Integrity Briefing: Update on our campaign – Taking on vested interests

Kia ora everyone

The Integrity Institute is quickly becoming established, and we’re currently implementing some exciting plans. Therefore, I wanted to give you an update on our activities.

As I explained in earlier emails, I’m starting a new research and advocacy organisation called The Integrity Institute to scrutinise and challenge vested interests in New Zealand.

This new venture incorporates some of the work that my old Democracy Project used to do, such as our “NZ Politics Daily” email newsletter, which is now called “News Briefing”. Our other main email newsletter is this one, “Integrity Briefing”, which will provide analysis and updates on our view of contemporary issues of importance.

Media interviews

I’m continuing to do media interviews about issues of the day. Here’s some links to some recent ones in which I’m speaking on behalf of The Integrity Institute:

Danyl McLauchlan (Listener): Paradise Lost: How short-term thinking, top-down governance and weak economic policies squandered NZ’s potential (paywalled)

Brent Edwards (NBR): Tackling the influence the wealthy have on the political process (paywalled)

RNZ: The Panel: Manurewa Marae and Stats NZ

Radio Rhema: Holding power to account

The Platform: Bryce Edwards On Setting Up The Integrity Institute

The Platform: Full Interview: Bryce Edwards & Michael Laws (paywalled)

Excerpts from media interviews

My interview with Danyl Mclauchlan was for a cover story that Danyl wrote for the Listener, which is out today. In this feature, Mclauchlan explains New Zealand’s decline, drawing attention to the role of vested interests in corroding politics and the economy.

Here’s an excerpt from the feature, reporting on his interview with me:

Political scientist Bryce Edwards is director of the Integrity Institute, a think tank that studies the influence of vested interests on the political system. He attributes the lack of progress in this area to the enormous influence of the lobbying industry.

Again, the issue has been flagged by the OECD, which recently ranked New Zealand 34th out of 38 in its regulation of attempts to influence policy-making.

The organisation noted, “New Zealand is not close to the frontier of international best practice in terms of regulating lobbying and/or cooling off periods between the public and the private sector, which does not foster a level playing field.”

As usual, the countries we hope to emulate – Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Australia – are at the opposite end of the distribution to us.

Edwards believes we can see the visible evidence of this in the behaviour of recent governments. Ardern employed lobbyist GJ Thompson as chief of staff; Hipkins poached Andrew Kirton from a firm that lobbied for the liquor industry. It works both ways: former Labour ministers Kris Faafoi and Kiri Allan transitioned directly to lobbying in the private sector.

The current government’s fast-track legislation exempts specified development projects from some consenting and environmental hurdles, but it denies any conflict of interest in companies that donated to coalition parties being included in the scheme. Edwards argues, “It is hard to imagine a more direct conflict of interest than accepting money from a donor then changing the law on their behalf.”

For Edwards, many of the failures of the New Zealand Model amplify each other. With little regulation and a powerful and largely unaccountable central government, there is a single point of failure for industry and corporate capture. That is what locks in the lack of competition – and that is where you get the low growth and low productivity.

He notes a recent attempt by the Ministry of Justice to introduce more robust regulations around lobbying was captured by the lobbying industry, who negotiated a voluntary code of conduct instead of any meaningful reform.

“The public gets to vote once every three years, but the lobbyists dictate policy and

regulation on a day-to-day basis.”

It’s worth buying the magazine to read the whole article.

In terms of the interview with Brent Edwards of the NBR, here’s one excerpt from the article that was published:

“There is a lot of corruption in New Zealand. We are a society [where there are] rotten elements, that need more light shone on them, and I think, you know, so far, in recent years media, political parties, academics haven’t done enough on those areas.”

Too complacent

…“New Zealand is too complacent and … we’re too ready to just let things lie and, you know, trying and get on, not have conflict, whereas sometimes you do need to shine those lights on things,” Edwards said.

He said sometimes problems got picked up. For example, donation scandals were picked up by the Electoral Commission and then passed on to the Police but almost always the Police never acted. The Integrity Institute was going to campaign to have the Electoral Act taken seriously when it came to political donations.

Edwards said rather than having the Electoral Commission, Police, or the Serious Fraud Office be responsible for policing campaign finance rules, those powers should be vested in a separate agency.

“Throughout the West, we’re seeing increasing public concern about integrity issues around, yeah, the wealthy, the oligarchs dominating the process and getting away with it. So I think we’ve got a growing mood for something like an Integrity Commission in New Zealand.”

He said there were big concerns about the influence of business and money in New Zealand politics. It was how the system worked and had always been a problem in New Zealand.

The most money

“Those with the loudest voices, those with the most money, those with the best networks are able to have more influence on democracy and, you know, [on] what the executive of the day, what policies they put forward.”

But Edwards said it had become much worse in recent decades, with increasing inequality and lot of policy – whether pushed by a Labour-led or National-led government – which was clearly not in the public interest. Policy agendas pretty much stuck with the status quo, which suited the wealthiest entities and individuals.

“We need to think about how that political process can be made more accountable, more democratic, and can be more focused back to the public interest.”

He does not accept that the fact of everyone having one vote, no matter how rich or poor, gets around the influence the wealthy might have on the political process.

Edwards said every election the country got pretty much the same outcome, and it continued to have the same housing crisis and inequality crisis, regardless of who was in government.

“We’re seeing the rise of ... the wealthy really dominating the political process and getting their way. Elections should change that, but they don’t.”

More Integrity Institute updates to come

I’ll provide further updates on the plans of The Integrity Institute over the coming days and weeks. But please do get in contact if you’re interested in being involved. I’m currently reaching out to many other organisations and individuals who might want to collaborate on our campaign.

Of particular importance at the moment, I’m looking for researchers to help me deliver our ambitious work programme. I’m especially interested in working with media outlets and employing those with the journalistic and research skills to help us make a big impact. So please get in touch if you want to be part of this exciting campaign.

Dr Bryce Edwards

Director of The Integrity Institute