The cost of National

Transparency International released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index yesterday, showing that Aotearoa had dropped two places to fourth (behind Denmark, Finland, and Singapore). And as Matt Nippert points out, it would have been worse, were it not for rising corruption elsewhere. TINZ's Anne Tolley (a former national Minister) expresses all our disquiet when she says:

"We used to be first in the world and we've just seen a continual drop down the ladder - about 10 percent in four years," Transparency International New Zealand chairperson Anne Tolley said.

"It sort of feels like the wheels are coming off a bit and that's really dangerous for our democracy."

Hmmm. I wonder what has happened in the last four years? Could it have anything to do with a regime which has made policy decisions nakedly driven by industry lobbying, handed over billions of dollars to cronies, unlawfully appointed political cronies to public office, and is currently planning to campaign on being able to make even more corrupt decisions after the next election? (And that's not even getting into the whole LNG boondoggle).

This is the most corrupt government Aotearoa has had in over a century. And it is openly viewed as such. The miracle is that we haven't fallen further.

We need to change this. We need to regulate lobbyists, take public sector appointments out of the hands of ministers so they can't be used to reward cronies, tighten political donation laws, and restore and extend transparency over our government. And the first step to doing that is to kick this corrupt dogshit regime out of office in November.

Naked cronyism

Judith Collins, the toxic piece of shit responsible for National's campaign of dirty politics, is finally retiring. Yay! But we're not rid of her yet, because in a parting gift (and an effort to continue her malign influence), she'll be appointed as president of the Law Commission.

The appointment is naked cronyism, a retirement package to ease her way out the door. As president of the Commission, Collins will be paid over half a million a year - more than the Prime Minister. She's not unqualified for the role, and if this appointment had been made five or ten years after she had left politics, then it would have been far less controversial. But the Law Commission is meant to be a politically neutral expert body advising on law reform - and there is simply no way Collins, with both her reputation and recent political involvement, can meet that part of the brief.

Meanwhile, looking at the list of the Commissions current projects - which include hate crimes and director's duties and liabilities - and you can see all sorts of ways for a far-right scumbag like Collins to put her thumb on the scale, and distort the direction of our law for decades (let alone of the Commission is requested to examine terrorism or protest law). But then, the solution to a politicised Law Commission is for elected governments to keep throwing its reports in the bin. But then, there's simply no point in having such a body - and paying Collins half a million a year - if that is the result.

As I've said on other crony appointments, this corrupt culture of political cronyism around public service positions has to change. Appointments should be made on merit, not on connections or patronage, and appointees should be able to demonstrate they meet basic political neutrality criteria. Politicians have repeatedly demonstrated they are incapable of doing that job properly, so its time to take it out of their hands, and give it to an independent appointments body. That is the only way to end this corruption in our political system.

Coalition of cronyism

Another day, another naked crony appointment from the regime. This time its gun minister and former gun lobbyist Nicole McKee appointing fellow gun loonies to the Ministerial Arms Advisory Group:

The search for two new members took place last year after four MAAG members came to the end of their three-year terms. McKee decided to reappoint two (Shayne Walker and Debbie Lamb) and cut two (Yasbek and Helene Leaf).

McKee also agreed to the Ministry of Justice seeking nominations through “agencies, ministers, Cabinet, caucus and interested groups”, according to a ministry briefing in July, released under the Official Information Act (OIA).

A week and a half later, she changed her mind when the ministry sought permission to invite nominations from groups including the police, Te Puni Kōkiri, the Māori Firearms Forum, MAAG members and the Arms Engagement Group. The ministry should only proceed if there were no nominations from her coalition colleagues, McKee’s private secretary told the ministry.

According to the OIA documents, McKee, who is an Act MP, then told two people she wanted for the group (Mike Spray and Michelle Roderick-Hall) to send their CVs to the Act Party’s chief of staff at the time, Andrew Ketels, who nominated them.

Who are her preferred nominees? Both gun nuts, one has worked directly for McKee's company Firearms Safety Specialists NZ Limited, and the other has worked indirectly for her through an organisation FSS founded. So its naked cronyism.

This isn't a statutory position, so the appointments can't be declared unlawful (unlike the regime's unlawful crony appointment to the Human Rights Commission). But its morally no different. And it makes it clear that this government is about abusing government to hand out public salaries and policy influence to its mates.

This has to change. The culture of crony appointments has to stop. That's not just a matter of de-electing this regime, because Labour is no different. Instead, all government appointments, whether statutory or ministerial, need to be taken out of the corrupt hands of politicians, and be made by an independent appointments body. The politicians have shown time and time again that they cannot be trusted to apply the law correctly when jobs are involved. Time to give the job to somebody else instead.

This has to stop

Another day, another crony appointment - this time, of former National candidate (and general racist arsehole) Paul Henry to the board of TVNZ. Coming in the wake of revelations that a member of the PM's science and technology advisory council got their job by sending the prime minister a text message, it really looks like its cronyism all the way down, and that people simply get appointed to high-paying government positions on the basis of connections and who they can text, rather than on merit.

This is no way to run a country, and it has to stop. As for how, the solution is simple: take appointment decisions off Ministers. Instead, have them made by a neutral statutory appointments body, with total transparency over all applications, decisions, and communications, to ensure that Ministers can't get their grubby, corrupt paws on the process. We already use such a mechanism for the Government Statistician, and weaker, shame-based ones for public sector chief executives and members of He Pou a Rangi. it is time we used them more widely. Because it is abundantly clear that politicians cannot be trusted to make neutral, merit-based appointments, and instead regard this part of the public sector as simply the spoils of office to be used to reward their donors and cronies.

Naked corruption and cronyism

It was foreign monarch's fake birthday over the weekend, which meant an honours list, which turned out to be a demonstration of everything wrong with the "honours" system. Those the government deemed worthy included outright cronies, a politician so reviled that her name is synonymous with social murder and whose grave will be a piss-soaked sewer when she dies (if we don't just dig up her corpse and stake it), and a man who had given $150,000 to coalition parties in 2023 alone (strangely, this was not mentioned in any of the media stories around his honour). The inclusion of these people on the list was a naked "fuck you" to the people of Aotearoa, not to mention an implicit defamation by association of all the actually worthy recipients.

This is a perennial problem, and the government gets away with it in part because it uses those other recipients as a human shield. It hides behind the worthy while reward its donors and cronies, and the media plays the game and lets them get away with it. They shouldn't. When the government introduced a corrupt and Muldoonist fast-track law, the media published stories about exactly how much fast-track applicants had donated, and what they were getting for their money. They should do the same with honours lists. And if the rich donors cry foul, well, maybe they shouldn't behave in a manner which looks so nakedly corrupt.

Long term, it is clear that the system needs to either be completely destroyed, or taken out of the grubby hands of politicians. Having honours recommended by an independent board, according to statutory criteria, with strict rules against rewarding anyone who has ever worked in government or politics (no honours for cronies and time-servers! No retirement perks!), or ever donated to a political party (no corruption!), would be a good start. But why would the politicians ever vote for that?

An inappropriate candidate

Last month I dug into the appointment of fossil-fuel lobbyist John Carnegie to the board of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority. Carnegie was rejected as a candidate in two appointment rounds, being specifically not recommended because he was "likely to relitigate board decisions, or undermine decisions that have been made" and "likely to create tension or conflict with fellow board members". Despite this, then-Energy Minister Simeon Brown appointed him anyway. So how bad a candidate was he? RNZ's Eloise Gibson has done some digging of her own, and turned up a rather disturbing interview (on a cooker platform, to boot) where he rails against EECA's work:

"[Oil and gas companies] are asking what will happen in six or nine years if we get someone who basically a) wants to reintroduce Onslow [a massive pumped hydro electricity scheme], who basically wants to go back to the old policies so, b) wants to make fossil fuel technology harder to consent, reintroduces a 100 percent renewable electricity target, reintroduces GIDI... that was the state subsidised demand destruction... that's the question investors are going to be asking," he said.

GIDI was the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry fund, under which EECA gave grants to heavy industrial companies to subsidise the costs of converting coal and gas boilers to electric or biomass.

GIDI has been scrapped. But EECA's core functions still reduce demand for oil and gas.

Whether he will effectively do that work, or whether he will try and sabotage it from within is left as an exercise for the media. But MBIE had pretty clearly reached their own conclusion on that question, which is why they recommended not appointing him.

Meanwhile, that rant - reintroducing Onslow (killing winter demand for fossil fuel peaking), making fossil fuels harder to consent, a 100% renewables target (now looking entirely achievable in an average year thanks to solar), reintroducing GIDI, and state-sponsored demand destruction to drive the fossil industry out of business - looks like a solid policy agenda which would give us both energy security and cheaper power. And hopefully we'll see exactly that when we throw this corrupt, climate change denying government out on its arse.

An appropriate process?

Back in December Energy Minister Simon Watts then-Energy Minister Simeon Brown appointed John Carnegie and Vijay Goel to the board of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority. The appointments looked dubious - Carnagie is chief executive of Energy Resources Aotearoa, previously known as the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand: basically, an oil and gas lobbyist. And Goel is an accountant who runs a pokie trust. So, I sent in the usual OIA, seeking all advice and communications on the appointments. I received the response today, and it shows the appointments are even more questionable than expected.

Watts' response included an explanatory letter and over 500 pages of documents (most of which are redacted). Watts' short explanation is that:

10 candidates interviewed for the two board member roles. Initially seven candidates were shortlisted and interviewed. Subsequently, a further three people were shortlisted at my request and were also interviewed. I [sic] appointed the two new members for terms commencing 6 January 2025.

...which doesn't really give the full picture. MBIE ran an entire appointments process for two roles between January and June 2024. In June 2024 Watts Brown agreed to appoint one person (and rejected a recommended reappointment). MBIE drafted a cabinet paper, with appointment letters and everything, and then something clearly went wrong. No appointment was made, and the whole search began again. MBIE went immediately to the previous candidates, and here we learn that John Carnagie had applied in the previous round and was not recommended for the shortlist. Despite this, Watts Brown instructed MBIE to interview him, then instructed them to interview Goel as well.

The interviews were not successful. A briefing on 19 September reported that "MBIE does not consider the candidates suitable for appointment". For some reason - whether actual or anticipated Ministerial displeasure is unclear - this briefing was "put on hold", and then rewritten. The rewritten version reached the same conclusions: none of the Minister's picks were recommended. Carnagie was "on the lower end of suitability for appointment", while Goel was "not recommended for appointment to the Board". In an effort to appear more "scientific", they quantified these conclusions with an "assessment framework". And while the actual scores are redacted as "free and frank", you can see exactly what the interviewers thought of the candidates from what is bolded in the scoring sheets. Carnagie ranked highly on public accountability, but scored poorly on stakeholder relationship management, and was a terrible board fit, assessed as "likely to relitigate board decisions, or undermine decisions that have been made" and "likely to create tension or conflict with fellow board members". Goel was just a nothing candidate, with no actual interest in the role, no particularly strong areas, and assessed as "likely to make little contribution outside area of expertise". Despite this, both were appointed anyway, with the Minister certifying to Cabinet that "appropriate processes have been followed in selecting the proposed appointees" and that "invitations for nominations were publicised and that nominations received were considered". Yeah, right. In reality, those nominations were ignored in favour of Ministerial cronies, who were appointed regardless of merit, despite being assessed as unsuitable for the job.

Its a perfect example of National's cronyism. And yet another argument for why we need to take government board appointments completely out of the corrupt hands of Ministers, and put them in the hands of a neutral statutory appointments body.

Correction (3 March 2025): I had erroneously attributed the appointment decision to Simon Watts. The entire process was in fact overseen by Simeon Brown, who was then removed from the Energy portfolio a week before my OIA request was due. Watts' sole responsibility in this case was to sign off on the response to the request.

Sabotaging te Tiriti

The Waitangi Tribunal has been one of the most effective critics of the government, pointing out repeatedly that its racist, colonialist policies breach te Tiriti o Waitangi. While it has no powers beyond those of recommendation, its truth-telling has clearly gotten under the government's skin. They had already begun to sabotage it, with a crony appointment of racist former ACT leader Richard Prebble in October. And on Friday they gutted it completely, replacing almost the entire membership:

Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka has confirmed a major refresh of the Waitangi Tribunal, as he replaces half of its members.

The coalition Government started a major overhaul in October, appointing former ACT Party leader Richard Prebble to the Tribunal alongside Ken Williamson, whose background is in insurance and corporate leadership.

On Friday, Potaka confirmed sweeping changes to the Tribunal’s membership. He announced another eight new appointments, and said he was renewing the warrants of just five existing members.

Those new appointments included political pundit Philip Crump and former NZ First minister Ron Mark.

The latter makes it crystal clear what is going on: qualified academics and historians are being replaced with corporate shills, racists, and swivel-eyed weirdos. Its the same tactic they have used to sabotage human rights. And the solution is the same in both cases: the next government should immediately sack National's unqualified cronies, for being unable to properly perform the functions of the office.

Once that is done, there is a clear need to insulate the Tribunal against further fuckery from future right-wing governments. We already do this for judges: their independence is guaranteed by lifetime appointments, protections against removal, and protections against defunding. The Waitangi Tribunal is effectively a constitutional court, embodied to rule on the ongoing partnership which founded our nation. Once constitutional normality is restored, its members deserve the same protection.

Stephen Rainbow is ACT's crony

Back in August, National sabotaged human rights by appointing terf and genocide supporter Stephen Rainbow as Chief Human Rights Commissioner. The Spinoff has been digging into this, and they've uncovered new information: Rainbow didn't actually get the job - until suddenly he did:

“I didn’t get the HRC role but still very keen to help out,” wrote Stephen Rainbow to Act Party chief of staff Andrew Ketels in a text message on May 22 this year. Rainbow had applied for the position of chief human rights commissioner, after being nominated by Act leader David Seymour, and been interviewed for the job in March. He did not receive a text back from Ketels.

But nearly three months later, Ketels did text. “Congratulations!” On that day, Rainbow had been announced by justice minister Paul Goldsmith as the new chief human rights commissioner. “Thanks Andrew,” Rainbow replied. “Appreciate the opportunity to serve my country.” He is due to start in his role at the commission next week.

So, Rainbow was ACT's choice, and the natural conclusion is that they pressured Goldsmith to overturn the transparent and independent appointments process to shoe-horn their saboteur into office. A saboteur BTW who commiserated with ACT about the "challenging time for your office and David as you head into Waitangi Day"... which sounds just a little bit racist, and adds to the evidence that he is a completely unsuitable appointee incapable of properly performing the functions of the office, who should be immediately sacked by the next government.

More Sabotage

The Waitangi Tribunal has been one of the most effective critics of the National government and its racist, anti-Māori agenda. So naturally, they're sabotaging it with a crony appointment:

Former ACT Party leader Richard Prebble has been appointed to the Waitangi Tribunal.

Prebble, a Commander of the British Empire, is one of two new members to be appointed, Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka said in a statement on Thursday.

Prebble is a former Cabinet minister who was originally a member of the Labour Party. He joined the newly formed ACT party in 1996, later becoming its leader until 2004.

Prebble is a racist. He opposed even limited recognition of Māori rights through the (now repealed, and disastrous in other ways) Foreshore and Seabed Act. He opposed recognition of Māori interests in water through Three Waters. He hangs around with racist people like Don Brash, Michael Bassett, and Rodney Hide. He has nothing positive to offer the Tribunal, and his appointment can only be seen as an attempt at sabotage, similar to Paul Goldsmith's sabotage of the Human Rights Commission by appointing racists and terfs. And to add insult to injury, we'll be paying for him to undermine them from within.

Our institutions deserve better from our government than this. We deserve better from our government. Their contempt for democratic and constitutional norms is another reason why they need to urgently be voted out on their arses.

As for Prebble, like Goldsmith's Human Rights Commission appointments, he appears incapable of actually performing the functions of the office to which he has been appointed. And like those other racists, the next government can and should simply sack him.

Pure cronyism

So, the rumours were true: the government has appointed former Labour deputy Annette King as High Commissioner to Australia. So much for Winston Peters' supposed opposition to such appointments - it turns out that he's really only opposed when they're from the wrong party. But the normal arguments against cronyism are even stronger in the case of this job. Australia is our nearest neighbour and one of our most important diplomatic relationships. It deserves better than to be used as a retirement home for washed-up, has-been former MPs.

Steve Maharey's crony appointment

The previous government was notorious for cronyism, running fake appointment processes for form's sake before shoehorning their preferred cronies in at the last minute. That was pretty blatantly corrupt, but in less than a year the new government has managed to surpass them, with the appointment of former Labour MP Steve Maharey as chair of Pharmac. When Maharey was appointed, I submitted the usual OIA request seeking details on the process. The released documents show cronyism so naked that I have not seen it before in New Zealand.

How bad is it? First, Health Minister David Clark received advice to reappoint the existing board chair Stuart McLauchlan to manage Pharmac through upcoming changes, or at least temporarily reappoint him so a proper process to find a replacement could be run:


This advice was ignored. Which would be fine if Clark had then run a proper appointment process to appoint someone on merit. Instead, he simply shoulder-tapped Maharey, on the basis of "skills and experience which are well known to the Minister of Health".


No position description, no application, no interviews, nothing. Just $48,000 a year for knowing the right person. Its cronyism, pure and simple. Then, in the Cabinet paper formalising the appointment, Clark has the gall to say this:


The SSC Board Appointment and Induction Guidelines require that a position description is completed and strongly suggest that a wide pool of candidates be sought by a variety of methods (including advertisement, nominations from state-sector agencies etc) in order to get the broadest possible pool of high-talent candidates. They also assume that candidates will be short-listed, interviewed, and generally assessed on merit. Whether Clark actually did that, or misled his Cabinet colleagues, is left as an exercise for the reader.

What is clear is that this process undermines the concept of merit-based appointments in the public sector. The way to get a job under Labour is not to be good at it, but to be buddies with the Minister. This is not how our government is meant to work. But it also diminishes Maharey, in that he's not obviously unsuitable for the role, and if he'd been appointed by the previous government or by an independent, transparent and merit-based process, no questions would have been asked. Instead, the method of his appointment taints him, and he'll forever show up on Google as a crony. Those seeking government appointments might want to think about that.

As for how to fix this, I've said it before: if we want to eliminate cronyism, we must remove the power of Ministers to dispense patronage in this manner. We already do that for state sector chief executive positions by using an independent panel and we should do it for boards as well. As with CEOs, if Ministers want to override the recommendation they have received, then they should be required to publicly notify that fact - a mechanism which ensures that it hardly ever happens. If we do this, our public sector would be better for it, and appointments would be free of the taint of cronyism or the suspicion they had been purchased through donations.

And more cronyism

Labour's cronyism continues. Last week, it was appointing MP's partners to a charity trust. This week, they've appointed former Labour MP Margaret Wilson as deputy chair of the Waikato DHB.

As with many crony appointments, its not so much an issue of qualification as of preference. If Wilson had applied like a normal person and been appointed by the previous government, her appointment would have been unobjectionable. But the fact that its a Labour government appointing one of their own immediately calls both the process and the outcome into doubt. If the government wants people to have confidence in its appointments, it needs a better process which is transparent, merit-based, and does not allow Ministers or MPs to shuffle their friends in and bypass the usual process.

More cronyism

Oh look! More cronyism from Labour. This time they've appointed the partners of two former MPs to a charity trust:

The partners of two former Labour MPs have been controversially appointed to the South Island's largest charity – the $600 million Rata Foundation.

Jane Sherriff and Philippa Burns are the latest appointments to the 12–member board of the former Canterbury Community Trust, which distributes about $18m in grants each year.

Rata made $42m from its investments in the year to the end of March 2017 and spent about $4m on administration and expenses.

Sherriff is the partner of former Labour minister Clayton Cosgrove and Burns is the wife of Brendon Burns, who was Labour MP for Christchurch Central between 2008 and 2011 and stood for Kaikoura twice without success.

This sort of appointment just reeks of cronyism, and as a result the Minister has been forced to go into detail about the process used to appoint them. Which includes this bit:

After advice from the Department of Internal Affairs, he had sought nominations from community trusts and from the caucuses of the Coalition Government in March and April 2018.

And this is the problem in a nutshell. Its done for every significant appointment, and odds are, if the final appointee is party-affiliated, they entered the process not by applying like a normal person, but because their name was given directly to the Minister by a fellow MP. Which immediately makes their appointment a prima facie favour and act of political patronage rather than anything to do with merit.

There's a name for dispensing government positions as favours and rewards: its called cronyism and corruption. And its not acceptable in New Zealand. And if we want to stamp it out, the best way to do so would be to end this institution of suggesting people to the Minister, requiring everyone to apply up-front, be considered on their merits by an independent panel, and requiring the Minister to report to Parliament or publish a gazette notice whenever they disagree with its findings. This sort of process is used in the State Sector Act for appointing chief executives, and it has been largely successful in preventing crony appointments in the senior public service. But given our politicians established culture of cronyism, we clearly need to extend it further, to board appointments as well.

Another crony appointment

The government has appointed former Labour MP Steve Maharey as chair of Pharmac. He's not obviously unqualified for the role, and if he was appointed on his merits via a transparent process in which he was obviously the best candidate, then that would be fine. Sadly, that's not something we can take for granted - Labour seems no better than National in this regard, shoulder-tapping their people and bypassing the usual process to shoehorn them into positions. As for whether that happened here, we'll find out in 20 working days.

Still paying off National's cronies

When they were in power, National established a system of charter schools to direct public money into private pockets. And now that they're out of power, we're still paying for it:

Taxpayers have paid $3.4 million to five proposed charter schools that may never open.

Education Minister Chris Hipkins has told National education spokeswoman Nikki Kaye that two proposed schools were paid establishment grants on the day the Ardern Government was sworn in, October 26.

Two others have been paid establishment grants since then, apparently because the new Government was bound by contracts signed before the election even though Hipkins has introduced a bill abolishing charter, or partnership, schools.

None of the five schools is believed to have paid back any of the money yet because they are still negotiating about either opening state or integrated schools instead, or recovering their costs for dreams that will never be realised.

Screw negotiations. This is public money, and it should be repaid. The government should introduce a clause into its charter school abolition bill to ensure that it is. The public should not be paying for schools which will never open, or for assets for private companies who will take them and run.

Shoulder-tapping a crony

Last month, the government appointed former Labour MP and cabinet minister Pete Hodgson as chair of Callaghan Innovation. As current chair of Otago Innovation Limited and with qualifications in veterinary science and public policy, on the face of it Hodgson is reasonably qualified for the job. But did he get it because of his qualifications, or because of his connection with the Labour Party? Sadly, it appears to be the latter. I sent in my usual OIA request about the appointment, seeking information about the process and how Hodgson had entered it. The appointment documents (such as they are) are here, but the real smoking gun is in the cover letter. The Minister. Megan Woods, is deliberately vague about how Hodgson's name entered the process:

The targeted search for potential candidates led by MBIE and with input from myself, resulted in a list of nine candidates. The list, which contains brief details on a range of experienced people alongside Mr Hodgson, was discussed With officials at a meeting of 20 November 2017.

A subsequent email got this admission from the Minister's staff:

The Minister initially raised Peter Hodgson’s name, along with a number of others, during a discussion with officials.

Note that Hodgson hadn't even been approached at this point. So basicly, the Minister shoulder-tapped him, then had him appointed without even the formality of an interview. There was no competitive process, and so no chance for the candidates to be assessed on merit.

If Hodgson had entered the process by e.g. applying in an open, transparent and competitive process, then it might be possible to believe he was appointed on merit. But with this process, its pretty clear that it was simply a crony appointment, Labour paying off a past MP and stacking the boards with people it trusts. And that is not how our public service is supposed to operate.

More cronyism

The government is apparently planning to give former Labour MP Annette King a diplomatic sinecure:

Former MP Dame Annette King is tipped to be appointed the next High Commissioner to Australia by the end of the year.

King left Parliament at the last election and was made a Dame in the New Year's Honours.

It is understood King is now in line to be appointed as High Commissioner for Australia in the middle of the year and will take up the post when the current High Commissioner Chris Seed leaves after August.

If true, this is simply more cronyism. While heads of mission are technically appointed by the Governor-General rather than the Chief Executive, they still become public servants. The principle of appointment on merit should apply - especially to our most important diplomatic position. The idea that you just appoint a crony as a political favour so they can drink themselves senseless for three years at public expense is a loathsome relic of the British monarchy and belongs in the dustbin of history with the rest of the imperial baggage.

Pre-election, Winston Peters reportedly said he would restore appointment on merit for diplomatic posting, and recall National's crony appointments. I'd like to see him keep his word on this. Those appointments were wrong and should never have been made. If Winston wants a legacy, ending this culture of high-level cronyism would be an excellent one.

But I guess then he'll never get the diplomatic post he's been dreaming of as a retirement sinecure... and so the self-interest and greed of our political class screws us all again.

A crony appointment

When National was in government, I spent years criticising their crony appointments. Now it looks like I'm going to be doing the same for Labour as well. The first one I've noticed: they've appointed former Labour MP and cabinet minister Pete Hodgson as chair of Callaghan Innovation.

Hodgson isn't a terrible choice for the role - he's a former Minister of Research, Science and Technology and chair of Otago University's technology spinoff company. If he was appointed on his merits via a transparent process in which he was obviously the best candidate, then that would be fine. But being appointed by his own party automatically raises doubts and suggests that it was a crony appointment. I guess we'll find out the truth in 20 working days...

Kate Wilkinson's crony appointment

Last month, Science and Innovation Minister Paul Goldsmith appointed former National MP Kate Wilkinson to the board of Landcare Research. Naturally, I sent away the usual OIA request. And naturally, it exposed the appointment as the usual crony stitch-up.

Here's how it happened. Back in February, Treasury sent the usual reminder to the Minister that he needed to make a number of appointments to CRI boards, including Landcare Research. The positions were duly advertised, and in May Treasury came back with a short-list of eight candidates for follow-up interviews. Kate Wilkison was not on that list, because she had not applied for the job. Four of the candidates were interviewed, and the Ministry made their recommendations. Then this happened:

The panel determined that Ngarimu Blair and John Rodwell are the preferred candidates for the Board. The panel's assessment of the interviewed candidates is outlined below. Following the completion of interviews you decided to appoint Hon Kate Wilkinson as an additional director to the Board.

[Emphasis added]

Yes, Goldsmith was so impressed by the qualifications of his former colleague (who hadn't even applied or been interviewed) that he decided to create a special position for her, at a cost of $24,000 a year. He then lied to Cabinet about it, claiming that Blair rather than Wilkinson was the additional director.

And that's how public sector board appointments in New Zealand work under National. They're not made on merit, but on politics, dished out as a spoil of office. Just like in the USA.