Speaking of former justice ministers, Kiri Allen had a bummer of a year after various controversies involving a Radio New Zealand leaving-do speech, a car accident, an infringement notice, resignation and subsequent mental health diagnosis.
Let’s hope 2024 is brighter for the former lawyer, who launched business KLA Consulting months after resigning from Cabinet. The company’s website says Allen brings a wealth of knowledge and skills to her consulting practice.
Transparency dead in the water
Although I’m uncertain what “delivering strategic guidance that slices through the complexities of the corporate world” actually means in lobbying terms, Allen’s new venture highlights the lack of headway the country has made around stand-down periods and conflicts of interest.
Labour’s Stuart Nash got the sack after leaking Cabinet discussions to donors, and then Michael Wood took a beating after repeatedly failing to declare or sell shares relating to his portfolios. The sagas led to work on transparency and conflicts of interest, including the development of a “voluntary” code of conduct for political lobbyists.
Unlike most countries, New Zealand extraordinarily fails to regulate lobbying, stand-down periods and conflicts of interest - despite the country’s one-degree-of-separation issue. This year’s half-baked attempts represent our almost wilfully negligent approach to fairness and transparency. Sigh.
Basic human rights? Who needs ’em?
Moving on to the ‘throuple’ government. Where to start? I’ll leave it to Human Rights Commission chief executive Meg de Ronde, who said in a statement this month:
“Indeed, some of the Government’s proposed changes will undermine the rights of people living in New Zealand, including the refusal to recognise the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the disestablishment of the Māori Health Authority, the changes to tenancy laws which will make renters more vulnerable, and the repeal of the Fair Pay Act that sets minimum standards for often vulnerable workers who need fair pay the most.”
ActionStation director Kassie Hartendorp also said the new Government had promised to ignore climate change; bring in archaic policies on law and order like youth boot camps; remove education programmes that help young people feel comfortable in their identity; and make the lives of disabled whānau and beneficiaries harder through punitive restrictions.
“This is not leadership, it is a regression of the worst kind,” Hartendorp said.
Courting around
While the representative arm of democracy is failing, well, many, what about our friends in the courts?
The Supreme Court released its highly anticipated cross-appeal decision on the Mainzeal saga in August, following years of litigation after the construction firm was placed in liquidation in 2013.
Former managing director Richard Yan and directors Dame Jenny Shipley, Clive Tilby and Peter Gromm were ordered to pay $39.8 million in damages, plus interest for allowing the firm to trade while it was insolvent. The decision confirmed the directors failed to protect the interest of creditors by allowing the company to enter contracts it couldn’t deliver.
The decision could see a decline in appetite for directorships but also a rise in indemnity insurance premiums. It was a win for white-collar litigation lawyers and a loss for board members wanting a bit of passive income.
Wiles case
The award for sticking it to the “machine” goes to Siouxie Wiles. The microbiologist first raised concerns about her safety against the rising tide of online harassment with her current employer, the University of Auckland - power dynamics be damned - in April 2021.
In a three-week Employment Court hearing in November, Wiles and 20-odd expert witnesses revealed a paradigm where management and employee relationships are often at odds when health and safety are concerned.
Putting academic freedom aside, the case - if found in Wiles’ favour - could have enormous ramifications for employers hoping to contract out of their health and safety obligations in regards to the odd lack-lustre policy.
Whakaari White Island charges
Speaking of health and safety, WorkSafe shone brightly like a diamond this year, having brought a case before the district court following an investigation into the Whakaari White Island eruption that killed 22 people and injured 25 others in 2019.
Six parties pleaded guilty, six charges were dismissed and Whakaari Management (the holding company of the Buttle family who owned the island(!) was convicted in October.
Could we be seeing more health and safety developments in the future? Having spent almost $16 million on the cause, and with the Government’s purse strings expected to be tighter than ever in 2024, I’m not convinced.
With 2023 now in the bin, let’s hope for a better 2024. But with every step forward, it seems we’re going 50 (years) steps backward, as the saying goes.
Sasha Borissenko is a freelance journalist who has reported extensively on the legal industry.
