Annette King on OIA abuse: "...growing arrogance by this government..."

 Radio NZ reported during the week:

Prime Minister John Key has admitted the Government sometimes delays releasing official information right up to the deadline if it is in its best interest to do so.

Up to the deadline, well beyond and sometimes to infinity.

I've blogged several times about this problem and my complaint to the Ombudsman. Eventually I received the following advice:

You may also be interested to know that the Chief Ombudsman is intending to conduct a wider administrative investigation into concerns that the broader public sector is not managing requests for information under the OIA as well as it should.
 

That's indicative of the pervasiveness of the problem.

Now the argument has developed into a 'all governments do it so it's OK' defence. That was ex National Party President Michelle Boag's justification on RadioLive yesterday.

Back to the RNZ report:

Labour's acting deputy leader, Annette King, said Mr Key's comments were disturbing.
"There's been a growing arrogance by this Government that they can do exactly what they like with official information... it borders on trying to undermine a fundamental tenet of democracy," she said.

She's got a point. My OIA requests go back to 2002 and I've never experienced delays (and sometimes refusals to release) to this extent before.

Changing names doesn't alter dependence

A CIS report says 5.2% of working age Australians are dependent on a Disability Support Pension. One in twenty is a large number of people to be out of the workforce for health reasons.

So how does New Zealand compare? At first glance, favourably. September Benefit fact sheets released today show only 3.4% of the working age population on the old Invalid Benefit - now Supported Living Payment. Substantially lower.

But wait on.

Remember that people previously reliant on the Sickness Benefit were moved onto the Jobseeker benefit. They are not classified as 'work ready'  because they have a 'health condition or disability'. This group represents a further 2 percent of the relevant population....which puts NZ slightly ahead of Australia.

That makes more sense.

The report also notes that the numbers receiving DSP  in Australia increased 250% between 1982 and 2011.

In NZ, the numbers on a Sickness or Invalid benefit rose by 487% over the same period.

From 25,068 in 1982 to 147,029 in 2011

Little looking dodgy and fickle

There are suggestions from Labour leader candidates that the election was lost due to bad policies. Andrew Little blamed the Super raising age and capital gains tax policies.

This is a cop-out. Raising the Super age is not a poor policy. It is a willingness to deal with a harsh reality. The size of the working age population - the one paying the taxes - is shrinking relative to the 65+.

The 2011 Briefing to the Incoming Social Development Minister highlighted this as a "challenge". They also point out however that , "...on average New Zealanders are living longer, healthier lives..." The obvious response is to raise the eligibility age for Super.

And while there was vigorous opposition to the capital gains tax, plenty of people believed it has merit if it can redirect investment into business and make the cost of renting or buying a house more realistic.

For Labour, Little in particular, to blame their loss on 'bad' policy so soon after desperately trying to sell it to us, just looks dodgy and fickle.

Politics isn't setting up a retail outlet. You don't do your market research to find out what people want and then act accordingly. Politics is about having policies that deal with difficult, unavoidable, problems which feature conflicting interests. It's about making a brave and fair (probably utilitarian) response and then persuading the public of its merits.

This may sound slightly mad but that's where Labour really needs to go. It was where Douglas went.

There isn't going to be the money to buy elections in the future. A 'fairer' society can only be based on less unnecessary government spending. Starting with youthful pensioners.

Young people see what are essentially late middle-aged people getting "paid to do nothing", getting free bus rides while they have to pay, chomping through 'free' healthcare while they have to fund their own education, and justifiably ask why.

We can't afford more socialism. National has the monopoly on voters who want to preserve the level we've got. The only direction that leaves for Labour is ... ACT territory.

Afterall ACT's founding members were ex-Labour. I am an ex-Labour voter.

Though thinking about Labour's current line up the idea just seems hysterical.