(This post is in part by way of explanation to passengers on board Flight NZ410 from Wellington to Auckland this morning, some of whom might have witnessed a somewhat odd exchange between me and Rodney Hide.)

Since Heather Roy was dumped as Minister responsible for special education I have been trying to find out what is happening with the review of Special Education.  Heather had said publicly that it was due out in July or August, and my understanding was that it was before Cabinet the very week she was dumped.  I have put in written questions asking for information about the review which were due for reply on the 26th of August but I have not had a response.

So this morning when I was on a plane to Auckland to visit, among other things, a couple of special schools, it was timely to see Rodney Hide get on the plane.  As we stood up to disembark I asked if Rodney was indeed taking on the special education portfolio (he confirmed he was) and when the review was to be released.  He responded by saying “when the government is ready.”  Before I could go any further he said we could not expect cooperation from him on the review due to his issues about Labour’s approach on the super city. I said I was not asking about the Super City and that the review was important to a large number of parents, schools and students.

What followed was a tirade from Rodney as we walked up the air bridge about the Super City and related issues. I kept saying that I was interested in the review as many others are, and that Rodney really needed to be able to seperate out his portfolio issues.   As he stopped and I walked on his tirade continued.

I would not normally report on an exchange like this,  but his approach is not good enough.  The whole special education community is waiting for the review to be released. As I was told today on my visits, it is holding up planning and development in schools.  Parents and students involved in special education deal with enough stress and pressure as it is. They deserve far better than a Minister who can not deal with his anger about a completely unrelated issue.

Spent more time than normal listening to National Radio today.  A parade of medical professionals all declining to discuss “industrial issues” but dumping on colleagues who are asking to work 5 hours longer a week and get time in lieu for a couple of days professional development a year – the way others at the hospitals do.

A DHB paid liar made a hash of attacking the union.

But the whole situation is horrible. Patients are caught in the middle and while there won’t be life lost delays will cause pain and add to the the waiting lists for elective procedures for months to come. And the costs of private Xrays and scans are too high for most families.

It is a classic case of an uneven relationship leading to out of proportion consequences when labour is withdrawn.

Similar to situation pre 1893 when we introduced legislation that included arbitration.  Law based on fairness and ability to mount a case – not out muscle the other side.

Maybe it is time to revisit arbitration as a tool for sorting disputes.

Trumpet “work place skills” as one of the BIG SIX economic drivers. Establish a skills forum to drive the skills strategy. Announce that the forum will meet five times in 2010, starting in March, so that early progress can be made. Then forget to call the March meeting, or any others, so that yet another leg of the Governments economic plan turns out to be a hologram.

I want to believe in our media. I believe the craft of journalism to be an extraordinarily important thing.

It is a critical part of our democracy. And it distresses me that I am so critical and that it has so deteriorated.

I believe that most journalists believe in their craft. And many are good. The institutions they work for have morphed and twisted so much to adapt to a changing world without being able to catch up, that the quest for market share has become so much more important than reflecting back and challenging our society, our culture and the issues that beset it.

So I am heartened tonight to discover this piece, a speech written by Mark Scott, the managing director of Australia’s ABC TV and radio. He is reflecting on the Australian election and the role played by media. By social media. How it could change. For the better.

It gives me hope.

Though we have to focus on our media.

Here’s an excerpt. I urge you to read the piece

The ABC hosted Jay Rosen for a day while he was recently in Australia. He is always good value on the role of social media and the nature of politicaljournalism – in some ways quite a contrarian – and full of encouragement about things we could do better.

He had two suggestions for the ABC, which we are exploring and will likely pursue.

The first is to provide more background, detail and context for members of our audience who are coming fresh to complex stories: like an ETS, or the NBN, or the operations of a hung parliament. The ABC has a role as a patient explainer of these complexities, to help people catch up with the conversation, understand what is being said and to make a contribution if they wish. It plays nicely to our Charter role to provide an educational service to the community. It makes policy more accessible and can bring important issues into the mainstream.

And Rosen said we should plan more thoroughly and consult more widely around what national issues are at play in an election campaign. Long before the campaign starts, talk with the community, engage with experts, undertake polling, think about national challenges: the immediate and the far-reaching.

Charter? What’s that? Planning? Backgrounding, education? Explaining complex issues? making policy accessible? Conversation? Golly. Doesn’t really feel like our media.

Hat tip @abcmarkscott (twitter)

Brian Fallow’s verdict on Peter Dunne’s income splitting idea in today’s Herald… “Unfair, unaffordable and unlikely to happen”

He concludes with the following “And at a time when [National's] policy is to encourage welfare beneficiaries into the workforce it would find it hard to justify dispensing middle-class welfare to make it easier for the partners of the well-paid to stay home”

Says it all really.

Recap
Labour has begun a new experiment in communicating with the public. A new way of developing policy, using online technology, involving citizens and committing to more open and transparent way of running government.

Called OpenLabourNZ, this is the first time a major New Zealand political party has opened up our policy development to the public in this way.

An OpenLabourNZ conference held in Wellington last weekend was a uniquely New Zealand event, drawing on similar processes used in Australia, the US and the UK.

1. Thanks for participating in the event on Saturday
2. You can now view the footage from Saturday’s event. It’s in chunks so you see what each participant said. There are some great contributions
3. You can read Phil Goff’s speech here
4. There’s been some good media coverage of OpenLabourNZ so far including a thoughtful piece from Colin James and this piece in ComputerWorld
5. If you have any notes generated during the day, please email them to open@labour.org.nz 
6. Given the volume of content generated, my office is now compiling all of the input into a draft document, to be published on the OpenLabourNZ wiki on Thursday 16th September. There is already a lot of content on the wiki so go and have a look.
7. You can still edit the wiki before 16 September and we’ll take that content into account, but it might be easier just to email any ideas/comments to open@labour.org.nz
8. Anyone interested will then have two weeks to edit the wiki to help improve and add to the final document. This will then be submitted to the Labour Party at the end of September.
9. The Labour Party conference in October will hold a workshop on open and transparent government and consider the report
10. The Labour Party Council will work with all MPs to develop Manifesto commitments on Open Government policy
11. The twitter hashtag #olnz is still active so make use of that as well
12. If you want to follow me on twitter I am @clarecurranmp
13. If you don’t know much about OpenLabourNZ and want some more background, go here

If you have any suggestions, questions or issues, please email me  clare.curran@parliament.govt.nz

Sometimes its hard to get across why some of the more seemingly mundane announcements made by government are important.  The idea that the Treasury has decided to create a Board to help run it might sound good. Get a bit of outside help in to make sure it is doing the right thing. Nothing wrong with that?

But when the Treasury Secretary John Whitehead slipped into a speech ten days ago that he was going to establish a “governance” Board with representatives of the “private sector” alarm bells rang for me.

Firstly, in the context of purchase advisors, politically appointed working groups on everything from tax to regulation, welfare to housing, a review of policy advice  led by Graham Scott, the role of Murray Horn leading the National Health Board, this Board, and Tony Ryall’s enthusiasm that it could be used by the rest of the public sector this is clearly part of  an agenda to fundamentally change our public sector.  That change amounts to a privatisation of advice.

Why does this matter?  It matters because our system of government is based on the idea that the public service will provide free and frank advice to Ministers. They are in effect the taxpayers representatives in making and implementing policy and ensuring the governments get the best advice possible. Privatising advice undermines that assumption of neutrality.  Those Ministers are then responsible to Parliament and the public. Handpicked policy and governance groups can lead to governments hearing what they want to hear and to reducing accountability.  And that will be bad for all of us in the long run.

If people think I am over dramatising this- take a look at the media release from Treasury yesterday.  The role of the Board is described as “setting the strategic direction” for Treasury.  John Whitehead has said he will only veto the group in ‘extremely rare’ circumstances.

Chris Eichbaum has a great article in the Dom Post today on this issue (not on-line as far as I can tell). As he says

We need responsive and responsible public servants. Injecting a new third element into our existing governance arrangements may well be a step too far. It is most certainly the kind of proposal that should be the subject of public scruitiny and debate- not just announced.

As Chris is alluding to, the process for establishing the Board is not good. There are no terms of reference, and we only have the vaguest idea of how they will work.  Again John Whitehead said after his speech ten days ago that  the Board will have “community and private sector” expertise.  No sign of the community sector in the Board members announced yesterday.  No sign of a voice for the vulnerable people who are most effected by Treasury’s policies.

I am certainly not against government agencies getting advice from the community and stakeholders.  In fact I strongly support a closer connection between agencies and the people who use services.  But not when it undermines the neutrality of public services and not when it is used to reinforce the agenda of one political party.

A telling excerpt from a document released under the Official Information Act quotes Foreign Affairs CEO John Allen telling staff:

I understand the impact on morale of the challenges that staff have faced in the past year. I understand that the decisions that have been made are tough and they impact on people, on organisational identity, and on staff morale. It is legitimate for people to have strong feelings and views on these issues. Given that these decisions are unpopular and impact on morale then why have they been made? Cabinet mandated a change from a stand alone agency to closer integration with the Ministry….Allen goes on to explain the changes.

Morale is low at the aid programme formerly known as NZAID.  In what was once an energetic and innovative organisation staff now spend their time trying to stay out of the Minister’s way and repackaging work so it fits within the Minister’s narrow prescription for economic development.

They are embarrassed by his continuing campaign against the NGOs.  By all but ending the $900,000 a year funding to the NGO umbrella group Council for International Development. By changes to the funding arrangements for NGO projects made without consultation. And by the recent cut to the excellent Wellington-based Global Focus which provides information resources on development issues.

The latest casualty of the Minister’s red pen is a Pacific regional programme doing village-based disaster risk-reduction work in four countries. It helps communities reduce the impact of cyclones, floods and tsunamis through preparedness training and working with local government. It is run by the Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific out of Suva.

The three-year $2.5 million effort was set up in close collaboration with NZAID, with a commitment of $500,000 a year from New Zealand. McCully has pulled the funding after one year, with no assessment of its impact.

No wonder MFAT aid staff are suffering from low morale. They are the ones who have to deliver this sort of news.