www.mccully.co.nz - 7 December 2007
A Weekly Report from the Keyboard of Murray McCully, MP for East Coast Bays
Exposed
The number of New Zealanders leaving permanently for Australia has risen to over 770 per week on average. All the signs
are that it will continue to get worse. The ambitious, skilled New Zealanders upon whom our economic future depends are
deserting in droves. Any government in its right mind would be deeply worried. With elections later in 2008, New
Zealanders are likely to see little future for a government that sees no future for them.
So Parliament is headed to exceed its scheduled timetable, originally intended to drift to a close around next
Wednesday. It may even spill into the following week. But in a style that has become symbolic of the Clark Government,
it is not the future of the country that is the subject of their legislative preoccupations in the dying weeks of 2007:
rather the political survival of the Labour Government. Placing the nation on a path to prosperity sounds a little like
hard work. Much easier simply to silence and constrain those who might so inconveniently bring these troubling matters
to the attention of the voting public.
So the Electoral Finance Bill (EFB) will be rammed through its final stages in the coming days. The support of the
Greens for legislation that seeks to circumscribe the democratic freedoms of their fellow citizens – especially those
who disagree with them – is no surprise. Much harder to justify or understand is the support of New Zealand First, who
seem blissfully unaware of the political odium that now awaits them in election year. The petty, bureaucratic, Stalinist
provisions of the legislation will target their support base more than most. Each encounter, accidental or by design,
with a law that is both intrusive and uncertain will afford a harsh reminder.
So, the final days of the 2007 Parliament have proven deeply revealing. Exposed for all to see is a Clark Government
that, in the absence of any positive policy plans for the country’s future, instead resorts to stifling opponents and
silencing critics for the whole of election year. Exposed, too, are their political helpers in this shameful exercise,
the Greens and NZ First. Most exposed of all has been new Justice Minister Annette King – given an easy media ride now
for many years. Long on bluster and short on analysis, she has been well and truly found out during the EFB debate. And
by the time Parliament finally gets to its Christmas break Clark, King and their colleagues will all be asking
themselves whether it really was all worth it.
Mortal Blow for Public Service
The second tier to the Labour plan was simple: having tied the hands of their political opponents and silenced their
critics through the EFB, the Labour Party planned to have a veritable election-year extravaganza of government
departmental publicity. Hence the need to weed out those communications managers of independent and professional
mindset, to be replaced by those with more reliable political motivations. But this week the appalling saga of the
politicisation of the Ministry for the Environment just got worse. A whole lot worse.
It was always a foolish call by acting State Services Minister Trevor Mallard to cast a slur over the competence of Erin
Leigh – the communications contractor who left the Ministry when she saw one of the previous Minister’s political mates
being shipped in to superintend her work. If there were genuine issues about the quality of her work, they would be much
more credibly conveyed by the State Services Commissioner in his report rather than by a clearly angry Minister already
under scrutiny for over-vigorous conduct. Now, Environment Ministry head Hugh Logan has made it clear that Mallard’s
assertions were wrong. And while Logan has apologised for his role, Mallard is refusing to do likewise. How can this be?
The statement this week by Hugh Logan describes work undertaken by Ms Leigh, on four separate contracts, as “professional and of good quality.” Three former colleagues of Ms Leigh’s are now on record as concurring with this view. Of the briefing note to Mallard,
Logan says he “did not take it or intend it to reflect on Ms Leigh’s professional ability or her performance under contract to the
Ministry.” Subsequent events showed that the note “could be, and was interpreted in this adverse way.”
So now we know that, in the eyes of the only people able to judge, Ms Leigh’s work record was good. We know the note
that Mallard used as the basis for his attack in the House was not intended to convey anything different. Yet he chose
to mount an attack on her performance that he has refused, when challenged, to repeat outside the House, where he might
be sued. And now, despite the fact that the person responsible for the briefing note has told the nation that Mallard’s
interpretation is wrong, he still refuses to apologise. And while Mallard made his attack as acting State Services
Minister, he is, since the re-shuffle, Minister for the Environment – the very Ministry whose note he has misused to
mount the attack that his chief executive has now been forced to admit to be wrong. The chemistry must be just
wonderful.
Soon, the State Services Commissioner will present the results of his investigation. That would of course, be our old
friend Dr Mark Prebble. The same Dr Prebble who had memory lapse issues of his own in the early stages of this saga. And
who, having acted as judge and jury in his own case, found his actions to be wanting. But only a little.
To complicate the matter even further, the Minister for State Services, David Parker, was the Climate Change Minister
whose actions are now the subject of investigation by the State Services Commissioner (SSC). Oh, but don’t worry, the
SSC won’t be reporting to Mr Parker.
They will report to another Minister – in this case the Justice Minister Annette King. The same Mrs King who is doing
such an excellent job ramming through the electoral finance legislation that she certainly doesn’t understand, and
probably hasn’t read. Now wouldn’t she be just the perfect person to ensure that the interests of fairness and
professionalism are fully adhered too.
Further evidence, ladies and gentlemen, that if this isn’t a government in terminal decline then we, at the worldwide
headquarters of mccully.co will be very much surprised.
ENDS