Congratulations for Key somersault

Prime Minister John Key. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Whatever his motives, John Key must be congratulated for his change of mind today.

He has decided to front-foot the issue of parliamentary transparency and given his support to opening up Parliament to the Official Information Act.

The last time we asked him about it, he passed the buck and said it was a matter for the Speaker and Parliament.

Now he has decided to set up a committee.

That might not sound like a cause for celebration. But in this case it is. There is only one outcome that a committee like that can reach in age such as this and that is greater transparency.

They only question is how far will the transparency go. Will it just be for accommodation and travel. Or will it extend to what MPs spend their other taxpayer money on at Parliament especially around election time?

And will it mean that the public might know which lobbyists get the Key to Parliament with unquestioned security access, just as accredited journalists are on the public record.

For Key today the issue is MPs expenses.

Key has stuck his finger in the air and realised the wind is blowing only in one direction on this issue.

The fact that the Greens have just announced that they will regularly reveal their expenses - and Act will almost certainly follow - was added pressure.

Every time they did it, the big old parties would be asked why they weren't.

Key is right when he says the Government (i.e. ministers) is already subject to scrutiny under the Official Information Act and written and oral questions.

But that only makes resistance to greater scrutiny for ordinary MPs less defendable - if it's okay for a minister, it should be okay for an MP.

Key is also right when he says that the system in New Zealand has been designed so that no MP could get away with getting the taxpayer to clean a moat or pay for a chandelier.

But that also makes resistance to greater scrutiny for MPs less defendable - if there is nothing to hide, what's the big fuss about greater scrutiny.

Key and MPs are running out of good excuses.

Perhaps the only legitimate one in my view is where it might lead in terms of the separation between the courts and Parliament - completing the Register of Pecuniary Interests is a requirement of MPs under standing orders, not the law, for precisely that reason.

Part of Key's change of heart must be down to the Krakatoa effect the UK expenses scandal is having on politics all around the world.

While at home Conservative leader David Cameron and Labour PM Gordon Brown are now breaking their necks to be seen as a greater reformer than the other, round the globe it has reinforced an inherent mistrust of politicians.

I put a call into the Speaker's office last week to find out why the register of pecuniary interests was so late and to say that it would be an outrage if there were plans to release it on Budget day - it was tabled the day before.

Even in that document, there were signs that MPs are moving to greater transparency with the Registrar Dame Margaret Bazely noting (with puzzling concern) that MPs were beginning to declare things they did not need to.

It is pretty clear that Key's latest move is not motivated by a heart-felt belief in the issue but more by political instincts and not wanting to end up on the wrong side of an issue.

That does not matter, so long as it does affect the outcome.

Audrey Young

Pictured above: Prime Minister John Key. Photo / Mark Mitchell