a text like that?
• Has that MP been censured, faced internal discipline, or been stood down from duties? If no action has been taken by the party, why not?
• Does the National Party believe that the text message sent breached the Harmful Digital Communication Act?
• Does the National Party still believe the MP, who reportedly sent the text, is still fit to be an MP and represent the National Party, given they reportedly sent a text saying someone deserved to die?
• Has the MP offered to stand down? Or, are they still carrying out their duties as normal?”

Late last year I also covered the issue of whether the media should, or would, identify Sarah Dowie as the MP mixed up in the Jami-Lee Ross scandal – see: The Media’s fraught role in the Jami-Lee Ross scandal. This included the different views of a number of people on the issue of identifying Dowie.

Probably the most interesting was that of veteran journalist Graham Adams, who wrote the following on Facebook in favour of naming Dowie: “the female MP whose name has been frequently mentioned on social media represents a conservative electorate, is socially conservative herself and has promoted family values from her first days in Parliament. I think the public should always been told when an MP’s publicly professed values are at sharp variance to their own private behaviour. That is an obligation the media should fulfil. Furthermore, she has no right to privacy when she has anonymously and publicly shamed Jami-Lee Ross in the Newsroom piece by Melanie Reid. She’s an MP and a highly educated professional whose actions should be held to account. If she had any courage, she would come clean herself.”

In another article, Adams also raised questions about whether the media was being inconsistent or cowardly in avoiding publishing the MPs’ name – see: The Jami-Lee Ross saga: Questions around cover-ups continue.

The possibility of Sarah Dowie being prosecuted

Will Sarah Dowie actually be prosecuted by the police for the text to Jami-Lee Ross? There are certainly some who think this is over the top – for example, rightwing commentator Matthew Hooton tweeted this morning in response: “FFS. What a lot of nonsense, and a shameful waste of @nzpolice resources.”

In David Fisher’s article today, the analysis of Netsafe chairperson Rick Shera is reported: “Shera said the new law allowed serious emotional distress to be a trigger for action, meaning it could be enough for conviction – or a civil case – if the recipient of a message seriously considered self-harm. In criminal cases, it was necessary to show the ‘intent’ behind sending the message. The context in which it was sent, the resilience of the person who received it and the age of the people involved were also factors considered. The legislation shows someone convicted of inciting someone to self-harm or suicide could face up to three years in prison.”

But there is a “high bar for prosecution” according to Lucy Bennett’s article, National MPs staying quiet on latest Jami-Lee Ross foray into the public. Reporting on the views of Netsafe chief executive Martin Cocker, Bennett says: “Any prosecution would have to take into consideration the context in which the comment was made but under the Act, a single text message inciting suicide could be considered a harmful digital communication.”

Cocker adds: “Whether a person complains is a significant factor for the police in considering whether to take a prosecution because so often with armful digital communications stuff it’s wrapped up in very personal, complex cases where prosecution may not be in everybody’s best interests. Police have got to take that into consideration”.

Blogger No Right Turn sees some poetic justice in the police investigation, because “Back in 2015, she voted for National’s Harmful Digital Communications Act, an overly-broad law which criminalised exposing corrupt politicians on the internet. Now, she’s being investigated for possible prosecution under that law” – see: Hoist by her own petard.

He also says: “A lot depends on what exactly the police decide to charge her with. Because the ‘inciting suicide’ offence carries a maximum penalty of three years, meaning that if Dowie is convicted, she would automatically lose her seat in Parliament. And if the Police don’t charge her with that, its going to look like another case of them going soft on politicians, just as they have done in the past.”

David Farrar has blogged about both the media naming Dowie and the police investigating her, and is highly dismissive – see: Dowie named. In terms of the investigation, Farrar doesn’t believe there’s any chance of a prosecution: “The idea that a solitary ‘I hate you and wish you were dead’ text message as a relationship broke up could be in breach of the law, is risible. If so, hundreds of thousands of people are probably also criminals. Merely saying I wish you were dead is not the same as incitement.”

Finally, the must-read Jami-Lee Ross story of the week is his 2600-word statement on Facebook: Leaving bitterness and hatred behind.

by Dr Bryce Edwards

The week before Christmas was dominated by what may actually have been the most important political issue of the year in New Zealand – revelations that government agencies have spied on New Zealanders through the use of private investigators. The matter ended up being somewhat buried in the end-of-year chaos, and perhaps conveniently forgotten about by politicians with an interest in the issue remaining unresolved.

Yet the story isn’t going away. Today, the Herald published revelations about how the private investigations firm Thompson & Clark was previously employed by government-owned Southern Response insurance to review Official Information Act answers about the use of the private investigations firm itself – see Lucy Bennett’s Megan Woods seeks answers on Southern Response’s use of private investigators.

Here’s the key part of the story: “In January 2017, when Woods was the opposition spokeswoman on the Christchurch quake recovery, Thompson & Clark Investigations Ltd (TCIL) invoiced Southern Response $2070 for reviewing a response to an Official Information Act request from the Labour Party research unit on its use of TCIL.”

The article reports on how “TCIL also appears to advise Southern Response on how to circumvent public scrutiny.” For example, Thompson & Clark gave the following advice to Southern Response’s chief executive: “to get around disclosure, privacy and OIA issues, we normally set up a discreet email address for you – in Gmail or similar … do you want us to set up a discreet email account for you – or do you want to?”

The original “explosive” SSC report

Despite the State Services Commission report being released during the busy period just prior to Christmas – leading to what some see as a lack of media coverage and scrutiny of the issues – there have been some excellent articles and columns published about it.

Andrea Vance produced some of the best coverage of the report and the aftermath. Her first report, Security firm spied on politicians, activists and earthquake victims, detailed the full extent of what had been uncovered by the report into government agencies using private investigators. Overall, she said that the “explosive report details a slew of damning revelations”.

Vance followed this up with an in-depth article, Public service bosses ignored warnings about Thompson & Clark for years, which revealed that “for a decade public service bosses ignored the warnings about Thompson & Clark. Their tentacles were everywhere. Dozens of ministries and agencies used their services – and yet no-one in the upper echelons of the public service questioned their reach or influence.”

According to Vance, “officials became drunk on the power of the information offered up by security firms like Thompson & Clark. It allowed them to keep tabs on their critics and stave off any reputational damage.” She also argues that “A cavalier attitude to personal and sensitive information, and a troubling disregard for the democratic right to protest, was allowed to flourish within the public service over 15 years and successive governments.”

Hamish Rutherford produced some excellent analysis, explaining: “In an age where the use of contractors is already under scrutiny, a string of government agencies have effectively outsourced snooping, in some cases for highly questionable reasons. In some cases this was done with a lack of clear contracts, creating a fertile atmosphere for mission creep” – see: Use of private investigators exposes carelessness about role of the government.

Rutherford writes about how remarkable it is that public servants weren’t aware (according to the report) that what was going on was unacceptable. He therefore concludes: “we are reading about public servants who appeared to be seduced by private investigators, who decided to make their job easier without considering the implications for democratic rights, or the need to remain neutral. Weeding out improper behaviour may take work, but it seems the report exposes examples where public servants need to be told what their job involves, which would be a far more fundamental problem.”

RNZ’s Tim Watkin also has some strong analysis of what occurred, saying that the report on the state snooping “is a bit of a page-turner and a terrifying read for anyone who cares about the integrity of the public sector” – see: Heart of Darkness in the public sector.

According to Watkin, the situation is perplexing, given the risk-averse nature of the public service: “My concern is what this says about the culture at the heart of our public service. How did leaders who are by the very definition of their roles meant to be servants of the public decide that this level of covert surveillance was a good idea? Government agencies are typically so risk averse these days that they have multiple managers signing off press statements and an inability to make a decision on which pencils or toilet paper to buy without first clearing it with the minister’s office. Yet they are willing to subject those ‘ordinary New Zealanders” to secret surveillance.”

Possibly, Watkin says it’s the very risk-averse nature of the current public service that has caused them to be more open to snooping on citizens: “there seems to be a deep-seated sense of butt-covering and paranoia”. This is the very point made by Gordon Campbell in his blogpost, On why Thompson + Clark are just the tip of the iceberg.

In recent years, according to Campbell, the public service has become politicised, meaning that public servants have become more sensitive to the political needs of their ministers rather than the public good. This means that snooping on citizens and protestors starts becoming sensible, and to dissent against breaches of ethics in the public service has become much more dangerous for your career.

Not surprisingly, some of the strongest condemnation of state snooping on citizens has come from those organisations known to be affected – especially environmental groups. Former Green co-leader, and now Greenpeace head, Russel Norman emphasises the anti-democratic nature of what has been going on: “The chilling effect of being under constant and intrusive surveillance for simply campaigning on important social issues, fundamentally corrodes what it means to live in a free and democratic society. We’ve learnt that under the previous government, no-one was safe from being spied on if they disagreed with government policy” – see: Rotten to the core: The chilling truth revealed by the SSC report.

Norman concludes: “The State Services Commission (SSC) investigation may well be one of the most important examinations into the inner workings of the state that we’ve seen in New Zealand. I’d go as far as to call it our Watergate moment.”

If that sounds like the expected complaints of an activist, then it’s also worth reading what former United Future leader Peter Dunne had to say in his column, Only a first step in the data battle.

Dunne explains what has occurred as being “a gross breach of that implicit covenant between the Government and its citizens”, and he raises serious questions about how much more privacy is being curtailed by government agencies. In particular: “Was any information provided, formally or informally, to the intelligence services by Thompson and Clark, and was any information gathered at the behest of the intelligence services?”

Newspaper editorials have also condemned what has been uncovered in the public service. The Otago Daily Times has a strongly-worded editorial about the dangers to democracy uncovered in the report: “It blasts a warning about the insidious nature of state power and the need for vigilance and protection. Those who would disregard civil liberties for what they might think is the greater good should think again. Big brother and big sister are an ever-present threat. This is even more so in the electronic age. It was first thought the internet might lead to more freedom and more opportunity for dissent. But the massive losses of privacy, the ease with which data is collected and modern data analysis all hand more potential power and surveillance ability to big business and big government” – see: An ‘affront to democracy’.

In Christchurch, The Press has been asking important questions about what the report has revealed – see the editorial: More questions about spies and the public service. Here are the concluding questions: “The public needs to know more about this scandal that is so contrary to the way we expect our public servants to behave on our behalf. The public wants to know who approved of this surveillance, why it was considered necessary in a democracy and, perhaps most important of all, how much was really known about it by the ministers in charge.”

Will anything actually be done about the spying scandal?

The biggest risk to arise out of the controversial investigation into government agencies’ misuse of spying on citizens is that nothing further will now occur. So despite new stories being published about the state surveillance, there’s a danger that we are coming towards the end of the scandal, with no significant reform being offered to correct the problems.

Although the Thompson & Clark firm has been discredited by the scandal, many are arguing that they are not actually the real problem. For example, Andrea Vance says: “although they took advantage, Thompson & Clark aren’t responsible for public service culture and the undermining of democratic rights. That lies with Peter Hughes. For public confidence to be fully restored, the public service must demonstrate accountability and accept culpability, starting from the top down.”

Perhaps it’s time for a proper official and independent commission of inquiry into the spying problems in the public service. Security analyst Paul Buchanan has been arguing for this. And Gordon Campbell agrees: “given that the Thompson+ Clark problem is a by-product of the politicisation of the public service, security analyst Paul Buchanan is dead right in calling for a public inquiry. Only a wide-ranging investigation can address the attitudinal issues and power relationships between ministerial staff and public servants, of which Thompson + Clark are merely one of the end results.”

Tim Watkin has also argued that more needs to happen: “The proper response to this report is not a few hours of tut-tuting, the Prime Minister expressing formulaic concern that the spying was “disturbing” and the symbolic resignation of a single chair. No, the proper response is a change to the public sector culture. So who will lead that?”

Long-time political activist Murray Horton also proposes an inquiry – see: Thompson & Clark just tip of spyberg. Let’s have an inquiry into whole covert world of state spying. Horton explains the significance of the latest changes in state surveillance of citizens, saying that there’s been two major changes: contracting the spying out (perhaps deliberately in order to escape rules), and expanding the targets beyond just activists.

Other activists – especially those affected by the state spying – put forward proposals for reform in Jessie Chiang’s article, Environmental groups call for change after security firm revelations. For example, Russel Norman calls for prosecutions of those involved, and for the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment to be broken up. And Kevin Hague from Forest and Bird says: “I’m encouraging state services to go back to [learning] how to operate as a state service… and your obligations to the public and not just to the government of the day”.

For more thorough reform suggestions, also see blogger No Right Turn’s A private Stasi. He says “Businesses like Thompson and Clark, whose service is explicitly anti-democratic, need to be made illegal and put out of business.”

Finally, there’s the issue of the breaches of rules by Crown Law when working for the Ministry of Social Development – which Andrea Vance has described as “one of the most shocking findings”. The chief executive of MSD at the time was Peter Hughes, who of course is now chief executive of the State Services Commission, and therefore in charge of the whole of the public service. There will therefore be suspicions of conflicts of interest in terms of resolving that issue, and Hughes has handed the ongoing task to his own deputy at the SSC. For the best discussion of all this, see Aaron Smale’s Hypocrisy at the highest levels.

Allegations of bullying and illegal activity in Parliament continue to dog National MP Maggie Barry, with leaks and anonymous interviews from former staff coming out daily since the Herald broke the story on Saturday. 

The latest startling allegations were broadcast this morning on RNZ, in an 11-minute interview with an anonymous former employee of Barry’s. The person claims: “She would call staff stupid, say that she couldn’t believe that they had been given a degree; she would talk about their sexuality behind their back to me and other staffers”. The whole interview is well worth listening to: Ex-staffer speaks out.

The complainant describes working for Barry: “It was Jekyll and Hyde stuff. It was terrifying at times. It rocketed from absurd one moment to terrifying the next. She would be absolutely lovely and then a small thing would trigger her and she’d be absolutely furious, just red-hot fury.”

The former staffer also made allegations that Barry requested that National Party campaign work be carried out which, if true, would be against the law. The former staffer said “about 50 per cent” of his work was actually for the National Party.

He claims: “The very first piece of work that I did on my very first day was to create her email newsletter which campaigned for Dan Bidois… and which also asked people to join the National Party… We collected membership funds, people would pay their membership dues at the electorate office… she would solicit membership from the office… All of those things are unlawful.”

Some of Barry’s conversations were recorded by staff, but he says: “She told staff to record her – and I wasn’t the first staff member to record her, other staff members recorded her. She told us that was a good idea because then she could go off to another meeting and we could go back and check the tape.”

He said Parliamentary Service had also encouraged him to make recordings after he complained to them about Barry’s behaviour. They told him to “document interactions” with the MP. And these recordings have now been supplied to RNZ and other media outlets.

This is well covered in Craig McCulloch’s news report, Maggie Barry bullying claims: Ex-staffer speaks out. This article confirms that “RNZ has seen text messages which appear to show Ms Barry requesting the staffer carry out political work during office hours.”

McCulloch also reports on another employee of Barry, who disputes the above allegations, saying “she had never been bullied by the MP in the six years she had worked with her”.

In terms of the recordings, she says she feels “betrayed and violated” by them. Similarly, Barry is also quoted objecting to this process of accusations: “It is a little odd and unfair having to answer allegations anonymously and also to be taped without my knowledge.”

Earlier allegations about Maggie Barry

The scandal actually broke on Saturday, when the Herald published Kirsty Johnston and Derek Cheng’s in-depth account of bullying in Barry’s office – see: Former staff accuse National MP Maggie Barry of bullying. Here’s the original list of Barry’s alleged crimes: “swore and yelled at staff; called an employee ‘stupid’; used derogatory terms about other elected officials, which made staff uncomfortable; referred to people with mental health issues using offensive terms like ‘nutter’; discussed her employees’ sexuality in the workplace; expected staff would do work for the National Party during office hours, which they felt unable to refuse while knowing it was wrong, because they were scared.”

The article appears to be based on claims made by the same person in the RNZ interview. He explains that he had gone to the media with his allegations in the wake of the Jami-Lee Ross scandal when National was downplaying bullying in the party: “When you’re the subject of bullying investigations it takes gall to claim that Jami-Lee Ross was a one-off, that there are no other bullies that the party is aware of”.

On Sunday, further allegations were published in Nicholas Jones and Kirsty Johnston’s National backs Maggie Barry as more allegations detailed. This article is based on details “outlined in a document by Parliamentary Service, summarising a meeting” with the former staffer.

Then on Monday, Newshub published yet more allegations, apparently from a different complainant, who described Barry’s office as a “toxic” workplace – see Anna Bracewell-Worrall’s Exclusive: National MP Maggie Barry hit with fresh bullying allegations.

Here’s the key part of the story: “the source said Ms Barry would lash out at staff and that she was ‘totally intimidating’. ‘She would attack and belittle your work in front of other people.’ They worked in her ministerial office, and said staff would break down in tears. The staff member said Ms Barry would treat everyone below her station with ‘utter contempt’ – including referring to officials in her ministerial departments as ‘hired help’.”

The article also presents Barry’s response: “I can’t comment on individual employment issues, but there were no investigations or formal employment complaints laid during my three years as Minister, nor were there issues raised with me by Ministerial Services”. However, Bracewell-Worrall reports, “No formal complaints were laid, as the staffer said they were worried it might harm their chances of getting more work at Parliament”.

Allegations of illegal use of taxpayer resources for electioneering

Although the Maggie Barry story has mostly focused on her alleged bullying, perhaps the more potentially explosive allegation is that she had her staff do party political work instead of parliamentary work. Of course, this is common in MPs offices, but because it is unlawful it is not normally made public. Party political work is not an allowed use of taxpayer resources, and parliamentary staff are supposed to only do work relating to parliamentary purposes.

This misuse of taxpayer funds is one of those open secrets in Wellington that isn’t normally reported or debated because all the parties do it, and therefore none of them have an interest in exposing it. Occasionally, information comes to the surface – as it did after the 2005 general election, leading the parties to have to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars – but generally it remains hidden. It’s possible that now, with the allegations about Barry, we’ll see much more coming out about this misuse.

This allegation was made in the original report on this scandal, but yesterday Newshub published information about the existence of an email allegedly from Barry: “Newshub has seen an email from Ms Barry instructing a ministerial staff member to work on a letter to National Party members. The email was sent during a work day to a parliamentary email address. National refused to discuss the email without a seeing a copy of it. Newshub had agreed with its source not to share the email” – see Anna Bracewell-Worrall’s Exclusive: Leaked email reveals Maggie Barry told parliamentary staff to do National Party work which could be unlawful.

The analysis of electoral law expert Andrew Geddis is reported in the article: “When you have an email like this sent during work time, it looks very much like they are being asked to do it on the taxpayer dollar – and that’s what they are not allowed to do.”

Geddis is also quoted by Audrey Young in a previous report: “Taxpayer funding to hire MPs’ staff is given so that they can do their jobs as elected representatives, not to help them win re-election… If it gets misused for party purposes, sitting MPs get a massive advantage against their unfunded challengers” – see: Bridges says Barry management was no cause for concern, welcomes advice on definition of ‘political work’.

Geddis believes that “the situation may need closer scrutiny”, and he cites the Auditor General launching an inquiry into a similar issue in 2005, which “found that parties in Parliament had unlawfully spent $1.17 million on what he deemed to be political advertising”. He says that “It may be something similar is needed in this case”.

Debates about bullying

In dealing with some of the allegations about Maggie Barry, Simon Bridges and Paula Bennett have been emphasising that Parliament is a “robust workplace”, the implication being that what some people call “bullying” might well just be the natural high-pressure behaviour of an intense place like Parliament. Bennett has also said there needs to be a balance where people aren’t “too scared to have a joke or say something that could be cut and pasted and misconstrued in some way.”

It turns out that some of these statements have been created by National’s spindoctors, and distributed to all National MPs so that they can repeat them to the public – see Jason Walls’ Internal National Party email advising MPs on what to reply to bullying questions has been leaked.

But it’s not just National questioning what is considered bullying. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has also spoken out on the issue this week, saying “The reality is that we are upon a new PC age where half the zing, excitement and enjoyment of life is being gutted and sucked out of society by people who decide that they will be the language Nazis” – see Scott Palmer’s Winston Peters blames ‘language Nazis’ for bullying scandals. This was in response to RadioLive’s Mark Sainsbury pondering whether the whole debate is “all a beat-up”, suggesting “everything is bullying these days” and it seems like “bullying season.”

Peters has also explained that the nature of Parliament leads to difficult interactions with staff: “If you’ve got a crisis on, that’s a serious crisis on, and someone is not stepping up then tempers tend to be raised and people tend to react. But that’s part and parcel of life. If you think we can have a tranquil, peaceful, calm life while you’re trying to handle crisis after crisis, and difficulties and all sorts of tension then I think we’re in dream land” – see Jamie Ensor’s Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters can’t be sure he hasn’t been a bully.

For the best discussion of bullying in Parliament, it’s well worth reading the observations of RNZ’s Peter Wilson, who is a 30-year veteran of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, and has probably seen more of what goes on in the institution than almost anyone – see his opinion piece, Bullying and bad behaviour: Parliament’s perfect storm.

He says: “High stakes, high stress, bad temper and bullying often go together and in Parliament it’s a perfect storm.” But here’s his main point: “Parliament is by its nature a hostile environment. Opposition MPs criticise and vilify government MPs, and they in turn are attacked by the other side. That’s a way of life in an adversarial political system. However, the hostility can and does boil over. An MP who comes out the debating chamber furious about being humiliated and encounters an errant staffer isn’t likely to be an understanding boss. And when a mistake made by an official leads to public embarrassment, such as relying on incorrect information, the reaction can be dire.”

Wilson also points to the fact that a lot of recent allegations are against women, so “the problem isn’t restricted to powerful men”. Also, he makes the point that not all MPs are bullies or involved in bad behaviour. He cites Bill English as a good example, saying he “had a reputation for being a really good boss to work for and the pressure he was often under was as high as it gets. He was said to never raise his voice in the office.”

Finally, could the current allegations against Maggie Barry have an element of internal National Party dirty politics? I made the case for this on Monday on Newshub’s AM Show – see: Maggie Barry bullying claims possibly a ‘Nat-on-Nat attack’ – Bryce Edwards.

by Dr Bryce Edwards

The bad behaviour of New Zealand politicians has been a major focus of this year in politics. Actually, this has been happening throughout the world recently, as the growing mood against elites and sexual harassment has led to a refreshing openness and scrutiny of what goes on behind the scenes in places of power.

2019 might well see further revelations about politicians’ wrongdoing, especially because of the newly-launched parliamentary inquiry into the treatment of staff by politicians. Parliament’s Speaker, Trevor Mallard, has essentially given the green light for allegations about misbehaving politicians to be brought out into the open, via his official “Bullying inquiry”. The inquiry will be led by Debbie Francis, an independent external reviewer who has recently completed work on bullying and harassment at the NZ Defence Force.

Will the review be effective or a whitewash?

Will complainants confine themselves to using the official channels of what is an inquiry with a relatively narrow ambit and very limited ability to research and achieve much? Already, former parliamentary staff are choosing to go outside of the review, using the media to make their complaints public – see Kirsty Johnston and Derek Cheng’s Herald article from the weekend: Former staff accuse National MP Maggie Barry of bullying.

The Barry scandal may be the first of many revelations and allegations to come out about MPs in this fashion. Staffers are likely to see that Mallard’s review is relatively limited in scope and likely impact, and instead choose to go public. I explained some of the review’s shortcomings on The AM Show this morning – see: Simon Bridges bats off Maggie Barry allegations, says staff have a ‘spring in their step’.

Although Trevor Mallard has received plaudits for launching the review of behaviour in Parliament, really it was inevitable, considering some of the recent revelations about bullying in Parliament. It’s probably the least Mallard could do in this situation, without being accused of a cover-up. By front-footing the problem, but at the same time allocating few resources and setting such a limited scope, Mallard is likely hoping he has done just enough to assuage public concern.

Herald columnist Lizzie Marvelly has some similar concerns, arguing the inquiry needs more teeth: “While I support the spirit of the review, from the few details currently released to the public, I doubt it has been equipped with enough firepower to make a significant difference. It doesn’t have the power to subpoena documents, and will rely heavily on self-disclosure from affected staff. Most of the information gathered will never be released to either the public or Parliamentary Services” – see: What will spill out when the rug is lifted?

She also worries that the abilities and inclinations of the politicians to suppress negative information will kick in: “if MPs or senior staff members suspect that their conduct may be reported to the review, what lengths will they go to in order to suppress information? At this stage, within its current framework, the ability of the review to fulfil its brief and deliver the impetus for change raises more questions than it answers.”

There are also questions about whether the review is independent enough. Although Trevor Mallard has hired an independent investigator, it’s hard to imagine Debbie Francis will be really applying rigorous scrutiny to the Office of the Speaker. So, there’s an argument to made for having the investigation taken right out of the arena of the Speaker. After all, Mallard himself has something of a reputation as a bully, and so this review might be seen as being compromised by him.

For more on Mallard’s alleged bullying, see Anna Bracewell-Worrall’s ‘He was a bully’: Christine Rankin accuses ‘crude’ Trevor Mallard of bullying. In this, former head of WINZ, “Christine Rankin says she was subjected to a campaign of bullying from senior ministers who wanted her out – and that Speaker Trevor Mallard was among them”. Rankin makes some specific allegations against Mallard: “He was a bully… They were all bullies and they revelled in it.” According to this article, Rankin “says ministers would whisper and laugh about her during meetings – with Mr Mallard using language that still makes her too uncomfortable to repeat.”

Problems with employment arrangements in Parliament

The review will need to deal with some of the core issues about how Parliament operates – especially in terms of the peculiar employment arrangements of the staff that work for politicians. Although their bosses are in practice the MPs, legally they are actually employed by the two main agencies of the Parliamentary Service and Ministerial Services.

This means that, quite often when there is a problem between an MP and employee, a payment is simply made to the employee to make the problem go away. The employee leaves with a payout, and the taxpayer pays for it, with no great consequences for the MP.

This is explained by Act Party leader David Seymour: “There is no other workplace in New Zealand where you can be a bad boss and get rid of somebody, no questions asked, and some other entity – in this case the Parliamentary Service – picks up the tab. I think that’s actually the biggest problem here” – see Derek Cheng’s Winston Peters has ‘no idea’ why bullying review into Parliament is taking place.

According to this article, Seymour believes that “that MPs could essentially treat their staff with impunity”. He therefore has a solution: “I, David Seymour, should be the employer of my staff, and then I can face the same employment laws that every other employer faces.”

National Party blogger David Farrar has also commented on this problem: “The Parliamentary Service is the employer and hence they pay for any costs of any employment disputes etc. There isn’t a huge financial incentive for MPs to avoid employment disputes. If you changed the arrangement so the parliamentary party or even the MP was the formal employer, then you could well end up with better incentives as if you have to pay out a dissatisfied staff members say $15,000 that is $15,000 less money you have for newsletters etc” – see: Maggie Barry accusations.

A further problem is that the parliamentary employment agencies have a reputation for being totally subservient to the MPs, which makes the staff even more vulnerable. One former staffer is quoted by Henry Cooke saying: “When you would go to Ministerial Services they very much had the attitude of ‘Yes, Minister’ ‘Whatever the minster wants the minister gets. They didn’t give a s….'” – see Henry Cooke’s Is Parliament a safe place to work? MPs and Speaker disagree.

This is best illustrated by Melanie Reid and Cass Mason’s important article, Bullied at Parliament – and nobody helped. This tells the story “of one woman who says she received no support when she was bullied by Jami-Lee Ross.”

This account suggests that the Parliamentary Service was aware of bullying against staff of Jami-Lee Ross, but did little to help them, instead just suggesting they resign. According to the staff member working for Ross, the Parliamentary Service staff “would just say ‘Look, you’re the one in the wrong here. You’ve been given a great opportunity by giving you a job … [Ross] has done so much for you and this is how you repay him?” The staff member now says this about the Parliamentary Service: “I wish that they would realise how crazy they were for defending Jami-Lee for everything he did.”

Just how toxic is Parliament?

Already this year, there have been major scandals around allegations of bullying and misbehaviour relating to Meka Whaitiri and Jami-Lee Ross, and so it’s not surprising that people are starting to ask questions about standards in Parliament and whether these scandals are indicative of the political working environment.

Obviously Trevor Mallard thinks things are bad enough to have this inquiry, and in launching it he’s exclaimed that “Incidents have occurred over many years in this building that are unacceptable” and “I wouldn’t recommend my kids work there”. Some other MPs agree – Kris Faafoi says that he had “seen some things I probably wouldn’t want to see”.

But Shane Jones says “In my experience it has been a relatively benign place to work”. And his own boss, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, has replied to questions from the media like this: “The only person who has been seriously bullied around this place is one Winston Peters by people like you”.

Henry Cooke also has another very good article that explains the new review, its limitations, and the unique employment relations of staff – see: Extensive review into bullying and harassment at Parliament. He reports on Mallard’s observations “that reviews into law firms have inspired the review, as they were somewhat similar workplaces with entrenched hierarchies, long hours, and a powerful ‘bubble’.” It is also noted that “Parliament is often a very stressful workplace, with intense public scrutiny, party loyalty, many deadlines, and a culture of long hours.”

Lizzy Marvelly’s column is also very good on this: “I would argue that politicians are an interesting breed, and having so many of them in one place, variously vying for power, advocating for passion projects, feathering their own nests and/or trying to save the world, is a recipe for fireworks. In a game in which fortunes can change with the gusty Wellington wind, it’s not difficult to imagine that such a charged environment might drive some rather heated workplace relations. It should surprise exactly no one that bullying and improper conduct takes place at Parliament. I would even venture that it may be worse than many other workplaces.”

Finally, one of the people who knows the culture of Parliament best is the AM Show’s Duncan Garner, who shared his own experiences last week: “I’d worked in Parliament for 17 years, and I’d become like them: mean, combative, cynical and I drank too much. I had to get out” – see: Parliament review will reveal drinking, cheating, sexual abuse, bullying – Duncan Garner.

Garner concludes with what he expects: “Parliament could be a bomb site by the end of this inquiry. You see that place rewards the winner and the loser is humiliated. The more public the humiliation then job done… I expect this review to highlight the total power imbalance between the worker and the MP, the drinking, the relationships, the Wellington wife, the sex, wanted and unwanted, the daily humiliation of the weak and of the wrong.”

by Dr Bryce Edwards.

Yesterday marked 125 years to the day since women first voted in a New Zealand General Election. However, celebrations received a reality check when an inconvenient truth resurfaced in a new campaign – the fact that not all New Zealand women have suffrage, because prisoners are still denied the right to participate in elections. 

The campaign to give the vote to prisoners has been launched by the justice reform campaign group, JustSpeak, which has started a new petition: Right to Vote for All. The petition, which includes an open letter to Minister of Justice, Andrew Little, currently has around 200 signatories.

Here’s the key message: “We believe that in a fair and democratic society all members should have the right to vote, and people living in prisons are part of our society. They are valued members of communities and families. To take away their right to vote is an unfair disenfranchisement.”

In conjunction with this new campaign, two very compelling videos have been released that deal with suffrage issues and voting. Yesterday, the first video about women in prison not being able to vote was launched: Can’t: the NZ women still unable to vote, 125 years after suffrage.

And today, the second in the series “examines some of the many and complex reasons why, after 125 years of women’s suffrage, so many women don’t vote” – see: Don’t: the NZ women still not voting, 125 years after suffrage.

To accompany these videos, the Spinoff website is also running a series of articles on prisoners’ suffrage. The most important one for explaining the arguments in favour of prisoners being able to enrol and vote is by JustSpeak’s Tania Sawicki Mead and Ashelsha Sawant – see: To call ourselves a truly representative democracy, this voting law must change.

Looking at the current law that bans prisoners from voting, they say: “It’s the worst kind of anti-democratic law – harsh, disproportionate and fundamentally at odds with the idea that human rights belong to all of us.” And they also point out that New Zealand is an outlier in this regard: “Most democracies around the world either allow prisoners to vote or have recently reinstated their right to do so. New Zealand lags behind in comparison as one of the handful of countries who still have a blanket ban.”

For a poignant argument in favour of prisoner voting, it’s worth reading a very personal account from Awatea Mita, who has spent time in prison – see: A society that denies the incarcerated a vote is a society stamping on human rights. She argues: “Rehabilitation as a safe, responsible, and productive member of an egalitarian society must include the most basic right of the democratic process — the right to participate in choosing who governs, the right to vote. There is research that shows an association between civic engagement, such as being able to vote, and the reduction of offending.”

The role of the Supreme court in suffrage rights

The campaign for reform has been given a massive boost by the landmark New Zealand Supreme Court declaration earlier this month that the ban on prisoners voting – passed in 2010 as the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act – is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act. This is best covered by Sam Hurley in his news report, Supreme Court upholds decision saying ban on prisoner voting inconsistent with Bill of Rights.

This report quotes Justice Paul Heath, who made the decision in order to “draw to the attention of the New Zealand public that Parliament has enacted legislation inconsistent with a fundamental right”.

The article provides some history of the ban on prisoner voting in New Zealand. It also, interestingly, cites Jacinda Ardern’s strong opposition to the current voting ban, quoting her statements from when she was Labour’s spokesperson on Justice. For example, Ardern said, “This was an arbitrary law and one that is full of contradictions and inconsistencies” and “Parliament has a responsibility to respect fundamental rights for all. The Government now has a responsibility to assure all New Zealanders it understands that”.

For more on the process of the case being brought to the Supreme Court by current prisoner Arthur Taylor, see Alex Baird’s Kiwi prisoners’ right to vote upheld Supreme Court rules. Taylor appeared in the Supreme Court case via audio-video link from prison, and when he won the case, he says there was celebration from his fellow inmates. Taylor says: “Some of them have made me a cake out of biscuits and things they can buy on their purchases, so that was quite nice, the thought’s there anyway”.

Will the Government extend suffrage to prisoners?

The above article also quotes Justice Minister Andrew Little explaining that although the courts had ruled against the ban, he didn’t see it as a priority to correct the error. Instead, he explained that his priority was to fix the judicial-legislative constitution problems caused by the landmark ruling: “The priority is to get in place a process that requires parliament to respond to any declaration made by the courts on inconsistency with the Bill of Rights.”

Elsewhere, Andrew Little has said that, although he personally opposed the ban on prisoner voting rights, he didn’t see it as a “priority” for the current government, and he’s been reported as believing that “Ministers were unlikely to consider the issue for at least a year” – see RNZ’s Youth advocacy group disappointed in govt’s stance on prisoner votes.

This article also reports JustSpeak’s Tania Sawicki Mead’s response that Little’s stance “was hypocritical because in opposition Labour MPs opposed the law change banning voting”. Mead is quoted: “I think it’s a question of how much this basic issue of access to democracy and your fundamental right to participate is a priority to this government or not… I hope that they seriously consider making it a part of their legislative agenda next year.”

Leftwing blogger Martyn Bradbury has reacted with incredulity that the Labour-led Government would essentially oppose returning votes to prisoners, and argues that this decision is based on political pragmatism trumping principles: “Little’s kicked for touch so as to not infuriate NZs easily angered sensible sentencing lynch mob” – see: In just 7 words did Andrew Little demolish real prison reform?

Bradbury explains how the complete ban on prisoner voting came out of the National Party opportunistically playing to a conservative audience, but Labour is now doing the same: “So smart politics to play to the angriest and most easily upset elements off society, but to also shrug off the crucial point that prisoners do have human rights regardless of imprisonment actually cuts to the very heart of the issues Little is attempting to force change on.”

Another blogger, No Right Turn, is also outraged that Labour have decided not to advance a remedy for the problem with urgency: “This is simply not acceptable. When the Supreme Court makes a ruling like this, it should automatically become a priority for Parliament, and should be formally drawn to its attention for a response. The government has already signalled that that is what it wants to do in future, so why won’t it do it in this case? And there’s a pressing need: we’re having an election in 2020, and it would simply be unacceptable given the ruling for prisoners to be unable to vote in it” – see: “Not a priority”.

Furthermore, see his update from yesterday: “in Parliament today the government said that they hadn’t even considered the issue and that it wasn’t a priority for them. Which tells us everything we need to know. This government is not committed to fundamental human rights, and is quite willing to violate them for political profit” – see: Still not their priority.

For the best analysis on the Government’s reluctance to enact universal suffrage, see Gordon Campbell’s On prisoner voting. He points to New Zealand First as the primary barrier to reform.

Here’s Campbell’s main explanation: “Not for the first time, prisoners are being treated as political footballs. Just as the Key government played to the redneck vote back in 2010, Little seems OK about Labour becoming captive to the hardline ‘lock ’em up’ faction that exists within New Zealand First. Earlier this year, Little had been blindsided by NZF leader Winston Peters when Labour tried to scrap the “Three Strikes” legislation. Rather than risk losing a similar fight, Little now seems gun-shy about fighting at all on this issue.”

On the question of whether fixing the problem should be a priority, Campbell says this should be obvious: “Centre-left governments used to think that the rights of prisoners shouldn’t be sacrificed to indulge the desire for societal revenge. I’d also have thought that – when you’re the Justice Minister – defending section 12 of our Bill of Rights should be a priority.”

There is now a chance that the Government might be pressured to give the vote back to prisoners, with the Green Party launching their own campaign yesterday – see Henry Cooke’s Green Party makes call for law change to allow prisoners the right to vote.

According to this, the Green Party’s Justice spokeswoman Golriz Ghahraman “is asking Justice Minister Andrew Little to prioritise the change, but legislation would be needed, so NZ First would need to get onboard. The party has not ruled out attempting the change as a members’ bill.”

Finally, when we think about extending the electoral franchise, perhaps we need to think about lowering the qualifying age as well. Today, Azaria Howell has made the case for it being two years lower – see: Make it 16: a teenager on why we should lower the voting age.