Keeping Politicians Honest | Scoop News

Alexia
Russell, for The Detail

Politicians
claim there are rules in place to make sure they don’t have
conflicts of interest – but an increasing number of
incidents suggest those rules might not be strong
enough.

For years now, over several terms of
different governments, New Zealand’s system of trust against
corruption and undue influence has been tested.

A
revolving door of pressure groups, MPs turning into
lobbyists as soon as they leave Parliament, cabinet
ministers blabbing secrets to donors, dodgy fundraising,
failures to declare or be open about conflicts of
interests.

Politicians of all flavours have been
caught bending or breaking the rules, and questions have
been raised about the integrity and structure of new
legislation.

Think of the companies named in new Fast
Track legislation; changes in tax rules that appear to come
directly from the tobacco industry’s playbook; and MPs
staying silent about their interests.

Now an
increasing number of pressure groups, such as Transparency
International NZ and the Helen Clark Foundation, are calling
for better systems to be put in place.

And a new lobby
group – the Integrity Institute – has been formed
specifically to hold politicians to account.

Newsroom
political editor Laura Walters says there are growing calls
for independent oversight.

“We do live in a high trust
society in New Zealand… we are open, we’re transparent, we
have integrity, we’re low in corruption, we always do well
in those indices that come out every year. We sort of pat
ourselves on the back and move on, and think ‘there’s
nothing to see here obviously, we’re fine’,” she
says.

“But there are many examples now that are
raising question marks around whether there has just been
complacency and the level of integrity and the level of
corruption is not perhaps what we thought it has been, and
the systems in place are not good enough to weed out these
examples and to try and manage these conflicts in a better
way.”

Walters says the issue speaks to the trust in
our core democratic institutions and the cohesion of our
society, which is something that we are increasingly talking
about and concerned about – not just in New Zealand, but
around the world.

“There is a lot of trust and faith
dropping, kind of as a general trend, and at the same time
we’re also seeing a public that has more access to
information, wanting to critically analyse things, they’re
wanting answers and they’re wanting to see more
transparency.

“So there’s kind of a convergence. It
would be hard to know whether the instances of these types
of things are actually rising or whether there is just more
focus on this because of the moment in time that we are in.
But there have been quite a few examples recently, and not
just under this [current coalition] government but also
under the previous Labour government.”

The
Detail today also talks to Newsroom senior political
reporter Marc Daalder, who says the main safeguards against
conflicts of interest are focused on ministers who have
executive powers, and not MPs.

“In so far as they’re
safeguards, they’re very soft ones. They’re more convention,
I think it would be fair to say, than hard rule. There’s the
Cabinet Manual which requires ministers to disclose to their
colleagues any conflicts of interest or scenarios where
there might be a perceived conflict of interest.”

Then
there’s the Cabinet Office which reports every six months on
those conflicts of interest and what’s being done to manage
them, if anything.

But “you just don’t get the actual
detail of information that you’d actually want,” he
says.

“And yes, you can go and ask the minister, which
I have done, but they’re under no obligation to disclose it.
And while there is an active OIA seeking this information,
past experience would suggest the OIA isn’t an effective
tool for disclosing this kind of information. Usually the
Cabinet Officers and Ministers are able to ward it
off.”

Walters says other countries such as the UK and
Australia have stronger controls than we do, and greater
levels of detail can be revealed.

She says what is put
out for public consumption here is “quite bare bones. And I
think that’s something that a lot of the public, and special
interest groups that are calling for more transparency…
that’s where the issue lies. They want to see more
information available to the public. It’s not suggesting
that there’s something untoward or underhand happening here.
It’s just that… the public should have more information so
they can have greater trust in the integrity and political
ethics of those who are making these really important
decisions on behalf of the country.”

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