I know there are people within the National Party who care about this. One told me yesterday he believed that the “defamation for hire” business being conducted wiped tens of millions of dollars off the value of corporate brands. We need to know what was done and how far it extended, and I don’t give a flying shit who is politically embarrassed in the course of finding out. That’s not the point.
We need our political leaders, of whatever stripe, to show some decency and find out. And we need, everyone, to shun these people and what they represent.
I realise that there is another side to this: the sheer weight of requests, often themselves highly political, or near-vexatious, that suck up resources.
A lot of this would go away if agencies published everything unless there was a good reason not to. It would save them time and resources and was where the original act and the Framework for Government-Held Information was pointing. Disk storage is infinite.
But the mortal fear of having a cockup exposed will always prevent this, and now we have the added factor of dodgy decisions being made for political purposes (e.g. RoNS). Sadly, the Auditor-General doesn t see it as part of their role to police whether agencies are living up to their legislative requirements.
You re far too modest to say so, Russell, but for an evil bitching blogger you did a pretty good job of promptly retracting and correcting a post that, in part, was highly critical of MSM non-coverage of the PM s brain-fart that wasn t at the Pacific Islands Forum stand up with Hillary Clinton.
Yes, John Armstrong, bloggers fuck up and not every criticism that comes from the internet is fair or even accurate. Some bloggers also really suck at admitting when they ve got things wrong, others do it well. Sort of like newspaper political columnists, ay? North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 •