Luxon & Co up against the ropes
A trying week for a fledgling government – but scarier for endangered frogs
The National-led government has been having a torrid time this week as it carries out its plans, but I’ll just look at two controversial matters: the fast-tracking bill and the gangs legislation bill.
The Fast-Track Approvals Bill is intended “to provide a streamlined decision-making process to facilitate the delivery of infrastructure and development projects” but it should be renamed the Political Train-Wreck Bill.
The fast-track way to find out why is to read the brief submission from the Auditor-General. As it stands, the bill gives the joint ministers significant decision-making powers. They can accept or reject applications for referral to expert panels, and they can approve or decline a project once it’s been considered by an expert panel. The ministers have to give notice and give reasons for accepting an application, but they don’t have to give reasons for final approval of an application, or for any conditions they might attach to their approval, or for referring it back to the expert panel that considered it. This bill may as well have a clause that just says, “Trust us, we know what we’re doing”.
National cheerleader, Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking, took a minute on air to dismiss all objectors (but not their substantive objections) to the bill: “The same people who have held this country to ransom over their individual myopic view of what’s important to save, or treasure, or talk more about.”
But who’s being myopic here? Quite aside from concerns about protection of the environment, the bill needs to have stronger provisions for transparency – for the protection of the ministers themselves and of the government! The bill looks like a train-wreck coming down the tracks because it’s already open to accusations of cronyism, conflicts of interest and potential for corruption.
And that leaves an open goal to the opposition.
As the Auditor-General rightly noted, the Cabinet Manual’s guidelines about conflicts of interest are too vague for decisions of this magnitude, and anyway the Manual isn’t law. Nonetheless, it gave enough rope to hang former minister Michael Wood. So, look out, Shane Jones.
The Fast-Track Approvals Bill in its present state is looking even worse than Muldoon’s National Development Act 1979 (which was repealed in 1986).
Will it be “goodbye, Freddy” or “goodbye, Minister”?
A select committee has been hearing submissions on a bill banning members of named gangs from wearing patches (or any gang insignia) in public and providing for dispersal notices and non-consorting orders. Gang members convicted under this proposed law could be sent to prison – where they can consort with other gang members and get free food.
In an unexpected moment of bipartisanship, the Labour Party had voted in favour of this bill at the first reading, to support it at least as far as the select committee. Labour may yet be persuaded by the argument that sees gang members as victims of state care who only join the gangs as whanau for the sake of belonging somewhere. Or Labour could eventually adopt the argument that such a law will be too hard to enforce and ineffective in reducing gang membership and criminal behaviour. Most media focus seems to be on banning gang insignia, but the proposed dispersal notices and non-consorting orders are possibly even more problematic. It’ll be interesting to see if Labour votes against it in later stages.
Another argument against this bill regards civil liberties. It appears to contravene some provisions of the NZ Bill of Rights Act (though it’s a matter of opinion as to whether this can be “justified”), and civil libertarians can mount an argument against the bill on grounds of freedoms of expression and association.
As staunch libertarians, you might think that the ACT Party would oppose this bill, but their hard line on law and order takes over. Presumably they’re convinced that the right to be free from the gangs outweighs the right of gang members to dress up and to hang out as they please.
An oral submission from a person associated with Black Power asserted that “whether you are part of a gang whānau or not, you should be able to share the same rights as every other New Zealander”.
But the gangs themselves will forcibly deny me the right to wear one of their patches. Talk about patch protection! I’m not at liberty to wear gang insignia, in fact, thanks to the threat of violence. And anyway, that’s not a liberty that I even want to have, thanks all the same. Gang members, however, are free to dress in drag or in business attire just like “every other New Zealander”.
The civil liberties argument against the bill would be more convincing if the gangs themselves would show greater respect for others’ safety and liberty.
As for the bill being ineffective and hard to enforce, well, you could say the same about the ban on child pornography – except no one uses that for a case against the ban.
And not everyone who suffered abuse in state care feels the need to join a criminal association. I know it ain’t easy, fellas, but don’t let the Green Party smother you in sympathy!
In case you didn’t get the joke about Freddy, see this article in the ODT.
This piece might have carried some weight had it not been replete with unhelpful, including ad personam, street language (because it serves to distract from, or at least camouflage, what might otherwise have been useful writing).
Sad it is that we live in an age of hyperbolic diatribes, with temperately expressed, rational argument so often coming a poor second.