John Armstrong: Gibberish rules in briefings for new ministers

The section in the briefing paper for new Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee dealing with New Zealand's strategic environment is just a blank, writes John Armstrong. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Inland Revenue is not everyone's favourite government department. But its officials deserve a pat on the back in at least one respect.

Unlike other departments, Inland Revenue has bucked the trend that sees post-election briefing papers produced for Cabinet ministers taking on new portfolios of less and less value as sources of information, at least in the form in which they are released to the public.

Many of this year's documents have been sanitised to such an extent that they read like gibberish. Or big chunks have been blacked out on commercial or national interest grounds.

As examples, the briefing document prepared by the State Services Commission for Paula Bennett, its new minister, is an indigestible mix of feel-good jargon and and deadening bureaucratese.

The section in the briefing paper for new Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee dealing with New Zealand's strategic environment is just a blank - presumably to avoid upsetting allies or, more likely, China.

The previously blunt language of the Treasury - whose three-yearly expression of its never-changing free-market wish-list was dismissed by former Finance Minister Sir Michael Cullen as an "ideological burp" - has been toned down.

An exception is Inland Revenue, which has provided an open, honest and politically neutral appraisal of "challenges" which lie ahead in formulating tax policy.

Such briefings for incoming ministers, known as BIMs, once provided insights into the thinking of departments.

Increasingly, officials are conscious of the political sensitivities in writing a BIM. They become even more tricky when the governing party wins the election.

The BIMs are written before an election. Officials are thus reluctant to say anything that might be interpreted as criticising a minister's handling of a portfolio, even if the minister is expected to move to another portfolio.

Former Labour Cabinet minister Trevor Mallard says there was some suspicion in 2008 that some departments had written two versions of their BIM - one to hand to Labour ministers if they clung on to power and another, more radical one to give to National if, as was the case, that party was victorious.

Regardless, public servants put an awful lot of effort into preparing their BIM. The taxpayer, however, is being short-changed by the meaningless verbiage that comprises much of the content.