22 October 2015

Last week I voted for two Labour Members’ Bills and against one Government Bill. Both the Labour Bills and the Government Bill proceeded, and the sun still rose the following morning. But to hear some people, you would have thought the end of the world was nigh. What right had I to vote that way, and how were my actions helping the cause of the National Government, they thundered. All that showed to me was there are a number of commentators out there who now, after nearly 20 years, still fail to understand how a proportional representation system works, and whose reputations far outweigh their abilities.

While it may be a forlorn hope to expect them to acquire the capacity to understand what is going on and change their prejudices accordingly, let me direct my comments to those whose interest is genuine, and not governed by the pursuit of a fee or the sound of their own voice.

Through its confidence and supply agreements with their partners (ACT, the Maori Party and UnitedFuture) the current Government is assured of a healthy majority on matters of confidence and supply, the Budget and all Budget-related matters. Because of its decision not to seek wider agreements with its partners, National has been left having to deal with every other piece of legislation, including Opposition Bills, on a case by case basis, without an inbuilt guarantee of a majority. Rarely, does it get the support of all three of its partners in these instances, but never in the life of the last two Parliaments has it failed to secure sufficient votes to pass its own legislation. So, to paraphrase Mark Twain on hearing reports of his death, claims my votes last week posed any risk to the Government’s stability were “grossly exaggerated.”

I follow a very clear decision hierarchy when deciding my vote on Bills not covered by the confidence and supply agreement. The first consideration is whether the measure has been covered by previous confidence and supply agreements. In 2011, National agreed with UnitedFuture not to sell Kiwibank, so it should have hardly been a surprise that I voted for the Labour Bill prohibiting the sale of Kiwibank without a 75% majority in Parliament. Indeed, the surprise would have been had I not voted for the Bill.

The second level is if a Bill is not covered by any agreements, current or former, how does it accord with UnitedFuture policy? The Government’s Bill to defer restoration of a fully elected regional council in Canterbury till 2019 runs contrary to UnitedFuture’s strong belief in the primacy of local decision-making, so again my opposition was entirely as should have been expected.

If neither of the first two conditions apply, it becomes a matter of whether the proposal males good sense. Labour’s Bill bringing Under-Secretaries under the Official Information Act is just such a case. Ministers and Under-Secretaries are part of the Executive butit makes no sense for Ministers to be subject to the OIA, while Under-Secretaries are not, so I voted for the Labour Bill to resolve this anomaly.

There is another important element in all this. At UnitedFuture’s insistence, all our confidence and supply agreements (2 with Labour and 4 with National) have included a no-surprises clause to ensure stable government. So when I vote against the Government, my intention is made clear to them well in advance, so there can be no subsequent misunderstanding.

This situation will likely occur from time to time during the Parliament, but the Government will continue to govern, and life will carry on pretty much as usual. And no-one should have any reason to be surprised at that.

 

 

 

 

15 October 2015

The developing campaign around medicinal cannabis has eerie overtones of last year’s row about psychoactive substances, where reason and logic quickly gave way to lowest common denominator decision-making, equivalent to mob rule.

So, with eternal optimism that informed debate will always prevail, but tempered by an uneasy fear that once more common sense may be swept aside by public passion, let me set out the current situation as dispassionately as I can.

In New Zealand, medical practitioners can prescribe medicines approved and registered under the Medicines Act. Registration occurs after a rigorous clinical testing process, and PHARMAC separately decides whether to fund the product. One medicinal cannabis product, Sativex, is currently so registered, and PHARMAC is currently considering whether to subsidise it. No other medicinal cannabis products have been submitted for registration in New Zealand.

Where medicines are unregistered and therefore unapproved, there has been a procedure set out in the Medicines Act for many years now to allow the Minister to approve the prescription of such an unapproved product, upon the application of a medical practitioner or specialist. That application has to be lodged with the Ministry of Health, stating the product, the purposes for which it is being sought, the dosage, along with general clinical assessments of its likely clinical efficacy and safety. The Ministry then makes a clinical assessment of the case, and recommends a course of action to the Minister. To date, only one application ever has been made for a medicinal cannabis product, which was the case I approved earlier this year.

I am not a clinician, so therefore, in considering any such applications, I have made it very clear that I will be strongly guided by the clinical advice which I receive. The reason for the decision in such cases being made at a Ministerial level has nothing to do with cannabis, but is simply because the applications are being made as an exception to the existing law.

So, patients seeking access to medicinal cannabis products need to consult their medical advisers in the first instance. If Sativex is not deemed suitable, then they need to discuss what other alternatives might be best for them, and whether an application under the Medicines Act is the appropriate way to proceed. Again, there is nothing unusual or particular to medicinal cannabis in that – we do not make any prescription medicines available without the support of the specialist or medical practitioner, for obvious reasons, and medicinal cannabis should be treated exactly the same way.

However, I would be concerned if it became clear that personal antipathy to cannabis was causing some doctors not to seek approval for medicinal cannabis products for their patients, in cases where it was potentially beneficial. My strong plea to them is to always put the best interests of their patients ahead of any personal views they might hold, when considering such cases.

We are watching closely the clinical trials being conducted in the United States and Australia, but they are not likely to produce results before 2016-2017 at the earliest. It is possible that were the FDA or the Therapeutic Goods Agency to approve medicinal cannabis products as a result of these trials our regulator Medsafe would look to follow suit here, but that is still some time away. What is clear, however, is that any approval is likely to be for a very limited range of products in highly specific and regulated circumstances, and certainly not the open slather situation some seem to be expecting.

Meantime, the provisions of our Medicines Act will continue to apply, including the opportunities for doctors to seek access to these products in the general interests of their patients. For my part, I will consider any case that comes before me on its particular merits, and without any reference to whatever external noise there might be at the time.

Anxious patients and their families deserve no less.  

  

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

8 October 2015

When I left university I went to work for the Department of Trade and Industry, in import licensing. I was then a true believer in protectionism, in regulating the flow and nature of imports and consequently the choices available to and standard of living of New Zealanders, in the wider interests of encouraging domestic industry, promoting economic stability and maintaining reasonable living standards.

However, I was quickly disillusioned. Not only was the policy ineffective, it was unevenly and incompetently applied, it was fundamentally unfair, and certainly did nothing to build efficient domestic import substitution industries, or to keep unemployment, inflation and the balance of payments under control. Import licensing was widely abused, and served only to entrench the privilege of the wealthy import warehouses and selected merchants.

That early exposure to the failure of protectionism and the folly of trying to insulate the domestic economy from the rest of the world was quickly reinforced by the increasingly erratic economic policies of the Muldoon Government of the time. As a latent liberal, I became an enthusiastic convert to free trade and open market economic policies, and have not wavered in that view over time. But I also learnt that there is no economic nirvana, that every system is far from perfect, and that governments have to strive constantly to uphold the best overall interest of their citizens, to achieve a form of economic justice.

It is a short step from there to the Trans Pacific Partnership, which had its seeds in New Zealand’s economic reforms of the 1980s, including the initiation of the Uruguay Round of talks for freer world trade. That led to the formation of the World Trade Organisation to replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that had regulated world trade since the 1940s.

From the time of the formation of the then nascent European Economic Community (EEC) in the late 1950s, through to the more fully blown version of the European Union in the 1980s and 1990s, the focus has been on economic and political integration as the bulwark of broad stability. Other agreements, like the North American Free Trade Agreement, and our own Closer Economic Relations agreement with Australia, show the moves to eliminate trade barriers have been consistent and widespread over a number of years now. They have been reinforced by a series of bilateral arrangements (like the New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement, for example).

Against that backdrop, the momentum to develop a broader Trans Pacific Partnership was inevitable, its ambitious nature notwithstanding. From New Zealand’s perspective, it completes the process the Labour Government began in the 1980s through its domestic economic and social reforms, and moves through the Uruguay Round to liberalise world trade. (In many senses, it is the Lange Government that deserves the kudos for the TPP deal, yet its survivors seem hellbent on running away and hiding from that achievement.)

Since frozen lamb was first exported from Port Chalmers to Britain in 1882, New Zealand has been on a quest for economic security, for stable and reliable markets for our products. For almost a century that quest was satisfied by the guaranteed British market, but after it joined the EEC in the 1970s, we had to rapidly diversify our trade through the pursuit of bilateral (and now through the TPP multilateral) free trade agreements. Either way, trade has long been part of our economic DNA, a point today’s economic revisionists would do well to remember.               

   

 

 

30 September 2015

Our foreign policy lacks any commitment to human rights. A bold conclusion maybe, but the most realistic one to be drawn from a couple of recent events where New Zealand appears to have been caught on the hop.

First was the appallingly tardy response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Even though the mounting tragedy had been filling our television screens for some days, our government appeared to miss its significance and any sense of obligation on New Zealand’s part to assist. Indeed, it seemed to be only the strong public reaction that finally jolted it to take any action at all.

Now, this week there been the saga of the New Zealanders being held in Australian detention camps prior to deportation here. Our response has been to send a text to the Australians about what is going on. I am not standing up for Australian criminals who happen to have been born in New Zealand, but the treatment being meted out to them is excessive and out of line with the vaunted special relationship between our two countries.

However, these two incidents are not isolated cases. They are symptomatic of a general malaise when it comes to standing up for human rights internationally. There is the case of the New Zealander jailed in Myanmar for insulting the prophet Buddha, or the case of the fugitive Qatari businessman evading imprisonment over the deaths of the New Zealand triplets in the shopping centre fire a few years ago. (And I shudder to think what efforts on his behalf the New Zealander currently awaiting a potential death sentence in China on drugs charges might expect!) Like the latest two examples, these cases all bear the hallmark of New Zealand not wanting to become too involved, until public opinion demands it.

Why? The prevailing view seems to be that as a small trading nation buffeted in the seas of international economic uncertainty New Zealand cannot afford to upset, lest existing markets be threatened, or potential new ones closed off. It explains, but does not justify, the reason for soft-pedalling any criticism of Saudi Arabia’s shocking human rights record, and our timidity on the case of the Qatari businessman, because the greater prize of a potential free trade agreement with the Gulf states might be put at risk. We remain quiet on Myanmar for trade reasons too, and have been pathologically scared of saying critical of China for years now.

While the pursuit of enlightened self-interest is a legitimate foreign policy goal, it needs to be balanced by some objectivity. In recent years though our foreign policy has become too craven and trade-focussed and lacking a moral compass. In short, we have become too silent, lest we cause offence.

But relying on quiet words in diplomatic ears; nods and winks; pull-asides; text messages, or whatever, is not the way to conduct foreign policy. We have a right to expect our foreign policy to be evocative of our independence and nationhood by upholding human rights and dignity, and to stand up for New Zealanders when and where necessary. It is time to abandon the chin-dripping subservience we are lapsing into.             

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

24 September 2015

Four months ago I began a public consultation process on the future of New Zealand’s Fire Service. The reason was simple – the basic structure of the Fire Service has not changed since the late 1940s, despite its nationalisation in 1975. Yet, in that time, the nature and volume of its work has changed considerably. So there is a need to ensure that the Fire Service continues to be fit for purpose.

New Zealand’s Fire Services – urban and rural – are distinct, in that over 80% of our firefighters are volunteers. That is not about to change. Therefore, alongside maintaining the position of our paid firefighters, ensuring the future viability of the volunteer force is critical to the future of the Fire Service.

During the consultation period I attended over 40 meetings up and down the country with members of the public, firefighters, and special interest groups. In addition over 250 detailed written submissions were received by the review team. The results of all these consultations have now been collated. Taken together, they provide a strong mandate for change to a modern, integrated Fire Service, capable of meeting community needs well into the 21^st century.

Although a clear preference has emerged for a unified national service, there is also a deep feeling that it needs to be bolstered by a strong regional influence, provided through a series of regional advisory committees. The model we have therefore developed is a deliberate response to the message we received that while people understand the need for a unified service, they also want to ensure there is a strengthened role for community engagement.

Earlier this week I met again with a large group of stakeholders to report back on where we have got to. They expressed support for the direction being proposed, and a real commitment to making it work.

We are still working on the best option for funding the new Fire Service, with ongoing discussions with interested parties but I am confident we will make a great deal of progress over the next couple of weeks or so. Now, of course, there is no perfect solution here, but I have been struck throughout the consultation process by the pragmatism and positive engagement of so many. All this bodes extremely well for the future and reinforces my view that this is the time to progress the changes so many have but dreamed of for so long.

I intend to take a paper to Cabinet in the next few weeks proposing a new organisational and financial structure for the Fire Service. Legislation to give effect to the new system should be introduced early next year, and my intention is that the new Fire Service be launched by the middle of 2017.

I have been encouraged by and am thankful for the input and support that the review has received so far from Ministers, firefighters, local government and community leaders, and key industry groups. We all have a major stake in making this reform work and ensuring that the new New Zealand Fire Service can carry out its role as our premier emergency service effectively and skilfully into the future.

After all, our communities depend on it and rightfully expect no less.  

 

  

 

 

 

 

17 September 2015

Guardian political writer David Torrance says the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the British Labour Party and the earlier rise of Nigel Farage and UKIP mark the death of moderation in politics and the rise of a new breed of anti-politician, governed more by conviction than pragmatism. Leaving aside the minor point that Jeremy Corbyn has been an MP for over 30 years, so is hardly a fresh face, and factoring in the phenomenon of the Scottish Nationalists which owes more to the uncomfortable artificiality that is the current United Kingdom, does Torrance’s thesis hold weight beyond Britain’s shores? 

The rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as the early stars of the United States Presidential race might suggest he is reflecting an emerging international trend, as might the election earlier in the year of Greece’s radical anti-austerity government under Alexis Tsipras (although on current polls he will lose the snap election he called a couple of months ago, to boost his mandate, suggesting that any phenomenon might be short-lived.)

Canada might also succumb to the Torrance theory. Long-term conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in the electoral fight of his life – a three way contest where the radical New Democrats, until recently the third party in Canadian politics, are leading the field.

But in the southern hemisphere Torrance’s thesis might not be so accurate. John Key has been a comparatively moderate Prime Minister and at this early stage of his third term seems just as popular as ever. Across the Tasman, Tony Abbott has just been ousted as Prime Minister by the more urbane Malcolm Turnbull, because Abbott was seen as too hard-line and gaffe prone. And Turnbull’s first comment as Prime Minister was that he wanted to govern like John Key.

So perhaps the death of moderation is just a northern hemisphere phenomenon, brought on by the failures of successive governments of the left and the right. But the signs here still suggest it is not travelling south – yet. Labour is still pathologically scared of putting any markers in the ground, lest it upset people, and even the Greens under James Shaw suddenly seem and sound far less threatening. The flame of the liberal democratic UnitedFuture still flickers, and ACT’s radical edge has been replaced by the quirkiness of its new leader. The Maori Party remains the quiet achiever for its constituents, who reward it by voting Labour in ever-increasing numbers.

All of which leaves New Zealand First, certainly as racist and nationalist as Farage’s UKIP, but the party both major parties want to avoid to ever having to work with in government because of its disruptive nature. However, its alleged resurgence following the Northland by-election has had no impact, so it is doubtful that it is having any role in the death of moderation in politics here.

Moderate politics seem set to continue in New Zealand, arguably because of our egalitarian society. We just do not have the extremes of wealth or deprivation here to drive masses of marginalised people to mobilise for political representation. While that remains the case, the incentives to upset the apple cart will not be strong. Political parties will carry on pretty much as they are, representing pretty much the people they do today.

John Key well knows that, in the end, all politics are local. So the continuity of moderation here will only be upset by a significant external shock, which may be why the government’s operating mantra seems to be “act only as we need to”.  It certainly explains why it has taken such a pragmatically cautious line in response to the refugee crisis, and to rising sea levels in the Pacific because of climate change.

 

   

  

 

 

 

 

10 September 2015

Every day the government collects information about some aspect or other of our lives. Whenever we interact with a government agency, some sort of record is generated about us. A visit to the doctor, the pharmacist, the local school, the Police, paying a traffic fine, or calling ACC will have a similar effect.

In the information age, there is not much we can do to stop all this. It is difficult to have the advantage of increasingly joined-up government services without acknowledging some of the costs. And in most cases, anyway, privacy law and the rather mundane nature of the information gathered means it is not really a major issue.

What we have to guard against is the government’s desire for information becoming insatiable and overbearing, and its failing to use the information already gathered to maximum positive benefit. This is no more important and relevant than in the case of vulnerable and abused children, and our response.

We all know of the significant problem of child abuse in New Zealand. Over the years, successive governments have poured millions of dollars into agencies like CYFS, and special programmes, yet the frequency of child abuse seems no less and in some cases considerably worse than it was in years gone by. CYFS has undergone frequent reviews, yet is still treated warily by many New Zealanders as an agency of state that interferes unduly in the lives of New Zealand families.

At the same time, through various longitudinal studies, and through the data already gathered by CYFS and other agencies, we have a pretty fair idea of who and where the at-risk families and children are in New Zealand, and in most cases could probably just about name them. Yet because of an understandable fear of stigmatising these families, we have deliberately shied away from a more direct approach, in favour of a broader brush “whole of society” approach, which has left us in the predicament we currently are.

Given the maxim about doing the same things producing the same results, is it not time to change the way we deal with vulnerable and at risk children? Why not utilise the information the government currently holds to intervene directly and early with at-risk families and children to ensure they get the love and care needed to avoid their becoming the victims of abuse later on? While governments cannot legislate to provide love and affection, they can act to ensure their resources are directed towards every child having the chance to be raised and cared for in a stable environment. No child can determine the circumstances of its birth and upbringing, but every child surely has the right to be raised in a stable and caring environment.

We have the capacity to make this change right now – but it may require a few sacred cows to be killed off first. So it is not a question of can we – we most assuredly can – but rather one of will we. Our appalling record demands that we make every effort to do so.