PQs
May 12th, 2009 at 10:00 am by David FarrarMy general stance on OIA requests and PQs is that Ministers should look to comply in a timely manner with their obligations. Yes they can be annoying fishing expeditions, but that is the price of an open Government.
So I have had some sympathy for Chris Hipkins inability to get answers out of Richard Worth.
However upon reading that Chris has filed a massive 1,500 questions already, and how braod they are, my sympathies are starting to lean back. I’m not advocating MPs should have a limit on how many they can ask, but the broadness of Hipkins’ request is very very wide. Tracy Watkins has details:
8530 (2008) Question: Chris Hipkins to the Minister of Internal Affairs (10 Dec 2008): What are the dates and titles of all reports, briefings and submissions he has received from the Department of Internal Affairs since 19 November 2008?
8532 (2008) Question: Chris Hipkins to the Minister of Internal Affairs (10 Dec 2008): Which stakeholder groups has he met with since becoming Minister for Internal Affairs and on what date did he meet them?
8533 (2008) Question: Chris Hipkins to the Minister of Internal Affairs (10 Dec 2008): Has he received any reports, briefings or submissions from any department, ministry or agency other than the Department of Internal Affairs since he became Minister, if so, what are the dates and titles of those reports?
8751 (2008): Chris Hipkins to the Minister of Internal Affairs (15 Dec 2008): What official engagements has the Minister had to date as Minister of Internal Affairs; for each, when did they occur, and what was the purpose?
Maybe National did this also, but asking every Minister for the details of every report, every meeting, and every engagement is getting close to abusive.
Now don’t get me wrong – National also did fishing expeditions – but normally more targeted ones in my memory. Stuff like “How many staff have credit cards and how much was charged to them in the last year”. This would then allow the MP to do a press release which would often get picked up.
Other questions I recall are “How many communications staffers does each agency have”. This then leads to a PR saying the Government has 872 spin doctors or whatever the amount is.
Personally if I was Chris, I would try asking more specific questions to Dr Worth, and seeing if he then got more helpful answers.
At the end of the day though an MP does have the right to ask these questions, and should get helpful answers, where practical. But as Tracy says there is a cost:
It might pay to remind MPs, however, that taxpayers are bearing the costs of this little game of cat and mouse – and the costs involved are by no means tiny.
MPs will often lodge dozens of questions, one to every minister, requiring information that, in some cases, can date back years. The man hours involved are staggering. Reams of bureaucrats have been employed throughout the public service in recent years whose jobs mostly involve responding to PQs.
My recommendation to Ministers is to do what Max Bradford did in the 1990s. Answer all questions submitted, but include in the answer the estimated cost of answering the question. And keep a running total so at the end of the year the taxpayers can find out how much money each MP has cost through PQs. That would provide an incentive to be more targeted with your requests.
Tags: Chris Hipkins, PQs
May 12th, 2009 at 10:22 am
So just what are the limits for asking questions?
Is it in order for example to ask of every Minister what brands of tea are available in the Minister’s office and how many servings of each brand have been served since 18 November 2008?
Is this just a way of Hipkins getting in the way of Ministerial staffers “doing their day jobs” in the hope that more staff would need to be hired and he could then make a scene about a blowout in staff?
One would like to think that there would be a limit of some kind even if it was only the speaker having the power to declare a line of questions as vexatious and shutting it down.
If this goes on though, the one who looks like a total prat will be Hipkins (who I must admit when I first heard of him I thought it was another pisstake by that well known raconteur and poet Jam Hipkins AKA Jim Hopkins). I presume he is a list MP, ’nuff said.
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 10:24 am
This is a political DoS attack – nothing more, nothing less. Flood the recipient with must-be-serviced requests so that their ability to discharge their regular duty is impacted. Bugger the ‘it’s their right to ask’ DPF. Hipkins is functioning as a political hacker.
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Who is Chris Hipkins? And who is going to care if someone tells him politely to piss off?
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Has Hipkins got nothing better to do?
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 10:33 am
I Withdraw and apologise for insulting all those hard working and diligent List MPs. Hipkins is MP for Rimutaka
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Hipkins is MP for Rimutaka
Doesnt say much for the IQ in Rimutaka.
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 10:57 am
It’s time for a Hipkins replacement.
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Hipkins is the Labour MP who converted Paul Swain’s former seat of Rimutaka from a safe labour seat with a majority of 8000+ to a marginal electorate with an electorate of 800.
He’s also the bloke who last week accused Bill English of employing “hand-picked political hacks” as purchase advisers, when in his pre-MP life, he was nothing more than a hand-picked political hack himself, as English took much pleasure in reminding him!!
http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2009/05/hipkins-own-goals.html
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Memo Chris Hipkins
From one of your Employers
Subject; PQs
Now I understand that in your new found glory you have been tempted to act like a child in a sweet shop and I can forgive you up to now.
But like me make it clear sunshine unless you cease and desist with this childess and costly nonsense I will present myself at your workplace and you will find your facial features considerably altered
Whilst I am not usually given to violent retribution in your case I will make an exception.
Yours sincerely
gd
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Rimutaka is on the waiting list Adolf.
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
There wouldn’t have been 1500 questions directed at Worth if he hadn’t stonewalled the entire time. While some of the questions Hipkins asked were nebulous, some could be answered by cutting and pasting from Worth’s appointments diary, which Worth admits he refuses to do.
As a minister who has in the past used his taxpayer funded time to study for an Australian PhD, as well as that little India debacle, Labour have rightly identified Worth as a weak link. There’s enough smoke for Hipkins to go looking for fire in Worth’s affairs. Fair game.
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Key not firing Worth was a big mistake.
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
It is a cunning plan.
Labour is trying to frustrate National’s pruning of the public service by creating a vast pile of nonsense work for them all to do answering these questions.
The good thing however, is that while gathering all the answers, these public servants are diverted from doing any greater damage to the country.
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
David, I fear you’re being a little disengenuous in your criticisms of Hipkins. Worth’s avoiding answering direct questions, I’ll not speculate why, leaving Hipkins little option but to use Written Questions in this way. I’m sure you’ve got experience of Ministers behaving in this way and it’s simply not practical to wait for the Ombudsman to intervene. Worth’s responses are aggravating matters and you’d hope more senior colleagues will counsel him through his apprenticeship.
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Having now seen how poor Worth’s performance is, I can entirely understand Hipkins approach. And far from 1,500 PQs, Hipkins has sent only 140-odd to Worth (but 1,500 to all Ministers) most of which he’s petuently refused to properly answer. Hipkins has also pointed out that although Worth’s claimed the department doesn’t have the resources and yet their own public information estimates four times this number of questions can be responded to.
Worth’s a weak-link and Hipkins is exploiting the opportunity. Importantly, Worth’s understanding of his Ministerial role and the need to avoid conflicts of interest is the focus of Hipkins’s line of inquiry; what’s Worth hiding?
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
The questions seem unreasonable – asking for every report sent to the minister, and every meeting with guests. But only if you forget that National had only been in Govt. for 3 weeks at that point…
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
George, what tends to happen is that PQs are drafted like this because OIAs are refused. Worth seems determined to be unaccountable. The timing of the questions is also unremarkable. Hipkins questions are intended to ellict information about who the new Minister’s talking too and what reports he’s reviewing – this is exactly what new opposition spokespeople do routinely.
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
The questions are easy to answer – Ministers have a log in and out system for submissions and the diary shows where they go and who they meet. One staffer would have to read before the minister to weed out anything that was actually confidential. these questions don’t need to go to agencies and good ministers both Labour and National have been able to answer them.
Vote:May 12th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
David – National MPs routinely asked Labour Ministers the dates and titles of the reports they had received. They could then scan the list and decide which ones they wanted to request under the OIA. Departments keep a log of all reports they present to Ministers, so it is actually very easy to answer questions of that nature.
If there were good reasons for not releasing the date and title of a report, then Ministers can say so. While in some instances Ministers under Labour did give less than helpful answers, I don’t think you will find a Minister under the last government who gave obstructive answers to just about every question, which is what Worth is doing.
I have asked quite a lot of questions, I will admit, but note that only 140 of those have been to Worth. Allan Peachy asked 5,962 questions during the term of the last parliament and actually joked with me as I left the Chamber this afternoon that he thought I needed to lift my pace!
Will raises a really good point – would I have asked Worth as many questions if he had answered them in the first place? Probably not! Keep in mind he is also declining OIA requests. I’m not intending to be vexatious, there are important issues of transparency and accountability here.
Vote:May 13th, 2009 at 12:27 am
Incidentally Trevor, you comment on the motellier’s ban of Wainui residents got a mention on the BBC Four News Quiz podcast (easily one of the best podcasts you can subscribe too IMHO). It’s not clear that they completely understood that your comment was deliberately ironic… Link to the series where you can grab the latest edition is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/fricomedy
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