The Indian Weekender, 11 June 2021

6 NEW ZEALAND
Friday, June 11, 2021
The Indian Weekender
BRYCE EDWARDS: Political
Roundup – Jacinda Ardern’s
opaque government by PR
DR BRYCE EDWARDS
One of the most important, and scathing, critiques of
Jacinda Ardern’s Government was published this
week by senior political journalist Andrea Vance. She
reveals how the current administration has become adept and
determined at keeping information secret and the public in the
dark about crucial issues. You can read her piece here: This
Government promised to be open and transparent, but it is an
artfully-crafted mirage.
The gist of Vance’s column is that this Government portrays
itself as open, and has promised much more transparency, but in
reality is doing its upmost to prevent the media and public from
having access to information and scrutinising what it is doing. She
says, “In my 20-year plus time as a journalist, this Government
is one of the most
thin-skinned
and secretive I have
experienced.”
Vance
points to
ministers such as Nanaia Mahuta who won’t give interviews
on important topics (except for exclusives with “cherry
picked” journalists) and the refusal to reform the Official
Information Act. She also says the Government feeds journalists
with virtually meaningless press conferences that do not
serve the public interest and are distractions from what is
actually important.
Her column follows on from several other highly-critical
columns by Vance over the last year or so, in which she has
challenged the popular narrative about the Government’s
communication techniques.
For instance, during the Covid crisis last year, while many were
in thrall to the Prime Minister’s use of daily press conferences
to convey information to the public, Vance pointed out how
unsatisfactory the media events were for journalists who actually
needed much more information, arguing that Ardern’s forums
left many questions unanswered – see: How Jacinda Ardern is
using soft propaganda to beat Covid-19.
More recently, in March Vance criticised the Government’s
communications about the Covid-19 vaccine rollout, arguing “the
flow of information about the programme is tightly controlled, and
heavily politicised” – see: Covid-19 vaccine rollout is a secretive,
sluggish spin-fest.
In her latest column, Vance identifies a big part of the problem
as being the increased number of communications staff hired
by government to massage the media and produce good public
relations: “We are up against an army of well-paid spin doctors.
Since the current Government took office, the number of
communications specialists have ballooned. Each minister
has at least two press secretaries. (Ardern has four). In the
year Labour took office, the Ministry for the Environment had
10 PR staff.
"They now have 18. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs and
Trade more than doubled their staff – up to 25. MBIE blew
out from 48 staff to 64.” She points out that the rebranded NZ
Transport Agency, now Waka Kotahi, has increased its PR staff
from 26 to 72.
Vance’s column parallels my own column for the Guardian,
published about 18 months ago, in which I suggested that
politicians on both sides of the divide had become too dependent
on their spin doctors – see: New Zealand’s year of style
over substance.
I pointed to the rise of PR and communications as an industry
that is overshadowing journalism: “New Zealand now has many
more public relations practitioners than journalists.
The latest census results show about 8000 people work in PR,
greatly overshadowing the roughly 1600 journalists working in
print and broadcasting. Other calculations have put the ratio of
PR-to-journalists at 10:1. Many of the PR professionals work
directly for the politicians, government departments, or local
government authorities.”
For more on the general increase in consultants and contractors
in government agencies see Phil Pennington’s Police, Defence
Force and Transport Agency contractor spending up by at least
15%. According to this, “Oranga Tamariki’s review shows its
communications team exploded, from 16 staff to 35, with the
salary bill doubling to $3.6m.”
Ministry of Health public relations
The Ministry of Health provides an excellent case study in how
government departments deal with the provision of information
to the public. Vance writes that communications
staff in Health are “notorious for stymieing even
the simplest requests. Health’s information
gatekeepers are so allergic to journalists they
refuse to take phone calls, responding only
(and sporadically) to emails.”
This week has seen the Ministry of Health
told off by Public Service Commissioner
Peter Hughes for damaging the department’s
public reputation in its handling of a report on
mental health.
Communications staff had removed important
information from the report, and significantly delayed its release
– see Henry Cooke’s Public service watchdog won’t hold inquiry
into mental health report, but criticises Ministry of Health for
harming public confidence.
This followed on from media investigations that revealed the
quite extraordinary story of how senior officials battled for two
years to remove data from a report on mental health, seemingly
because it made the government look bad.
You can see the original article by Henry Cooke here: ‘A lot
of data and negative statistics’: Inside the battle behind dramatic
edits and huge delays to a Government mental health report.
The restructuring of the health system means there is a greater
need for information and debate. But current members of district
health boards probably won’t be participating, as they have
been gagged by the Public Service Commission (previously
the State Services Commission), which has implemented a new
code of conduct to prevent health board members from making
“political comment” – see Cate Broughton’s Ban on DHB
members making political comment may prevent criticism of
health reforms.
Blogger No Right Turn has hit out at the ban, pointing to the
fact that most of the board members are elected: “so political
comment is literally their job, just as it is for local authority
members.
And this sort of gag order is simply completely inappropriate.
It’s like trying to gag MP’s. But then, control-freak Labour is so
afraid of criticism they’d probably try that if they thought they
could get away with it” – see: An inappropriate gag.
The Ministry of Health is also criticised by the Otago Daily
Times’ Elspeth McLean, who at the end of last year, shared
some of her experiences in trying to get information from the
communications staff there, which she sums up like this: “the
Ministry of Health has long been intent on playing down anything
controversial, dragging out any response to any questions
delving under the surface as long as it can” – see: Public deserves
openness, respect.
Arguments against Andrea Vance
Not everyone is pleased with Andrea Vance’s column this
week. Labour Party activists and supporters have taken issue
with her critique of Ardern’s opaqueness, arguing it’s not as bad
as she suggests.
Writing on the Labour-friendly blog The Standard, Greg
Presland chides Vance for not putting all the positive things about
the Government’s record in her column, concluding “attacks on
the Government without providing very important context is not
something an independent media engages in” – see: Openness
and transparency.
On issues such as Nanaia Mahuta not giving interviews about
China, Presland argues: Vance “did not seem to comprehend that
the same week that Mahuta was planning to release reports on
the future of the country’s drinking water may not have been a
great time to seek time for an interview about China. I suspect
it was not planned. It was just that Mahuta did not have enough
hours in the day to contemplate an interview.”
An even more hostile account is put forward by activist
Gerard Otto, who concludes: “Vance wrote a lazy article for lazy
minds who do not think critically and who are easily mislead
by any old opinion from a bitter, twisted and vengeful media” –
see: Andrea’s artfully crafted mirage.
As well as putting forward several justifications for why
the Labour Government might not want or be able to be fully
transparent, Otto provides some useful counter-evidence about
compliance with Official Information Act: “Did you know that
by the 2nd half of 2018 – 95% of all Official Information Act
requests were completed on time under Labour, compared with
only 91% in 2015/2016 under National?”
Finally, about a year ago, Stuff put together a useful article
of who are the powerful comms staff behind the politicians in
the Beehive – see: Inside the spin-room: Who is who in the
Government’s PR team.
Dr Bryce Edwards is Political Analyst in Residence at
Victoria University of Wellington. He is the director of the
Democracy Project.