Keeping politicians honest

Politicians claim there are rules in place to make sure they don't have conflicts of interest - but an increasing number of incidents suggest those rules might not be strong enough.

For years now, over several terms of different governments, New Zealand's system of trust against corruption and undue influence has been tested.

A revolving door of pressure groups, MPs turning into lobbyists as soon as they leave Parliament, cabinet ministers blabbing secrets to donors, dodgy fundraising, failures to declare or be open about conflicts of interests.

Politicians of all flavours have been caught bending or breaking the rules, and questions have been raised about the integrity and structure of new legislation.

Think of the companies named in new Fast Track legislation; changes in tax rules that appear to come directly from the tobacco industry's playbook; and MPs staying silent about their interests.

Now an increasing number of pressure groups, such as Transparency International NZ and the Helen Clark Foundation, are calling for better systems to be put in place.

And a new lobby group - the Integrity Institute - has been formed specifically to hold politicians to account.

Newsroom political editor Laura Walters says there are growing calls for independent oversight.

"We do live in a high trust society in New Zealand... we are open, we're transparent, we have integrity, we're low in corruption, we always do well in those indices that come out every year. We sort of pat ourselves on the back and move on, and think 'there's nothing to see here obviously, we're fine'," she says.

"But there are many examples now that are raising question marks around whether there has just been complacency and the level of integrity and the level of corruption is not perhaps what we thought it has been, and the systems in place are not good enough to weed out these examples and to try and manage these conflicts in a better way."

Walters says the issue speaks to the trust in our core democratic institutions and the cohesion of our society, which is something that we are increasingly talking about and concerned about - not just in New Zealand, but around the world.

"There is a lot of trust and faith dropping, kind of as a general trend, and at the same time we're also seeing a public that has more access to information, wanting to critically analyse things, they're wanting answers and they're wanting to see more transparency.

"So there's kind of a convergence. It would be hard to know whether the instances of these types of things are actually rising or whether there is just more focus on this because of the moment in time that we are in. But there have been quite a few examples recently, and not just under this [current coalition] government but also under the previous Labour government."

The Detail today also talks to Newsroom senior political reporter Marc Daalder, who says the main safeguards against conflicts of interest are focused on ministers who have executive powers, and not MPs.

"In so far as they're safeguards, they're very soft ones. They're more convention, I think it would be fair to say, than hard rule. There's the Cabinet Manual which requires ministers to disclose to their colleagues any conflicts of interest or scenarios where there might be a perceived conflict of interest."

Then there's the Cabinet Office which reports every six months on those conflicts of interest and what's being done to manage them, if anything.

But "you just don't get the actual detail of information that you'd actually want," he says.

"And yes, you can go and ask the minister, which I have done, but they're under no obligation to disclose it. And while there is an active OIA seeking this information, past experience would suggest the OIA isn't an effective tool for disclosing this kind of information. Usually the Cabinet Officers and Ministers are able to ward it off."

Walters says other countries such as the UK and Australia have stronger controls than we do, and greater levels of detail can be revealed.

She says what is put out for public consumption here is "quite bare bones. And I think that's something that a lot of the public, and special interest groups that are calling for more transparency... that's where the issue lies. They want to see more information available to the public. It's not suggesting that there's something untoward or underhand happening here. It's just that... the public should have more information so they can have greater trust in the integrity and political ethics of those who are making these really important decisions on behalf of the country."

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