KEY POINTS:
British MPs have been forced to reveal details of their taxpayer-funded expenses in an important ruling by the information commission Richard Thomas.I'll bet you anything that the New Zealand MPs who love to to trumpet the UK experience in most things, including electoral law reform, keep their lips buttoned over this.It has taken UK news organisations and campaigners three years to fight what
the Guardian calls a rearguard action by Parliament to prevent the the information being made public.I can imagine the squirming that went on: we are talking about finding out how much MPs spent on grocery bills, TV licences, mortgages , travel and even a taxpayer funded dishwasher.It is worth reading Thomas's original decision which was issued in January. The statement from his office said:
'In making his decision the Information Commissioner considered whether the information requested related to individuals acting in an official rather than a privatecapacity. In the Information Commissioner's view if individual MPs had not been elected to carry out their role as public representatives they would not be entitled toclaim the related expenses. However the Information Commissioner fully accepts that MPs are entitled to a degree of privacy and are entitled to expect that personalinformation about their private lives will be appropriately protected from disclosure.'
The actual information was released last week because there was no appeal of the final decision on a request lodged three year ago.
New Zealand is light years behind the UK. New Zealand MPs gave themselves an exemption from the Official Information Act.It is so bad in New Zealand that not only can you not get what might arguably be private expenditure by MPs, as above, you can't get information on what is demonstrably public expenditure, for example the details of public expenditure on tens of thousands of fliers, pamphlets, booklets, and even fridge magnets (yes, I received an Act fridge magnets in the mail last week) to support their re-election.
Take the Labour Party booklets that the Electoral Commission last week found were election ads. What many news organisations failed to report was that not only did they breach the Electoral Finance Act for not having the correct authorisation, they were actually Labour brochures produced by taxpayer funds out of the parliamentary budget .
How many? How much? No one is entitled to know.
The Speaker and her obliging bureaucrats in the Parliamentary Service, are giving no more away than they legally have to and that is nothing.
Wilson made one pro forma speech early on in the job suggesting that MPs be covered by the Official Information Act. Then nothing. Her record shows that she is more comfortable reaching for new rules and restrictions than in promoting open processes.
We have seen that in recent days. After bad publicity on One News over the retiring MPs junket to Europe she is leading, she decided that all camera operators and newspaper photographers must apply to her writing every time they want to work in the corridors outside select committees. No rules had been broken in TV One's cheeky item shot in the same corridor but without notice, she has imposed what looks like payback. Permission has never been refused, Wilson said when the Press Gallery protested about the reinstatement of a rule that belongs with the dark ages. Well, if that is the case, Wilson's ban looks like a power trip.
On matters of press freedom she finds herself in the dubious company of New Zealand First leader Winston Peters. After a momentary lapse in advocating for press freedom the week before last in the context of Fiji's military-installed Government, Peters reverted to type and threatened to review laws on the foreign ownership of media. The reason for this? Payback, as well. He was dashed annoyed at coverage about his party paying money to charities that he should be paying to Parliament.
Compare Britain's' increasing openness with the sort of mentality exhibited by Wilson and Peters and Parliamentary Service and all the parties who won't give details of public expenditure on their material (Act is the honorable exception in my experience) and the trends in Britain. We have a long way to go to establish comparable access.
