Sage advice from Upton
November 18th, 2008 at 12:12 pm by David FarrarSimon Upton’s column is always a good read:
And Miss Clark certainly demands respect. Until well into her final term, I was expecting her to win a fourth election. If there is a prime minister in recent history who could have pulled it off, it was she.
There will be all sorts of tipping points and missteps diagnosed with the benefit of hindsight. But right at the outset of the Key administration I would like to highlight an issue of political chemistry that was to my mind insidiously corrosive for Labour.
Very simply, it was the most partisan government since Sir Robert Muldoon’s. And that partisan edge became very wearing.
This is something that has been under-reported.
Miss Clark’s political dna was not predisposed to reaching out any further than the minimum required by MMP’s arithmetic.
Upton suggests four things:
Make it an explicit policy that appointments to the boards of Crown-owned entities will be made strictly on merit. By definition, there will be Labour-leaning appointees who should continue to serve. But it would be entirely reasonable to ask all appointees to be prepared to offer their resignations so that reappointments can be the subject of proper scrutiny. That some of Miss Clark’s egregiously political appointments followed on a long tradition of such appointments by previous National administrations doesn’t enslave Mr Key to that tradition. He could change the game.
I find it incredible Mike Williams has not resigned all his boards yet. How can he serve John Key’s Government when he tried to dig up dirt linking John Key to a massive fraud scandal?
Announce that, from here on, the award of honours will be left in the hands of the governor-general. There can be no harm in our head of state (with some appropriate wise advisory committee) honouring worthy citizens without the party political advice of the government of the day.
Or maybe as a compromise have the very top honours like Order of New Zealand reserved for the Governor-General to decide. However as the PM appoints the Governor-General, this may just result in more partisan appointments as Governor-General.
Decide from day one that there is no need to make every Government press release a partisan declaration. Miss Clark’s media machine turned every announcement into a triumph for “the Labour-led Government”. It was tacky and dreary.
God yes.
Mr Key should make it clear from the outset that he expects public servants to provide free and frank advice that his Government will be happy to accept or reject as it sees fit. This is higher risk because the Official Information Act provides officials with an opportunity to game ministers by offering them explosive material that will swiftly find its way into the public domain. There is no easy answer here, but trust and candour can go a long way. I have reached the view that many policies are best developed in full view, with papers being placed on a ministry’s website before decisions are taken.
I would have all Cabinet papers go automatically on the web after six months.
Other things that would be good for the new Government to do:
- Not set up sham inquiries designed to find no wrong doing.
- Actually try and provide answers in the House that have some connection to the question asked
- Not delay OIA requests for months on end
Related posts:
- Sage Advice
- Upton on Peters
- Cactus Kate advice for Simon and Ali
- Yates has been appointed to four Boards in three months!
November 18th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Mike Williams will be waiting to see the size of the golden parachute.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
DPF:
“I would have all Cabinet papers go automatically on the web after six months;
Not set up sham inquiries designed to find no wrong doing
Actually try and provide answers in the House that have some connection to the question asked
Not delay OIA requests for months on end”
HEAR, HEAR. Bloody good call, DPF.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Mr. Upton is as usual living in his little parallel universe where everybody is pleasant and principled and believes in fairness. (respect for Helen Klark.. pfft, how detached from reality)
“I find it incredible Mike Williams has not resigned all his boards yet. How can he serve John Key’s Government when he tried to dig up dirt linking John Key to a massive fraud scandal?”
Dead right. So what I find incredible is that the Nats appear ready to tolerate Williams and other political appointees. Fire them all. Right now. These people have no principles. To expect them to resign is a demonstration of the weakness that has allowed the left to take control of so many of our public institutions. Get tough for chrissakes, and get rid of these bastards by any means possible. ..and if you can, take steps to ensure they never get a chance to be reappointed.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
“…the award of honours will be left in the hands of the governor-general. ”
That would require the Honours Secretariat being moved to Government House, rather than being a part of the Prime Minister’s office I suspect the PM would not want to give that up.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Redbaiter … how do you fire a person appointed by the GG for a finite term?
Better the suggestion (which I have long advocated) that all political appointees be required to tender their resignations pro forma following each and every election (even if the Party that appointed them wins).
It should be up the incoming government to accept or reject them.
Clean and simple.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
It would be great to have a less partisan administration. And I think that – with care – this would be more politically astute too. Simon is right that the relentless partisan hatred of Labour became very wearying, and (they’ll hate me for this comparison) very reminiscent of the behaviour of George W Bush.
[DPF: The hatred of Labour was over their behaviour. They caused it. I had huge disdain for the the final term of the Clark/Peters Government. But I have actually have no problems with the Goff/King Labour Opposition and while disagreeing on policies hope they can set a new course]
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
“all political appointees be required to tender their resignations pro forma following each and every election”
Yep fine, but who decides what appointment is “political’ and what isn’t? Better just to legislate to remove the positions. Being as the commissions or whatever are being run by commies, they’re probably all up to no good anyway.
Other things they need to do is cripple the partisan media. Make all newspaper, radio and televison advertising subject to a 50% sales tax. Remove all government advertising from the mainstream media and run in it a government produced gazette. Close down TV One. Charge an arm and a leg for radio and TV broadcast licences. Subject journalism schools to licensing and hit them too with massive registration fees. Give the propagandizing scum some of the medicine they’ve been begging for.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
“(they’ll hate me for this comparison) very reminiscent of the behaviour of George W Bush.”
Give an example.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Correct, this is basic politics that the Left understand. When you enter into political warfare and your opponent goes down, you do not then, after having won an election, offer your hand for them to stand back up. I’m not convinced National under Key know this. They are already in bed with racists and an anti-democractic hairdo. They’ve accepted that it was all just a misunderstanding and awfully regrettable. There are the seeds of the collapse for this new government right there. Inother countries they’d shoot the kind of traitor that would divide a nation.
Whether Key purposely sowed the seeds and already has a damage minimisation and exit strategy in place remains to be seen, but it’s highly unlikely given the lack of an earlier syncronised campaign strategy – if you could call it a strategy. (In fact someone, perhaps it was WhaleOil, was saying this morning that Steven Joyce ran National’s campaign. But didn’t John say he was running it?)
The feel good frenzy surrounding this current yet-to-be-government is shakey simply because it is based on feel good intent. Emotions are like water, not solid earth. It’s shakey. No amount of all of us just hoping beyond hope and all towing the party line and that no one should say anything against it will make it solid. The question is can it get to the next election in one piece- before the new emperor is naked?
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
I am still sittng by the phone waiting the call to chair the Truth and Retribution Committee I already have myl ist of fellow appointees who like me are raring to go. We have drawn up a list of the first tranche of guil……. defendents who will have ample opportunity to state their case before being sentnce and that sentence carried out.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
BAH!!!! It’s DNA! not dna! It’s capitalised because it’s an acronym! God that makes me mad…
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Xavier,
asap and Aids are in the Oxford English Dictionary as asap and Aids.
Times are changing too fast for old folk like you and me.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Mike williams is a greedy leech with few morals? Perhaps that explains him not giving up his board membership(s) (if I understand you correctly).
Key certainly needs to clean out the politically appointed people from government. Unfortunately, Helen would have ensured generous golden handshake provisions to block this.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
How can Mike Williams resign when the new government hasnt even been sworn in yet. – indeed some of the ministers are not officially MPs either.
meanwhile the new Minister of Tourism has his itinerary allready mapped out for the next month, mostly overseas of course
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
DNA is an abbreviation, or an initialism, but not an acronym. Acronyms have to be words (i.e. pronounce-able, like NATO or RADAR), if you have to read it out letter by letter, it’s not an acronym.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
I support DPF and Simon Upton on this. National should not go down the path of Labour as is being advocated by some of the commentators. That just creates a win/lose payoff for the country. A better choice is to focus on good governance rather than partisanship. This applies to the role of teh speaker as well.
The example of doing what is right is more effective short and long term, your oponent is then forced to adopt the same behaviours as that is the public expectation.
Re the OIA – The Treasury already has a process in place to proactively release information, other departments could follow this approach. There is already a requirement for depts to publish regulatory impact statements, although many are remiss in doing so and have often tried to get out of doing so. If officials are offering impartial expert advice in a free and frank ammner then they and they government should have little to fear from the OIA. It is harder for the public the argue against good advice and the government gets to make good decisions and show why they are good decisions, rather than just knee jerk responses or an ideological view.
This may go along way to improving the standards of the public sector and develop a generation of public servants who are able to provide professional considered advice to the government of the day regardless of political make-up. This helps build strong public institutions that the public has trust in and thereby is able to spend more time on providing delivery of services to the public rather than providing communications support.
A published process and criteria for the appointment of directors to Crown Entities and SOE’s may also be helpful – probably requires Treasury, SSC and DPMC playing nicely together. Getting good leadership into those positions regardless of political viewpoint is to important for NZ’s growth to not make the best use of limited talent we have in NZ. This needs to be considered by both labour and national as akin to there joint approach to trade.
I have more confidence at this point in time for John Key and Bill English to head in this direction than to be partisan. and we will all be better off if they do so.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
The Labour Government was actually pretty good at publishing the final cabinet papers for most of the major decisions that it made.
The real problem was that those papers were often themselves highly polished political documents that presented a single-sided case for whatever it was that the Government was proposing.
Clark’s greatest sin, to my mind, was the destruction of a climate of contestable advice, where officials gave “free and frank” advice that was actually considered by ministers.
Jim Bolger was never afraid to have the Treasury and others present very robust analysis of options. He had the fortitude to say “I have listened to your advice and I disagree with you. This is my decision.” He might have preferred a quiet life, but knew that the end result would be bad policy.
Clark, Cullen and Co never believed that others might actually have good ideas. They saw free and frank advice has simply giving the opposition material with which to attack the Government.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
> Other things that would be good for the new Government to do: Actually try and provide answers in the House that have some connection to the question asked.
I thought that would go without saying, or are you suggesting that National will play silly buggers in the House?
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
That is very nice, WhatwouldHayeksay; but maybe it is time to just go with the flow and do administrative cleanouts each time the government changes.
The socialists do not respect the rules, if conservatives insist on respecting them and hoping the socialists will learn by example, pffffffft…….all we’re doing is tying one hand behind our own backs.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Some MPs will, I’m sure (just as some Labour MPs surely did too). I recall in 2000 or so, going back through historic parliamentary questions to Housing NZ (so I could figure out how to answer a curly one myself), and I realised that at least one of the previous Nat ministers of housing was either incompetent, or deliberately answering with gibberish. Seeing as he’s still around, I tend to favour the latter theory.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
“Decided from day one that there is no need to make every government press release a partisan declaration.” Boy Simon sure got this one right. It’s been a pleasure over the last week to watch or listen to the news without that droning patronising voice coming through the speakers. No more proclamations to the peasants, no more sound bites on how the great Liarbore party has, through the goodness of it’s heart, installed it’s indulgences on the people. May we have many more weeks of this.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
People say “Oh what a good PM Helen Clark was” and “What a clever lady”
Had the truth been reported, as it will start to be. Without nasty viscous controlling retribution, as happened, she will increasingly be seen to be a Wanabe Dictator who was only ever married to Power and failed Policies in the Ultimate Term.
Sure, it wasn’t all bad, and there were no firing squads for dissenters. I refuse to give that bitch credit for anything as she was a fulcrum for an EVIL social experiment where Men were to be downtrodden and Heterosexual Women pushed out of the way.
Lesbianism isn’t good. It is simply a lifestyle option, perfectly allowable in the 21st Century. Pity Helen Clark could never admit to the Love that dare no speak its name. Instead becoming more and more isolated form reality with her Cohorts of fat ugly Dykes.
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
What in the name of good common sense made Labour think they could introduce the EFB and win an election??
When I bought this up at polytech, one of the tutors expressed it wasn’t policy that lost the labour vote
Those socialists can’t sleep straight at night.
and this was a journalism tutor with international journo exp. No wonder the media is xxxxxxxxxxed
Vote:November 18th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Wikiriwhis business – I don’t think the EFB actually mattered a gnats fart to the average person on the street. Most people are not political and would not see themselves as being afected by it. Being tough on crime, having a nice haircut, being able to thrash your kids, tax cuts and 9 years of accumulated sleaze on a tired government were a little bit more important.
Vote:November 19th, 2008 at 12:50 am
Bzzt, wrong. Helen Clark deserves only contempt.
With judgement like that it’s no wonder Hepatitis C remained unscreened on Simon Upton’s watch. To be fair, he was just carrying on the fine tradition Helen Clark had started of not giving a toss about “BAD BLOOD”, well of the physical variety in any case.
Vote:November 19th, 2008 at 7:44 am
» Not delay OIA requests for months on end
Bwha ha ha haha ha! cough cough, hack, ha ah ah ahaaahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa.
If Key can reform the Ministry attitude he’ll have gone a long way in making government work a lot more productively.
Vote: