Kiwiblog

NZ Computer Society CEO Paul Matthews blogs on the parties’ ICT policies. A summary:

• ACT: No policy except reference to ICT debate Rodnet took part in
• Greens: policy indicates that the Greens understand well that leverage of ICT is essential to business and community growth, which is excellent. All in all, a well thought out policy that clearly articulates their position.
• Labour: We couldn’t find an ICT or Communications policy on the Labour Party website either. This is doubly disappointing, as we know they have done some great things in this area and have some good plans, however the purpose of this exercise was to judge the easy availability and quality of the policy on their websites.
• National: the availability and detail of National policies in this area was refreshingly good. National’s Schools Policy (released yesterday) is the only policy that makes it clear that the teaching of ICT is as important as the teaching with ICT, with National pledging to ensure the creation of Computing (and Business) Achievement Standards. We thoroughly congratulate National on this (and put out a press release yesterday doing just that). This shouldn’t be underestimated – it’s absolutely essential we address this very serious issue.
• NZ First: The only mention of ICT in NZ First’s Education Policy is “provide all primary and secondary educational institutions, particularly those in rural areas, with up-to-date communications technology”. Whilst this in itself is good, it’s unfortunate there wasn’t a little more information on exactly what is meant by this.
• Progressives: The Progressives, like most others, don’t have a dedicated general ICT policy, however do have a well articulated (albeit brief on detail) Broadband policy
• United Future: Unfortunately United Future don’t mention ICT (either infrastructure or education) in their education policies, although it may be possible to infer it from some of the points they do make around sufficiency of standards in NCEA. United Future do have a Communications policy (available here) which, whilst short, does discuss some facts and figures, which is good.

A useful roundup of the parties.

The Herald reports National is to has announce that a violent offender will not be eligible for parole, if they have previously been convicted of a violent crime and sentenced to five or more years in prison previously.

The “life means life” sentence would have applied to high-profile offenders such as prison-van basher George Charlie Baker, RSA triple-killer William Duane Bell and samurai sword assailant and killer Antonie Dixon.

Great.

It is understood National’s research shows that of the 144 offenders convicted of murder since 2002, 10 would be in this category.

This sounds about right. It is only the worst 5% to 10% of killers who will never be released.

The policy would have a big effect on the full spectrum of violent crime. Repeat robbers, repeat rapists and those who repeatedly commit violence within the home would not get parole.

Those denied parole under this category would also be monitored for a fixed term when they were released, “rather than being left to their own devices”.

It is understood National believes an additional 572 offenders could be in prison by late 2011 because of the policy.

And I think people would be surprised by how many crimes those 572 offenders commit by being let out early.

This would require a new jail, which the party has costed at $314 million, and an extra $43 million a year in prison operating costs.

That is a price I am happy to pay.

Prime Minister Helen Clark this morning described the National policy as vindictive. She said that under current law some prisoners were not released.

“It’s very easy to say lock the door and throw the key away,” she said on TV One’s Breakfast programme.

“A lot of these long-term prisoners, over time start to change their behaviour, some become very religious.

“The National Party’s attitude is they don’t care about that at all, they just want to be vindictive.”

Vindictive against repeat violent offenders. Well if you have to be vindictive, better to target rapists and killers than the Exclusive Brethren.

And I repeat – this only applies to the worst of the worst – those who have already been sentenced to five or more years in jail for a violent crime, and after being released have commited another violent crime.

National has released a policy to incentivise doctors, nurses and midwives to stay in New Zealand, and even No Right Turn likes it.

Policy details are:

• Voluntary bonding with student loan debt writeoffs
• Will apply to those willing to work for three to five years in hard to staff communities or specialities
• A maximum annual write off of $10,000 per annum
• $30,000 written off (if at maximum rates) after year three and then $10,000 a year for the next two years if they stay on.
• Will apply to anyone who graduated from 2005 onwards
• Will be extended to other health professionals over time
• Cost is initially $3 million in year one expanding to $9 million in year three which covers 100 doctors and 250 nurses and midwives.

This is getting rather untidy for National. Trevor Mallard has released a third policy on behalf of National. Luckily for National all three – Environment, Conservation and Research Science & Technology have been pretty low key, but it is not at all a good look.

While one can’t know for sure, how Trevor got hold of the policies, his fanciful suggestions of an anti-Key faction in Caucus leaking to him are more a wet dream, than reality. And even if there was such a faction, they would never ever leak to Trevor – they would leak to journalists. Almost every National MP (and staffer) would rather cut off their left testicle/breast than leak to Trevor.

It is likely that all the policies were together and either left somewhere or maybe accidentally e-mail to a wrong recipient. This happens more often than you might think. It could be that some third party got hold of them accidentally and is feeding them to Mallard.

There is the possibility it is somone acting maliciously – for example someone with system administrative privileges to Parliamentary Service servers. I’m not saying it is, just that is one of a number of possibilities.

But regardless a nuisance and distraction National could do without.

Colin James has beaten me to the punch, on the issue of National’s one page policy papers:

So in behind the bland one-pagers lies quite a lot of study, consultation with outsiders and internal shadow cabinet debate. A 34-page paper backed the workplace relations one-pager. Law and order policy was well footnoted.

That applies in all major policy areas. In some, such as education, welfare and the environment, the background papers have been reworked over some years. Immigration and local government papers have been honed down. In some, as in housing, science and in a complex set of policies on infrastructure, some work remains to be done. In some, the background is essentially a statement of principles.

In 2006 Key, freshly leader, backed an English programme to publish discussion papers, to be refined into policy after feedback (much as Kevin Rudd did in Australia). But only a handful emerged before the health paper’s bungled release last September abruptly ended the process. Now some policy is being released without the supporting papers. Outsiders have to take on trust that the policy is based on solid thinking. Key read out to me the workplace relations paper’s headings but I have not seen it.

Having previously worked in Parliament, I was pretty certain that there was a lot of work and detail behind the one page policy summaries, and Colin has confirmed this is the case – which is good.

99% of NZers are not interested in the details. In fact they won’t even remember too much from the one pagers – the average voter will have a vague idea of half a dozen key policy pledges probably.

But the 1% do not want the detail behind them. The 34 page backgrounder on workplace relations for example probably has some great details on how the 90 day trial period works overseas, the issues around the Holidays Act etc. Releasing the background paper doesn’t detract from the one page summary – it complements it. It demonstrates the work done by Spokespersons and staff over the last two years.

Yes, Mallard will jump up and down over a minor detail on page 27 and scare monger about it. But Trevor will scare monger on the smell of an oily rag. Don’t let the fear of scare mongering detract from showing to pundits and the public that the policies National is campaigning on are based on extensive research.

So can we have the full policy background papers please. If you don’t want to release them on the day of the main policy that is fine, but can we have them at some stage.

John Key’s speech on the bureaucracy yesterday is here.  Some key points:

• Labour has had education bureaucrats grow in number by 40% compared to 12% growth of teacher numbers
•  Central Health bureaucrats up 51% while medical professionals up 28%
• MSD policy staff have increased 109% while MSD service staff only 23%
• Overall an increase in bureaucrats by 37%, and 1 in 50 employees in NZ is now a bureaucrat
• Salary costs for policy departments have increased 142%
• Government Administration has been the fastest growing sector of the economy

Key also made these pledges:

• No reduction in front-line staff. The numbers of doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers, police and other front-line staff will grow.
• In the first term of a National government no growth in the size of the core bureaucracy.
• $500 million estimated savings over three years

John Armstrong comments:

The freeze, however, is archetypal Key. It will strike a chord outside Wellington. But it is a moderate policy, rather than a radical initiative, and consequently much more difficult for Labour to criticise.

It left Labour torn between wanting to say the policy was too weak to be effective yet strong enough to force cutbacks in services.

He also comments on the PM’s bizarre attempts to suggest National will not hold costs, because Christine Rankin is rumoured to be seeking a candidacy:

The Prime Minister’s response was to raise the spectre of Rankin past followed by mention of Rankin present.

She noted Rankin was a National Party member and hinted the Auckland regional councillor might even be in the running to make it on to National’s candidate list. …

Yesterday’s attempted haymaker from Clark was so off target it risked knocking her out instead.

I hope National will keep a focus on the state sector.  Personally I would push for them to be more adventurous – not in terms of the number of public servants, but in the area of structural reform.  A recent remuneration survey not only discovered public sector CEOs are paid more than private sector ones, but that there are around 210 of them.

I would be keen to see what sort of savings one could make with a rationalisation so there are not 210 CEOs, 210 payroll systems, 210 IT systems, 210 HR systems. I’m not proposing that the functions performed by those agencies be dispensed with, but that amalgamations could result in not just cost savings, but enhanced performance. I’ll blog more one day in detail on this.