The internet was conceived on the ideas of equality and access. People sharing and making new things happen.
In the spirit of this, I participated in a panel discussion last Friday at NetHui in Auckland. The topic was government and openness. What it might look like in 2020.
During the discussion I asked my fellow politicians on the panel, Nikki Kaye, National and Gareth Hughes, Green, if we could form a cross parliamentary group to see where we could find some commonalities on the important issues facing us in becoming more open.
They agreed. Our first meeting could be this week. We’ll keep you posted.
If you’d like to see the panel discussion click here
Hi Clare
I’d be grateful if you’d place democracy and local government on the agenda of your group.
I tweeted about Nikki’s smart diversion from a most important question on the panel you attended – @economicsnz “#Nethui odd that speaker from Nats talks about transparency & Auckland Council. It’s the mayors problem? Or the doors that Hyde closed?”
I think it’s really important that we take care not to forget our Councils and local democracy.
I fear our councils run the risk of getting lost off the election agenda.
This could easily happen when people are doing cross-isle politics. Nobody picked up Nikki’s clever point at Len Brown’s expense and that leaves me feeling worried.
For example, I attended a meeting about local democracy and the PWC review at which Grant Robertson, Celia Wade Brown, Gareth Hughes and Fran Wilde attended. The message we got from them was strongly about loss of democracy for local government in Christchurch and Auckland – the closed doors created by Rodney Hyde against the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Auckland, and the Quake Act etc for Christchurch.
Cross-isle politics may be OK sometimes. But they can run the risk of leaving people elsewhere feeling that electoral politics has left them in the lurch.
A good idea, perhaps, for central government elections, not so good for local councils?
Good luck with getting it right!
EconomicsNZ, You lost me there with ‘cross-isle’ politics until I realised you meant ‘cross-aisle’ politics. I got confused with North Island and South Island politicians being somehow different.
@Richard1st
aisle aisle aisle aisle aisle….
Good boy.
The internet was conceived on the ideas of equality and access. People sharing and making new things happen.
That ain’t no origin of the Internet I ever heard of.