A 2019 report into drivers of crime lamented the fact governments had previously ignored calls for change or reform. Photo / Hayden Woodward
A 2019 report into drivers of crime lamented the fact governments had previously ignored calls for change or reform. Photo / Hayden Woodward
OPINION:
If you've ever broken a bone, you've wanted the help of a medical professional. Not a lawyer nor an accountant, not your mate with their googled assessment, not the split-second hot-takes of a talkback radio host nor a politician's speech.
When it comes to our own individual bodies, we tend to want the evidence and expertise to fix the problem properly, once and for all. So why is it that when it comes to our governing bodies, we so frequently put up with the opposite? Especially when the scale of potential harm, or the impact of potential good, is so, so much greater?
In just this past term of Parliament, the Government – like many past governments – has commissioned a range of reviews, inquiries and reports by experts to solve big problems. And, like many past governments, this one has decided to let the most important recommendations gather dust.
He Ara Oranga, the Mental Health and Addiction Inquiry, was published in December 2018. Among transformation of service delivery and far greater resourcing, the report recommended cross-governmental approaches to dealing with mental health determinants (that is, serious things like poverty and housing insecurity), better regulation of alcohol, and an end to criminal prohibition of illicit substances.
In February 2019, the Welfare Expert Advisory Group, chaired by Professor Dame Cindy Kiro (now our Governor General), told the Government that we needed radical overhaul of the now-shredded social safety net to avoid poverty, desperation and all that comes with it. That same month, the Tax Working Group recommended a broad capital gains tax to deal with our lumpy, unjust and unfair tax system.
Turuki! Turuki!, the Safe and Effective Justice Review chaired by former National Government Police Minister, Hon Chester Burrows, was released in December 2019. It called for responding to the drivers of crime with evidence instead of knee-jerk reactions. Burrows' foreword expressed, "We are not the first to call for fundamental change. In recent decades many other reports have called for transformation and have been largely ignored or dismissed."
Politics isn't something that happens once every three years with a general election. It happens every minute of every day. Photo / Andrew Warner
Like all people, politicians are ideological, because all of us have values. Our life experiences and the things we've been exposed to shape our world views. This is the way it should be in a democracy, which seeks a House of Representatives. Politicians are not often experts, and nor should they be. Members of Parliament are supposed to be there to represent the lived experiences of people and our communities and to translate those insights into solutions through the privilege of access to expert advice and the time to consider it.
Why doesn't that happen?
Modern-day political incentives - quick headlines and career progression - don't tend to align with potentially difficult discussions unpacking biases, inspecting our lived experiences and addressing the evidence.
The good news is, every single member of the team of five million have an opportunity to help reshape those incentives.
Politics isn't something that happens once every three years with a general election. It happens every minute of every day. Whether you choose to engage with politics or not, politics determines the cost, quality and accessibility of your housing, the water you drink, your education and opportunities.
If you're frustrated about a lack of action, this is your call to get involved in a campaign, your union, a political party or local group organising local solutions. Submit to a select committee, ask to meet your local MP, figure out your ward and local board areas for the local body election and grill the candidates.
As we've seen throughout this pandemic, all of the things we were so long told were impossible were able to transform overnight. Direct payments to those in need, flexible working arrangements, rent freezes and mass distribution of public goods - from the medical to the educational - all kicked into gear.
Our economic, housing, health, education, transport and welfare systems were all exposed as set at levels of political willpower. Imagine if that emergency-level courage met our longstanding, deep-rooted issues with the evidence needed to truly resolve them.
Lucky for the Government - and the rest of us - all the evidence is already there, sitting on a shelf. Let's dust it off and start investing in real solutions.
• Chlöe Swarbrick, Green Party, is the MP for Auckland Central.
