The Seventies: The Decade Right-Wingers Would Prefer Everyone Forgot.

"An Excess Of Democracy": That was the phrase used by the corporate elites on three continents to describe the political crisis besetting the seventh decade of the Twentieth Century. The decade when groups which, for centuries, had suffered in silence: blacks, women, gays and, arguably, the planet itself, found their voice. The history of the past 40 years has been driven by the determination of those same elites to contain, constrain and cynically co-opt the emanicipatory movements of the 1970s.

LONG HAIR, FLARED JEANS AND DISCO: not for nothing were the 1970s dubbed “The Decade That Taste Forgot”. One of the most curious, and little-known facts about the 1970s, however, is how differently the political possibilities of the decade were perceived by Left and Right.

The left-wing revolutionaries of the 1970s took their inspiration from the “liberation movements” of the Third World and openly sneered at the labour movements of the affluent Western nations. Top-heavy, bureaucratic and mired in “reformism”, the working-class parties and unions of Europe, North America and Australasia were written off by leftist ideologues as being either moribund or reactionary.

The view from the Right could hardly have been more different. In the eyes of conservative academics and corporate executives, the steady gains of the enduring centre-left electoral alliances forged during the Great Depression and World War II had whittled away the power of capitalism to the point where the entire economic system of the West was believed to be teetering on the edge of a socialist abyss.

So convinced was the Right that capitalism was facing an existential crisis that they embarked on a full-scale ideological counter-attack against the post-war social-democratic consensus. In his famous 1971 memorandum, Lewis F. Powell, a corporate lawyer, enjoined the leaders of American business to resist what he described as an “assault on the enterprise system” that was “broadly based” and “consistently pursued”.

In the most quoted sentence of what came to be known as “The Powell Manifesto”, the man who President Richard Nixon would later appoint to the US Supreme Court warned corporate America that: 

“The most disquieting voices joining the chorus of criticism come from perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians.”

It was to counter these “disquieting voices” that Powell’s followers established the multitude of right-wing think tanks that, in the intervening 40 years, would play such a decisive role in transforming the ideological climate of Western societies.

What was it that blinded so many Western leftists to the true extent of post-war social-democracy’s success?

Where better to turn for an answer than the writings of Karl Marx. In what is arguably his finest piece of political writing, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon”, Marx writes: “The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” Never was this truer than of Western revolutionaries during the 1970s.

Just as the American and French revolutionaries of the late-eighteenth century draped themselves in the costumes of the ancient Roman Republic, the 1970s insurrectionist’s vision of “The Revolution” was typically lit by the crimson glow of Petrograd, 1917. Armed workers and peasants riding through the streets of a capital city festooned with scarlet banners – that’s what “The Revolution” looked like.

That a revolution in one of the affluent welfare states of the West was more likely to be the work of Powell’s “perfectly respectable elements of society”, was an idea that occurred to no one – except the Right. It explains, perhaps, why the neoliberal “counter-revolution” of the 1980s and 90s was rolled out from college campuses, pulpits and the news media: as well by politicians representing all those “moribund” working-class parties the left-wing “revolutionaries” refused to join.

The reason why so many on the Right – especially those from the “New Right” of the 1980s – are so quick to condemn the 1970s should, by now, be obvious. For them, it marks the point of maximum danger. That moment in history when groups which, for centuries, had suffered in silence: blacks, women, gays and, arguably, the planet itself, found their voice. The decade when the Right, confronted by “an excess of democracy” – drove it back.

So, the next time Bill English accuses Jacinda Ardern of wanting to drag New Zealand “back to the seventies”, by reinvigorating the trade unions and reducing our society’s growing inequalities, I sincerely hope she will not, again, airily dismiss his comments as: “So last century!”

Far from being “the decade that taste forgot”, the 1970s are actually the decade the Right would prefer everyone forgot. Yes, there was long hair, flares and disco: but there was also, as Bob Dylan sang in 1975: “Music in the cafés at night, and revolution in the air.”

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 8 September 2017.

Trust & Taxes: How National Intends To Derail The "Jacinda Train".

In Steven Joyce's Dreams: If National can grab the attention of the waverers; all those former Key voters getting ready to board the “Jacinda Train”; and convince them that Labour’s numbers simply don’t add up. If they can make them fearful that, if they’re not very careful, a bunch of so-called “experts” are going to advise Labour to tax their land, their batch, their business, their petrol, their water, their financial transactions – even their inheritance. If enough mistrust can be fueled, and sufficient suspicion inflamed, then – dammit – the Nats just might win.

NOW IT’S CLEAR. Now we know how the next 17 days of the 2017 General Election are going to go. National’s strategy has come down to frightening the electorate into betraying its own hopes for a better future. Distilled from God knows how many focus groups, the two trigger-words National have seized upon are “Tax” and “Trust”.

Yes, it’s pretty thin. But, what else has National got? Nine years of arrogant contempt for the accumulating evidence of New Zealand’s obscene social deficit has left the Government deservedly defenceless in the face of problems that have, to its horror, entered their acute phase at precisely the wrong political moment. Already bereft of their magic man, John Key, they have also been robbed of the other politician upon whose qualities they were planning to capitalise – Andrew Little. With the “Jacinda Train” bearing down on them with terrifying speed, what else could they do?

Clearly, what they did was what the Australian, Canadian and British right-wing parties did when they found themselves staring defeat in the face. They picked up the phone and called Crosby-Textor. A smart move, because if there’s one outfit capable of turning aside the electoral thrusts of a rampant centre-left, it’s the highly successful pairing of Australians Lynton Crosby and Mark Textor.

Their most important talent has always been the ability to tease out of the words, the repeated phrases, and even the facial tics of focus group participants, the bare bones of a political narrative upon which their clients can hang the flesh of a winning electoral campaign.

Presented with the fresh face of Jacinda Ardern their search would have been for the challenges and responses required to expose her most easily exploited vulnerabilities. That the trigger-words extracted from this process turned out to be “Tax” and “Trust” strongly suggests that the focus groups’ collective responses provided the National Party with a working narrative that goes something like this:

Jacinda’s a warm and lovely person, but she’s very young and quite inexperienced. What’s more, when pressured on the big economic issues – especially those having to do with taxation – she comes across as uncertain and ill-prepared. She tells us that Labour has an economic plan, and that its been thoroughly costed by “experts” – whose judgement we are, apparently, expected to take on trust. She is similarly relying on a “working group” of experts when it comes to Labour’s tax policy – which means she can’t tell us what our taxes are going to be until after the election. That strikes us as a bit suspect, a bit dodgy. We like Jacinda, but we’re not sure she knows what she’s talking about economically-speaking. We might be persuaded to trust her. But, the people around Jacinda: the people behind her; we’re not quite ready to trust them. Not yet. There are still too many unanswered questions.

Crafting a campaign strategy out of these sentiments isn’t all that difficult.

First, you go after Jacinda on taxes – all manner of taxes. You expose her uncertainty and you attribute it not simply to her inexperience, but to something more sinister.

Labour’s hiding its true intentions, you say, because it’s got a “hidden agenda” to tax New Zealanders within an inch of their lives. You inform the country that their economic plan has an $11.7 billion “hole” in it. Of course, Labour will wheel out all sorts of “experts” to tell the voters that theirs is a wonderful plan. But, then, experts are ten-a-penny, aren’t they? New Zealanders will only find out how it all works when, in the awful event that Labour wins the election, the membership of its all-important Tax Working Group is announced. (What’s the bet they turn out to be the same people who have just told us that Labour’s plan really does add up!)

This is the narrative that National will build and amplify over the next 17 days. It doesn’t have to be true and it doesn’t matter what the media and their “experts” say. Who trusts the “lying media” and its “fake news” these days? And, seriously, what do “experts” really know about anything?

At this point in the campaign, all that matters to National is that enough voters ask themselves the following two questions: “Is Jacinda really experienced enough to run the country?” And: “Can she truly be trusted to keep her “tax and spend” Labour Party in check?”

If National can grab the attention of the waverers; all those former Key voters getting ready to board the “Jacinda Train”; and convince them that Labour’s numbers simply don’t add up. If they can make them fearful that, if they’re not very careful, a bunch of so-called “experts” are going to advise Labour to tax their land, their batch, their business, their petrol, their water, their financial transactions – even their inheritance. If enough mistrust can be fueled, and sufficient suspicion inflamed, then – dammit – the Nats just might win.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Wednesday, 6 September 2017.

A Song For The Times.

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution

Take a bow for the new revolution

Smile and grin at the change all around

Pick up my guitar and play

Just like yesterday

Then I'll get on my knees and pray

We don't get fooled again

- The Who

Video courtesy of YouTube

This posting exclusive to Bowalley Road.

Jacinda's Biggest Challenge: Redefining "Economic Orthodoxy".

Economics Matters: The jubilation of Election Night 1984 was soon overtaken by the economic and social blitzkrieg that was Rogernomics. So, the two questions voters preparing to elect another popular Labour leader in 2017 need to ask themselves are: Does Jacinda's caucus contain the same number of radical change agents as David Lange's? And, if it doesn't, exactly how far will cautious economic orthodoxy carry Labour towards its goals of social equality and economic justice?

LET’S BEGIN with the assumption that Jacinda Ardern is about to become New Zealand’s next prime minister. And that, after nine very difficult years, Labour is poised to re-take the Treasury Benches. The next step, then, is to ask: “What happens now? What sort of Labour-led Government should we expect?”

More than one political observer has noted the similarities between this year’s general election and that of 1984. They have pointed out that Labour entered both campaigns with a new (or, relatively new) and inspiring leader. They also draw our attention to what they claim is a very similar sense of public frustration with the status quo. Socially, economically and politically, they allege, New Zealand finds itself stalled down a dead-end street. The dramatic response to Jacinda Ardern’s elevation, they say, has revealed the same hunger for bold new solutions to intractable old problems that made the 1984 election such an historical watershed.

The crucial factor in the 1984 equation, however, was the presence in Labour’s caucus of a critical mass of radical change agents. Even more critically, these change agents knew that their radical plans would be instantly endorsed and rapidly expedited by like-minded change agents strategically located in the Reserve Bank and Treasury. They were further reassured by the knowledge that important figures in the upper echelons of both the business community and the news media were sympathetic to their proposed “reforms”. Knowing this, Roger Douglas, Richard Prebble, David Caygill and Michael Bassett were supremely confident that the process of fundamentally changing New Zealand would begin the moment they made it into the Beehive.

In this respect, the contrast between the governments-in-waiting of 1984 and 2017 could hardly be greater. As evidenced by their self-imposed “Budget Responsibility Rules”, the leading figures of a Labour/Green/NZ First government pose no threat whatsoever to the underlying assumptions of the economic and social status-quo. Even the usually hostile right-wing newspaper columnist, John Roughan, seems relaxed about the prospect of electoral change, observing smugly that: “[T]oday’s economic orthodoxy, or ‘neoliberalism’ if you don’t like it, is well entrenched in the public service and there is little risk we will lose it.”

Certainly, as the acknowledged protégé of the former Labour Finance Minister, Sir Michael Cullen, Labour’s current finance spokesperson, Grant Robertson, has repeatedly reaffirmed his support for the standard political operating procedures of the Helen Clark-led Labour Government of 1999-2008.

At the heart of those procedures lies an unshakeable commitment to “responsible” (or, as Mr Roughan would put it, “orthodox”) economic management. No less than his mentor, Sir Michael, Mr Robertson has absorbed the lessons of the infamous “Winter of Discontent” of 2000, during which the New Zealand business community provided the Prime Minister and her Finance Minister with a short but effective demonstration of the sort of reaction any government foolhardy enough to stray from the paths of economic righteousness should expect.

It is difficult to imagine that, over the course of the past month, Mr Robertson has not reiterated those lessons to Ms Ardern. Certainly, her own public commitment to uphold the Labour/Green Budget Responsibility Rules points in that direction.

All of which presents Ms Ardern with a dilemma. On the one hand, her slogan, “Let’s Do This.”, suggests to voters that hers will be a government of action and achievement. On the other, her commitment to uphold the Budget Responsibility Rules speaks to the business community of a government committed to not rocking the boat – or, at least, to not rocking it very vigorously.

But, building “more homes” and delivering “better health and education” will require New Zealand’s social and economic boats to be rocked very vigorously indeed. Every bit as vigorously, in fact, as they were rocked by the “Rogernomes” of the 1980s.

Unfortunately, support for such radical rock-n-rolling will be extremely hard to find among the orthodox defenders of the status-quo populating the upper-reaches of the public service, news media and business community. As in 2000, their response to the merest hint that Labour is getting ready to embrace a genuinely progressive programme will be swift and brutal.

Ms Ardern’s response to their response should be guided by the political strategy of the First Labour Government. Take the people into your confidence. Explain what you want to do for them and identify the forces standing in their way. Reassure them that, with their support, the long-delayed changes in housing, health and education – the changes they voted for – will happen. And, finally, remind them that, in a democracy, crucial decisions about the future of their country must be made by – and for – the many, not the few.

Because the truly astonishing thing about all genuinely radical programmes for change – including those of 1935 and 1984 – is how quickly the utterly impossible of yesterday becomes the entirely doable of today.

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 5 September 2017.

Some People: Paula Bennett And National’s Tribal Instincts.

Another World: The Police Minister knows that the most effective means of breaking the gangs’ power would be to remove the criminal stigma from unwise drug use. But, like all Police Ministers, Paula Bennett knows that the drug laws are not there to end the misuse of drugs. They are there to create a nether world of criminality and addiction against which the situation of “normal” people may be favourably compared.

THERE ARE MOMENTS when we all, without thinking too much about what we’re saying, give ourselves away. Last Sunday (3/9/17) it was Paula Bennett’s turn. In full “Law and Order” mode, the Police Minister responded to a question about the compatibility of her just announced anti-gang/anti-P policy with New Zealand’s human-rights legislation by informing the electorate that “some” people had “fewer human-rights than others”.

Putting to one side its presumably unintended similarity to George Orwell’s famous Animal Farm formulation: “All animals are equal – but some animals are more equal than others”, Bennett’s comment possessed all the attributes of honest speech. Spoken in the context of her party’s hard line approach to what both she and the Prime Minister referred to as “the scourge” of methamphetamine addiction, the Minister’s words reflected her impatience with the sort of thinking which elevates abstract notions of rights above the all-too-material consequences of organised crime’s control of the illegal drug trade.

Clearly, Bennett sees the gangs’ involvement in the manufacture, distribution and sale of methamphetamine as proof of their members’ quasi-biological predilection towards depravity and violence. The people who engage in the illicit drug trade, heedless of the enormous damage it causes, cannot, in the eyes of conservative politicians and police officers, properly be classed as “people” at all. Rather, they should be dismissed as “animals” – brutal creatures who long ago sloughed-off the crucial qualities that distinguish men from beasts.

Taken to its most extreme, this way of viewing the “drug problem” culminates in the murderous policies favoured by the Philippines President, Rodrigo Duterte. Viewed from his perspective, addicts and dealers have no human rights worthy of the state’s respect because any claim they might have made to human status has been irretrievably compromised by their fatally anti-social behaviour. To Duterte and his followers, drug dealers and addicts belong in the same category as rabid dogs: unworthy of anything except a bullet.

Ultimately, it comes back to how people respond to what moral philosophers call “The Problem of Evil”. The most basic human response to the savagery of our own species is to project it outwards from our families, clans, tribes, classes and nations, to where it can be located unequivocally in the “Other”. Among Native American tribes it is quite common for the word for “human-being” to be the same as the word used to describe themselves. The Dakhota, Nakhota and Lakhota nations of the Great Plains all derive their name from “khota” – the word for “people”.

Once this projection is accomplished, the “Other” find themselves excluded, quite literally, from the tribe’s definition of humanity. If you are not “one of us”. If you do not belong to our gender, our race, our class, our nation; then you are not really human at all. And, if you are not really human, then we can treat you in any way we please. We can exploit you; we can enslave you; we can torture you; and, if we feel so inclined, we can kill you.

Within the confines of their tribe the Comanche were a caring, generous and fun-loving people. To those unfortunate enough to be captured by their raiding parties, however, they were a by-word for the most extraordinary cruelty. The tribe’s internal cohesion was preserved by externalising all those impulses likely to bring about its dissolution. When the encroachment of the “Americans” made raiding impossible, the Comanche nation collapsed.

As the date of the General Election draws nearer, the propensity of political parties to dehumanise the members and supporters of their opponents’ “tribes” increases dramatically.

The manufacture, distribution and sale of illegal drugs is, by definition, the preserve of organised criminals. It is a business which follows in almost every respect the rules of supply and demand that govern all commodity markets. Any dispassionate assessment of the methamphetamine “scourge” must acknowledge that every shipment of the gang’s “product” which gets intercepted, instantly produces an increase in the price of the drugs that reach the street. Moreover, the addictive nature of the gangs’ product means that the demand for it will not decrease. To pay for their addiction, its consumers will simply step up the level of the criminal offending necessary to meet the increased price.

The Police Minister knows that the most effective means of breaking the gangs’ power would be to remove the criminal stigma from unwise drug use. But, like all Police Ministers, Paula Bennett knows that the drug laws are not there to end the misuse of drugs. They are there to create a nether world of criminality and addiction against which the situation of “normal” people may be favourably compared.

Her hope is that the members of the National Party “tribe” will be reassured that theirs is the only truly “human” world, and that their enjoyment of more social, economic and legal rights than all these dysfunctional “others” is no more or less than their due. Above all, the evils threatening the coherence of what National likes to call “Mainstream New Zealand” must continue to be externalised.

But there is another way of responding to the issues of crime and punishment. In the words of the Lebanese poet and philosopher, Kahil Gibran:

Let him who would lash the offender look unto the spirit of the offended.

And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the axe unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 5 September 2017.

Time For The News Media To Become "Relentlessly Positive".

Golden Girl: Jacinda Ardern's extraordinary popularity poses a serious problem for the news media. What social and political influence it retains is based largely on its representation of itself as the public’s first and most reliable line of defence against the banality, venality and downright stupidity of elected politicians. But how does that work when the public suddenly decides that some politicians are actually pretty damn good?

JACINDA ARDERN poses a deeply perplexing problem for the New Zealand news media. Her determination to remain “relentlessly positive” runs directly counter to contemporary journalism’s reflexive negativity towards all things political. Especially alarming for the so-called “mainstream” media is the fact that Ardern’s “sunny ways” are working. Her positive, “let’s do this” strategy has rekindled a hitherto deeply alienated population’s interest in politics. Her own, and Labour’s, reward has been rapidly rising levels of public support.

This clear popular endorsement of Ardern’s political tactics places the media in a difficult position. What social and political influence it retains is based largely on its representation of itself as the public’s first and most reliable line of defence against the banality, venality and downright stupidity of elected politicians. Without us, say the media, there would be no one to protect you from all this despicable trickery and all these terrible lies. You may not like us, but, by God, you need us!

It’s a strategy that remains viable only for as long as their viewers, listeners and readers can be persuaded that all politicians are, indeed, the self-serving predators upon the public purse that the news media proclaims them to be.

Nowhere is this strategy more in evidence than in the interviewing techniques of the twenty-first century broadcaster. Gone are the days when interviewers asked open-ended questions of politicians and then allowed them the time to make their case for or against a particular policy. Today’s interviewers prefer the role of the People’s Prosecutor: aggressive cross-examiner of “the accused” – i.e. the politicians – whose job it is to expose the latter’s invariably evil intentions for everyone to see.

Crucial to the success of this technique is the practice of interrupting and talking-over the interviewee. The last thing these “People’s Prosecutors” want is for the politician to deliver a clear and persuasive argument to the “jury”. Trial by media falls squarely into the tradition of the show trial – not the fair trial.

But what if the politician in the media dock has already become the people’s champion before the trial begins? In those circumstances, prosecutor becomes persecutor, and the audience bridles with indignation and disgust at what they, quite correctly, regard as the unfair persecution of their hero – or heroine. If the journalistic persecution persists, the politician’s popularity will not only be boosted, but he or she will also be given the opportunity to cast the offending journalists as “enemies of the people”.

For those with the wit to see it, the example is there in the person of Donald Trump. The US president has effectively inoculated himself against the attacks of the mainstream “liberal” media. Nothing it can do or say has the slightest impact on Trump’s electoral base. He has succeeded in persuading “ordinary Americans” that their White House champion is the victim of “fake news”: untrue stories manufactured by the “lying media” in order to prevent him from “Making America Great Again”.

Although Jacinda Ardern is a thousand miles away from being a Donald Trump, she already enjoys the benefits of a very similar sort of media inoculation. Placing her in the dock and treating her like some sort of dangerous criminal: interrupting her replies and talking-over her every attempt to explain her party’s policies will serve only to make her even more popular in the eyes of a politically reinvigorated electorate.

Clearly, this was an important factor in Mike Hosking’s moderation of the first Leaders’ Debate. He was extremely careful to be an equal opportunity interrupter and talker-over. He simply could not (and, to his credit, did not) appear to be treating one of the contenders like a hero and the other like a zero. The very pleasing result was a debate in which rather than being accused and denounced, both politicians were given the opportunity to reveal themselves.

Neither contender emerged entirely unsullied by their own testimony.

Paddy Gower, moderator of the next Leaders’ Debate, would do well to follow his colleague’s example. The essence of being a good interviewer is to so conduct oneself journalistically that the qualities of the interviewee emerge naturally. If Bill English and Jacinda Ardern possess what it takes to be a good prime minister, then that will very quickly become evident in the depth and persuasiveness of their answers to the moderator’s questions.

It is neither the place, nor the right, of the news media to crucify politicians on behalf of the voting public. The journalist’s job is to give our political leaders just enough rope to hang themselves – or not. The only enemy Jacinda should have to be wary of is herself.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Saturday, 2 September 2017.

Dangerous Territory: Is It Time To Scrap The "No Surprises Rule"?

Not Happy: Winston Peters has every right to be outraged at the way his interactions with the Ministry of Social Development were drawn to the attention of Government ministers. It is only in dictatorships that state officials regard the private and personal information of the citizenry as a resource for advancing the interests of their political masters. 

THAT THE STATE SERVICES COMMISSIONER placed Winston Peters’ superannuation difficulties within the ambit of the “No Surprises Rule” is deeply troubling. Clearly, both the Commissioner and the Solicitor General (whom he consulted) considered the imminence of a General Election an insufficient reason for keeping what was, essentially, a matter of routine administration, confidential to the Ministry of Social Development and the citizen directly involved. Their decision to allow MSD officials to brief the Social Development Minister, Anne Tolley, that the leader of a rival political party was about to be interviewed by her ministry concerning superannuation overpayments, can only be construed as extending the scope of the No Surprises Rule into extremely dangerous territory.

Hitherto, the No Surprises Rule (which isn’t, in fact, a rule at all, but a convention dating back to the prime-ministership of Helen Clark) was only applied to the imminent public release of potentially controversial information pertaining to government administration. The classic example given is of a ministry which has just received a formal request for sensitive official information from the news media. Rather than have the minister “ambushed” by journalists, Prime Minister Clark argued that Cabinet members should be given a “heads up” by their officials. That way, rather than be caught on the hop, ministers would have plenty of time to be brought up to speed.

There is certainly a strong element of political logic to this expectation. What Minister wouldn’t feel blind-sided and seriously let down by their officials if the first he or she knew about a serious bureaucratic bungle was when the parliamentary wolf-pack came clamouring for explanations?

On the other hand, a stickler for the Westminster tradition of full ministerial responsibility might argue that any Minister inattentive enough to be surprised by the consequences of his or her own decisions deserves to be embarrassed by the news media. Such a constitutional pedant might further object that, practically speaking, the No Surprises Rule offers every bit as much protection to derelict public servants as it does to elected representatives? Yes, it may save the politician’s face, but may it not also cover the bureaucrat’s arse?

There are many in the journalistic profession who will attest to the malign transformation which has been wrought to the principle of political accountability by the No Surprises Rule. From a simple heads-up, it has mutated into the practice of no-holds-barred “perception management”. Public servants have morphed into PR mavens. The old maxim, “Information is Power”, has been used to justify an unprecedented “mind-meld” between the Executive Branch of government and what used to be this country’s neutral civil service.

Set in this context, the unwisdom of the State Services Commissioner’s dramatic extension of the No Surprises Rule’s scope is clear. Quite simply, the Minister of Social Development had no ministerial responsibility whatsoever for the discussions which were about to take place between her Ministry and Mr Peters. Or rather, she had no responsibility so long as those discussions remained – as they should have remained – completely confidential. The only possible justification for a “heads-up” from her officials would be if there was a reasonable possibility that the details of Mr Peters interview with the MSD were on the point of entering the public domain.

In other words, the State Services Commissioner reached the alarming conclusion that senior civil servants must now assume that all state ministries and departments are utterly incapable of protecting the New Zealand citizen’s right to privacy; and that any and all politically “juicy” information will, inevitably, find its way into the public domain.

But this is a calamitous assumption, which strikes at the heart of the public’s trust and confidence in the security of private information entrusted to the state. Worse still, it suggests that the “Information is Power” maxim has so taken hold within the ranks of ministerial advisers that they now feel professionally obligated to empower their political masters with the sort of information that neither public servants, nor politicians, have the slightest legitimate reason (or legal right!) to possess.

It is only in dictatorships that state officials regard the private and personal information of the citizenry as a resource for advancing the interests of their political masters. The State Services Commissioner had an opportunity to strike a blow for New Zealand democracy.

What a pity he didn’t take it.

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 1 September 2017.