Political Machinations On Show As Scrutiny Week Comes Up For Review

Russell
Palmer
Political Reporter

Analysis –
Scrutiny Week over the past three years has aimed to rake
government spending over the coals, but politics – as ever –
seems to have got in the way.

With the election
coming, the final edition of this experimental
new approach to examining government spending is again
up for review.

The opposition leader has voiced
criticism alongside an openness to change, but some may well
question where the blame lies.

The setup is aimed at
benefitting the opposition, but their MPs have often clashed
more with the chairs running the committees for the way they
have been policing the hearings than with the ministers and
departments they are meant to be scrutinising.

This
could indicate four difficulties: potentially politicisation
by the chairs; lack of effective prosecution from the
opposition MPs; ministers and agency heads being too clever
to be caught out; or rules and logistics getting in the
way.

The real answer is probably a mix of all four,
depending on the mix of personalities involved in each
committee and how the rules are being
interpreted.

Speaker Gerry Brownlee confirmed it would
be discussed by the Standing Orders Committee, which
produces a report every three years towards the end of the
Parliamentary term on changes to procedure.

He told
RNZ the main benefit of doing things this way was a more
condensed scrutinising without the distractions of
Parliament’s usual sitting process.

“It’s not for me
to determine how successful that’s been. I think that’s for
members … I wouldn’t presume to make any comment about how
members might be viewing that
process.”

Scrutinising Scrutiny Week:
Politicians weigh in

Labour’s leader Chris
Hipkins was quick to point at rules, logistics, and
politicisation.

“Ministers are back to appearing for a
very short amount of time before the committees. That wasn’t
what was intended. The point of having a dedicated Scrutiny
Week where Parliament does not sit was so that ministers
didn’t have other responsibilities to attend to,” he
said.

Having scrutiny jammed into one week had also
not worked as hoped.

“There’s some real logistical
challenges … when estimate scrutiny was spread over three
or four weeks, which is what it used to be, then actually it
was more manageable in many cases.”

But there have
been some missed opportunities, like the hour-and-a-half
Statistics session wrapping up about 20 minutes in because
MPs ran out of questions.

The Leader of the House,
National’s Louise Upston, pushed back on Hipkins’ claims
about the length of time ministers were appearing
for.

“Ministers are definitely appearing for
significantly longer than they ever used to,” she told
RNZ.

“Look – it’s really challenging as a minister …
I had six different hearings to prepare for in that
particular week, so I think it’s designed to put us through
our paces and it provides a real focus.”

She put the
ball squarely in the opposition’s court.

“Bluntly, I
don’t think the opposition has done the work they needed to
this week,” she said. “Last year I actually think it was far
more successful than it was this year, and I would say the
difference is the effort that has gone on for those sitting
around the table.

“It was a bit underwhelming, a bit
boring, and it just didn’t really feel as if the opposition
showed up as we thought they might in the scrutiny of the
Budget a couple of months out from an election.

“When
I was in opposition we would get really excited about this
particular opportunity to scrutinise ministers on their
estimates, and there was a huge amount of preparation that
would go into ensuring that we could.”

She said as
Social Development Minister it felt like the opposition
spokespeople had “written a press release before they came
in, asked the question that was relevant to that press
release, and then felt like that was job done”.

“It’s
a very big vote, a very complex vote, lots of areas that I
would have expected to get questions and didn’t – so I kind
of left there thinking, what just happened? … It just felt
flat this year.”

Upston is one of the MPs who form the
Standing Orders Committee, chaired by Brownlee, who are
expecting to deliver a report full of changes around
August.

From what she’d seen, the chairs – who are
largely government backbenchers – had always given
opposition MPs the “lion’s share of the
questions”.

But Green MP Ricardo Menendez March – also
on the Standing Orders Committee – said during one scrutiny
hearing he attended, the chair had answered a question on a
minister’s behalf.

“I also think that chairs trying to
pivot from continuous lines of questioning from opposition,
to handing out a patsy to a government member to interrupt
the flow of questions, puts again the whole exercise into
into question.”

He said government backbenchers should
be using scrutiny more to highlight the concerns of
constituents, rather than “use it as a platform to hand time
to the ministers to speak off what the government is trying
to progress.

However, he said the concept of a
dedicated week for scrutiny was “critical to a thriving
democracy” and he hoped it would continue with rules changes
“so that it can better serve its purpose”.

He said
there did not seem to be enough time, with some ministers
tending to give long-winded or vague answers, or officials
reading responses that had already been provided in
writing.

A different problem had also emerged this
week, with Immigration Minister Erica Stanford’s revelation
of officials providing misleading information to ministers
over the viability of a multi-million-dollar project that
ended up being scrapped.

March said it was an
important matter that needed attention, but had ended up
taking the spotlight – and it would have been better
scrutinised in a separate committee inquiry.

“Members,
including government back benchers, were not aware of the
issue and had to basically read the documents that got put
in front of us while trying to ask questions of the issue at
the very same time. It shows that actually we need a
collaborative approach to then pursue and scrutinise this
issue, outside of Scrutiny
Week.”

Machinations and playing to the
camera

The logistics are not helped either
by what goes on outside Parliament.

Hipkins himself
was making his comments from 12.45pm as part of a policy
launch in Upper Hutt – some half an hour away from
Parliament.

This was followed by Prime Minister
Christopher Luxon’s ‘fireside chat’ in Christchurch at 1pm;
there was a 1pm announcement from Ministers Erica Stanford
and Chris Bishop in the Hutt Valley; and Minister James
Meager had one also in Lower Hutt at 2pm.

All this on
the busiest day of the year’s only Scrutiny Week, when
newsrooms are already starved of resources and public
attention is limited – something politicians themselves will
be keenly aware of.

Opposition MPs at scrutiny
hearings hoping to make headlines – or ministers hoping to
avoid them – can easily resort to bickering and finger
pointing, while a genuine constructive effort can hand their
opponents an advantage.

A middle ground seems the most
effective, as when Labour’s Ayesha Verrall
[https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/535680/health-commissioner-to-seek-apology-after-cooking-the-books-accusation
grilled Health NZ’s Lester Levy, and got Shane Reti to admit
National’s cancer drugs plans should have been better
communicated.

Then there was Treasury’s promise to
Green co-leader Chloe Swarbrick to report on offshore carbon
credit projections for meeting climate commitments, which paid
political dividends this year.

But such wins seem
too often outweighed by the political machinations of one
party or another, or the complicated machinery of government
– here’s hoping for improvements next time
round.

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