Open Government Policy

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Introduction

More and more people are alienated by the political process, distrustful of politicians and feel shut out of decisions that affect them deeply. It is urgent that we clean up the political system and make it more open and accountable if we are to stop the corrosive undermining of our democracy.The Green Party wants to make it easier for people to actively engage as citizens in our democracy. People have the right to participate in government decision making as partners. But they cannot do this if they are not aware of the decisions being taken nor if they cannot access the information on which those decisions are made. Freedom of information, and openness of government and its procedures, are therefore essential principles in the creation of a more democratic society.It is also essential that we have a level playing field in our democracy and that the influence of money is not allowed to distort our democratic system. We need rules around the financing of election campaigns, gifts and donations to MPs and Ministers, and the use of expensive lobbyists to influence government decision making.

Specific Policy Points

1. Treaties

The government of the day has the ability to make far-reaching decisions which profoundly impact New Zealand society without the scrutiny of Parliament. The making and signing of treaties (such as the recent China/New Zealand Trade Agreement) is the province of the Executive. The Green Party will:

1. Require all trade agreements and treaties to be subject to a vote of Parliament like any other legislation.

2. Changes to OIA

The Official Information Act needs to be more effective so that people can access the information they want without lengthy delays and censorship. For more open government the Green Party will:

1. Introduce legal responsibilities and penalties, under the Public Records Act or elsewhere, for individual public servants to keep good records (ie write things down, put things on the file etc).
2. Tighten up the time limits for replies and other opportunities for delay, narrowing the exclusion provisions so that there cannot be excuses to withhold important information (notably relating to supposed commercial sensitivity, 'free and frank advice" and security), and giving greater powers on the Ombudsman to censure agencies for non-compliance and uncooperativeness.
3. Bring parliamentary services under the OIA -- including how parties spend public money and who they hire can be seen by all, with an exemption to protect communication between constituents and Mps and to protect opposition parties from government intervention.
4. Make it clear that there is expectation of openness and access to court records while leaving judges with discretion to deny access if reasons are given.
5. Bring in a thirty year rule for opening of ALL public archives, as in Australia.
6. Make sure staff have training in the proper implementation of the Act. A new body, like the former Information Authority, that could monitor administration of the Act and do training.
7. Apply the changes above to the Local Government Official Information and Meeting Act as well.
8. Remove charging for Official Information Act requests and require costs to be met out of Departmental baselines with an exception for vexatious, excessive and frivolous requests as well as requests for commercial gain.
9. Include contractors and consultants to central and local government agencies under Official Information Act requirements.

3. Cabinet decisions to be published

People have a right to know what has been decided by Government, not just when it is announced with Government spin, but soon after Cabinet has signed it off.The Green Party will:

1. Ensure that Cabinet minutes and decisions are published on the internet within one month of each Cabinet meeting unless there is a pressing reason not to publish (for example, the release of information that would risk our national security or is commercially confidential)
   1. When decisions or minutes are withheld, require the fact that information is being withheld, and the reason for that, to be publicly provided.
   2. Ensure that there is the ability to request a judicial review by an in-camera (closed) court, which can see the full minutes
   3. Ensure that information withheld is published as soon as the risk subsides.

4. Lobbyists

Lobbying of public office holders has a major impact on the democratic process and lobbyists should be transparent about their role. Information about lobbyists should be publicly available on the internet. The Green Party will:

1. Ensure lobbyists keep a public register of all clients utilising their services, whether for a charge or pro bono.
2. Model the registration system on the Canadian Registry of Lobbyists and ensure that the information is available online.
3. Ensure that such a registry contains, but is not limited to, detailed information about lobbyists and their activities including:
   • Lobbyist's name
   • Client name
   • Institution being lobbied
   • Subject matter and particulars of the lobbying
   • Lobbying methods used
   • Government funding received by the client or employer
   • An indication whether a lobbyist was a former public office holder as well as details about offices held
   • For in-house lobbyists, the name of the corporation or organization, and the names of lobbyists employed there
   • Information on oral and arranged communications with certain public office holders

5. Code of Conduct

The Green Party and other MMP parties proposed and signed up to a Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament. The principle of this code is that the New Zealand electorate expects members of Parliament to act ethically and with integrity and that an MMP Parliament demands a standard of behaviour that allows all voices to be heard. The Code of Conduct enables the public to be clear about the principles that define members' activities and how these principles are interpreted and upheld.The Code of Conduct commits signatories to:

• Working for the public good
• Showing respect for Parliament
• Not accepting inducements
• Not advancing private interests
• Avoiding conflict of interest
• Ensuring proper use of public resources

The Green Party will:

1. Support having the Code of Conduct incorporated into the Standing Orders.

6. MPs disclosure regime

In the light of recent cases, the Green Party will

1. Clarify that donations to pay barristers or other legal fees are a gift that must be declared.
2. Clarify that donations in kind are to be valued at the value of the third-party payment.

7. Election financing

The influence of money on politics is one of the greatest threats to democracy and freedom. Political parties need money to run election campaigns but that money can be a source of undue influence on the democratic process. In addition, wealthy non-political-party actors can intervene in the election process by buying advertising and distorting the process in favour of their agenda. Over the decades western democracies have introduced many rules in order to try to limit this influence. As the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System wrote, it is not fair "if some in the community use their relative wealth to exercise disproportionate influence in determining who is to govern and what policies are to be pursued" (p.183). The Green Party believes that a healthy democracy requires political parties to reach out into the community to fundraise from a large number of people and members rather than be dependent on a handful of large donors who will then have disproportionate influence on their policy. A cap on how much any one individual can donate will make the parties reach out to more people for financial support. The Green Party believes that it is of paramount importance that the public have the right to know who is funding political parties. This is the only way we can be assured that political donations are not buying policy. The Green Party believes that the problems revealed in the 2005 election campaign (and since) demonstrated a critical and urgent need to reform the laws around election campaign financing. Amongst these problems were:

• An initially secret $1 million intervention in the campaign by the Exclusive Brethren church campaigning for the National Party and against the Greens and Labour, without the spending falling within National's cap.
• In 2005 alone, the National Party received over $1.7m in unidentified donations from secretive trusts and Labour received over $300,000 in anonymous donations
• National's Board were aware of the identity of donors even though their identity was hidden from the public by the use of secretive trusts.
• The $120,000 illegal broadcasting overspend by the National Party.
• The use of parliamentary funds that led to most parties in parliament being found in breach of the rules by the Auditor General.
• When the expenditure of parliamentary funds is included, both Labour and probably National exceeded the campaign expenditure cap.

No person or party was prosecuted for any of this.

1. 1. The overall operation of campaign finance rules;
   2. The advisability of partial public funding of political parties; and
   3. Whether the current electoral agencies are properly able to enforce the campaign finance rules, and if not, how they should be reorganised.

Citizens' Assembly

The Greens believe that the electoral system is owned by the people of Aotearoa New Zealand and that they should be involved in the decision making around electoral finance. We recently negotiated for an independent commission of inquiry and a citizens' assembly (as used recently in Canada) starting in early 2009 to report on and make recommendations as to:A Citizens' Assembly involves a random selection of one or two voters from each electorate coming together to consider our system of electoral financing. This has been used very successfully in Canada recently. It would make recommendations to Parliament.The Green Party has ensured that the Citizens Assembly is properly funded, by negotiating for a $4m budget so that it can call on expert witnesses and get independent facilitation.

Donations

The Green Party will:
2. Stop political parties from accepting anonymous donations above $1000 unless the true source of the money is publicly identified. This would need rules to make it illegal to split up large donations into lots smaller than $1000 to avoid disclosure of identity.
3. Support the current ban on donations that originate from overseas, with the exception of New Zealand citizens living overseas and entitled to vote. Elections are for citizens not non-citizens.
4. Seek to simplify and tighten the current rolling disclosure system to ensure that the public know who is funding the parties when they go to vote. A similar system operates in the UK.
5. Place an annual limit of $35,000 on total donations to a political party from any single person or entity. This will need rules to make it illegal to split up large donations into lots smaller than $35,000 to avoid this cap.

   Maintain spending caps

   Spending caps are essential to ensuring that the election is a contest of ideas and policies rather than which party has more money to influence voters by advertising.The Green Party will:
6. Maintain the current campaign spending caps on political parties but be open to having them indexed to inflation.

   Non political party election activities

   The Electoral Finance Act introduced a series of rules around election activities by non-political parties. We recognize that this is a controversial and difficult issue which western democracies around the world are grappling with, but going back to the old system would mean that money is simply funnelled into parallel campaigns by non-party groups as we saw in 2005. The Green Party will:
7. Review the Electoral Finance Act post-election to see how it has worked and develop necessary amendments.
8. Continue to support spending limits and transparency on non-party actors involved in electioneering.

   Partial public funding of parties

   The current rules around broadcasting stop the rash of expensive attack ads that are seen in the United States in particular. They help level the playing field between parties with greater and lesser financial resources. The case for further partial public funding of parties is that a relatively small investment in political parties is insurance against those parties becoming captured by wealthy vested interests to whom the parties might otherwise turn to fund their campaigns. For a cost of $3 million per year to partially fund political parties, we can help make sure that $50 plus billion per year in taxpayer funds is spent in the interests of all of us, rather than in the interests of a handful of wealthy backers that funded party campaigns. It is important that the level of public funding is not set so high that the parties do not need to go to the community for further funding. Along with upper limits on the total donations that any one person or entity can make, it makes the parties go into the community and seek smaller donations from a large number of people rather than a few large donations. The Green Party will:
9. Maintain the status quo on broadcast funding and time allocation
10. Investigate whether parties should be able to use the broadcast allocation for purposes other than broadcasting if they so wish.
11. Appoint an independent commission of inquiry and a citizens' assembly, to investigate partial public funding after the next election.

8. Fixed Election Date

Using the election date as a tool for political game playing serves no democratic purpose and leaves the public and other political parties in the dark. The Green party will:

1. Support a fixed election date, the date to be determined by consultation with public
2. If the government of the day loses a confidence vote in Parliament, and another group of parties is unable to gain the confidence of Parliament to form a government, then the election can be held earlier.

9. Local Government

Local Government is responsible for environmental and social decision-making that has enormous implications for communities. We believe people should be able to find out what is going on in their own backyards.To achieve a more transparent community-friendly local governance framework the Green Party will:

1. Require Local Government to publish on the internet:
   1. All existing resource consents along with any conditions and breaches of consents. For any significant breach, a statement of the actions taken and enforcement decisions by the authority or court will be published.
   2. All applications for consents, including non-notified
   3. Information disclosing all contracts in which Councillors have a pecuniary interest
   4. All Council minutes, within a week following the meeting, including a general statement on any business conducted with the public excluded.
   5. All council Order papers, within 3 working days before meetings. If any issue is to be considered with the public excluded a statement of the general nature of the business and the reason for exclusion shall be posted.
   6. A list of all people, consultants and organisations engaged to provide services to Council and the service provided.
   7. The source of all campaign donations over $500
   8. A pecuniary interests register for councillors, similar to that used in Parliament.