Why our are farmers farming for capital gain?

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Deirdre

Andrew Gawith, Director of Gareth Morgan Investments, described the economics of farming in New Zealand as “speculative” as the financial benefits are almost entirely dependent on capital gains. Other than dairy, income is puny and unreliable, he said.”Farm finances don’t add up.” (NZ Herald, Nov 30, 2010)

Whereas UK and US price of rural land doubled in a decade, the value of farmland in New Zealand has risen at 10.7% a year over the past 20 years. (That is the value of farmland doubles in less than seven years). “That’s a real after tax return of something in the order of 7 percent to 8 percent a year.” He points out this is double the return of sharemarkets.

He says, “Farming is the most popular business for banks to lend to. While other areas of economic endeavour are starved of capital, banks have very nearly drowned farming with debt. The ease with which farmers can get capital has helped push up the price of land.”

If farmers are drowning in debt, they will not be able to withstand a rise in interest rates. An article in NZ Farmer warns that with the drop in the price of milk, a quarter of farmers are heading for loss unless prices rise. So as China’s economy slows the high debt farmers are most vulnerable. Winston is watching.

This is our dairy debt from 1990-2014. It has multiplied by eight over those 24 years. Gareth Vaughan reminds us that nearly 70% of this dairy debt is on floating mortgages. Dairy debt was around $32 b in 2013, up from $8 b in 2003, which makes a quadrupling in a decade!

Farming is very capital intensive, with only mining and utilities more so. According to a NZIER study “Around three quarters of value added in agriculture is from capital (land, plant and machinery). This is higher than the economy wide average of around 50%.”

If dairy farming turns out to be the cause of our country’s Minsky moment, can we avert a crisis by taking control of our currency creation and land tenure system at Community Board level? Not only is this our only hope, but it will lead eventually to greater productivity and equality – as well as getting good young farmers on the land at an affordable entry level.

Is there a future for Labour and what will happen if they move to the right?

Posted on September 24, 2014 by Deirdre

The Labour Party, as they reflect on their biggest loss in 92 years, is struggling to come to terms with the consequences of being environmentalists. No self-respecting westerner these days would say they weren’t concerned about the deteriorating environment. The threat of global warming is a massive wake-up call. Even the Rockefeller Fund founded on oil has just divested from coal and tar sands. Politicians finally have to face reconciling protecting the environment with creating the fiscal and monetary conditions for a thriving economy.

That is a huge challenge. The Greens can talk all they like about ‘smart growth’ and a ‘green economy’ but unless they address the money system and stop the growth imperative at is source ‘smart growth’ will just continue to be nice rhetoric.

Over the last few years we have noticed the Labour Party aligning itself more and more with the Greens. But in the last weeks of the campaign Labour leader David Cunliffe actually stole the Greens rhetoric. He said, “It’s got to be a clean, green, smart, strong economy” (14 Sept, Stuff)

So while Labour has moved towards the Greens, for strategic purposes it had also to distance itself from them right at the beginning of the campaign. Doing the splits eh? Electoral realities dictated that it could no longer afford to align itself with a party who questioned every job creation initiative the National Government started. But there is a large faction in the Labour Party that wants expressways, deep sea oil drilling, mining in conservation areas and fracking – all for the sake of jobs.

But Labour’s resounding defeat in the 2014 election should really be seen in the international context. Labour Parties and Social Democrat parties are struggling all over the western world – in Australia, UK and Canada and even Sweden they are losing ground. Cunliffe hasn’t got it on his own. All social democrat parties are struggling to reconcile protection of the environment with the economy so voters just cast their lot with the conservatives who promise “economic growth” (no matter what kind of growth). IN the case of New Zealand you can add in a personable Prime Minister with the common touch, a Leader of the Opposition who is prone to lecture and the challenge is almost insuperable.

The price of West Texas oil on 23 Sept 2014 was $91.50 and Brent Crude was $97, due to falling demand. But it is costing $100 a barrel these days to produce “tight oil”, the sort that is costly and difficult to extract. As Richard Heinberg recently wrote “Extracting and delivering those resources at an affordable price is becoming a bigger challenge year by year.” We have the perfect storm of peak resources, climate change and economic instability and no Labour Party is has the facility to deal with them. Moreoever it is no good reminiscing about the great days of Micky Savage, Norman Kirk or David Lange. The Labour Party now has a huge leap to take to adapt to the real world of 2014.

While the Greens move towards the middle, the Labour Party probably has to move to the right for electoral purposes. With so many environmentalists in the party these days they are damned if they align with the Greens and damned if they don’t. The alternative is for the Greens to move over and let Labour occupy more of their territory.

The challenge requires much more than bandaid solutions of Kiwibuild, raising minimum wages and Working for Families. It requires the complete rethinking the political economy, one which works for a post fossil fuel age.

Over the last three years the New Economics Party has been doing this and we have come up with some proposals. We believe it requires a massive change to the tax system and fundamental currency reform so that we get public creation of money with strict inflation control. Furthermore it requires recognising we live in the age of automation so a Universal Basic Income must replace our welfare system. The Labour Party has been talking jobs, jobs and jobs. But it is more realistic to talk of having enough money and enough choices. Only a Basic Income will emancipate the welfare system, improve working conditions and provide a real incentive to work.

As Michael Bauwens, Founder of the p2p (peer to peer) Foundation said “any movement dependent on labour and the power of labour is futile, because labour is disappearing.” They are stuck in a Cold War narrative and have no stories for the future. The workforce has also been casualised as employees are made redundant. Many of them set up a small consultancy. The trend continues. Labour is bleeding and becoming freelanced.

Is the future 3D printers in microfactories in small towns ?

There is another factor. According to economic historian Philip Mirowski the left doesn’t understand neoliberalism. When they don’t understand it, they underestimate the cleverness of their foe and simply cannot counter it. Neoliberalism has re-engineered society. We need to tackle Capital in a different way, by disempowering it through the empowerment of people. Through real democracy, through new technology allowing real people to own the means of energy and production. Maybe this is 3D printers in microfactories in small towns with a local bank. Many on the right will get on board with that.

Perhaps we have to write Labour off and accept they are not a movement of the future. Do they really have to move into National’s space to better “play the game”? Well, it’s not a game, it’s about survival and it’s about now. Fewer and fewer people will vote. Labour will be seen as a weak ineffectual version of National. And if the Greens continue to sing from Labour’s songbook, they’ll likely stay at 10% too. The more they try and portray themselves as CEOs the further they will lag behind the international Greens movement.

However, given the fact that the Labour Party is unlikely to adopt either the massive currency reform, tax reform and welfare reform required for a redesign of the political economy, it may either continue to thrash itself to death or stagger on as a less environmental party. Neither option is good. The challenges of the post fossil fuel age will indeed be very hard on social democracy parties with a proud history.

by Deirdre Kent and Aaron McLean

Capital Gains Tax on shares fails to differentiate between land, capital and labour

Posted on September 7, 2014 by Deirdre

Most of us spent some time as children playing Monopoly. The more properties you buy the more rents you collect. “I’ll buy Mayfair, its rents are high. Rent please!” Sooner or later you opponents are out of the game and you win.

I was intrigued to learn on TV3’s The Nation (Sat 6 Sept 2014) that Capital Gains Tax as proposed by Labour includes the gains you make on shares. I thought the whole idea of CGT was to discourage investment in property and encourage investment in the productivity sector. When replying to Lisa Owen on that point, Labour’s David Parker said it was quite fair. “The ordinary worker pays tax on every cent they earn so why not shareholders,” he said.

Well the gains on shares – which are earned and which are merely windfall profits? So I did some looking at the property investment companies listed with NZX and compared them with Xero, a software accounting company which makes its money from its leadership and its labour, and with A2 milk an innovative science based health oriented group.

So thinking about investment and looking at the various types of companies, let’s look at New Zealand’s big property companies – Kiwi Income Property Trust, Goodman Property Trust, Argosy and DNZ. The National Business Review in 2012 said “listed property companies outperformed the NZX50 last year” The listed property companies reported 11.8% growth compared to the NZX50’s 0.4% growth. There are 10 listed property companies in New Zealand and seven of them are listed on the NZX50 and account for 9.7% of the index weight.

If you want to know who owns the most valuable land in the country look no further than the listed property companies owning property in central Auckland and Wellington. Their skyscrapers house tenants as secure as Government departments and all the big names in retail and office. DNZ has warehouses at Wiri and Penrose that dominate the landscape.

Take Precinct Property for example. Their Wellington buildings included HP Tower, 125 The Terrace, State Insurance, Vodafone on the Quay, Pastoral House, No 1 The Terrace, Mayfair, AXA, Deloitte, 3 The Terrace and 29 Willis Street. In Auckland they have the PwC Tower, ANZ Centre, 151 Queen St, 21 Queen Street, and AMP Centre. Tenants include big law firms, big retailers, finance companies, Fonterra, Air NZ. Hewlett Packard and so on.

Argosy has properties in Woolston, Christchurch and the Albany Megacentre. Its tenants include The Warehouse, Briscoes, Mitre Ten, Bunnings, Farmers.

Every major shopping mall in the country seems to be owned by one of these property companies and they report occupancy rates between 96-99%. Tenants in shopping malls are NZ chains, international chains and supermarkets, with only about 10% being independent stores.

What is most intriguing is that they tend to borrow to invest, and Precinct has 37% leverage. (I recall just before the 1987 crash people borrowed to invest in shares and where did that end?) And they all keep acquiring new properties. Every year, their equity rises as properties are revalued higher each year, due to the activity around them.

When I looked at the shareholders of Precinct, (called a PIE or Portfolio Investment Entity for tax purposes) I found something new. Whereas in the 2010 annual report the shareholders didn’t raise an eyebrow, by 2013 report the major shareholder at 20% was National Nominees. Curious, I looked up the directors and found them to be four women, all with Sydney or Melbourne addresses. They each worked in a top managerial role in National Australia Bank.

This means that New Zealand’s most valuable land, our inner city land in Auckland and Wellington, is 20% owned by a Precinct, which is owned by an Australian bank, which in turn is largely owned by a variety of international banks. As someone tweeted back, “Nothing surprises me any more”.

Now what has this got to do with Capital Gains Tax? Well, firstly that property investment firms like Precinct will have most to lose from a even a very mild Capital Gains Tax and will be fighting it tooth and claw behind the scenes.

The point of Capital Gains Tax was, I believe, to get investment money directed to the productive sector not into land speculation.

And why we pray can’t we invest in firms like Xero or A2 milk, both of which are based on entrepreneurship and labour, without being taxed? David Parker says it’s because workers are taxed on every dollar they earn so why shouldn’t investors be taxed. I thought that was what you wanted David? So why tax it? Your logic fails me.

A complete inability to differentiate between land, capital and labour is at the root of the poor thinking on Capital Gains Tax on shares. When men as bright as David Parker and David Cunliffe blunder into this, they should have time off to think. We in the New Economics Party say Government should tax what we hold or take but not what we do or make. Taxing labour is illogical. Taxing the monopoly use of the commons like land and minerals is logical.

Public loses $37 billion to private landowners every year

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Deirdre

We are being robbed. Constantly robbed. And it is the expense of the earners who catch two buses to work early in the morning for a low paid job.

We can work out that the public is losing at least $37 billion a year to private landowners. This should more than replace income tax.

There are 1,771,200 private dwellings in New Zealand (Stats NZ)
The mean house price rose from $395,530 in April 2014 to $466,665 in 1 July 2011 (Quotable Values)

That is in just under three years the mean house price rose $71,135. Almost all of this was privately captured as capital gain.

So let’s multiply these two figures to get the total of privately captured capital gains on those private residences and we get $126 billion.

This is for a period of just under three years, two months short of three years. So yearly the amount of capital gain is now one third of 34/36 of $126b, or one third of $119 billion = $40 billion. A very tiny fraction of it will have been captured by local authorities in rates. Almost none will have been captured by central government.

The rates revenue of all local authorities in 2013 was $4.5 billion. Suppose two thirds of this was land value (a high figure – more like the Auckland ratio), then local authorities revenue due to taxing of land value would be $3 billion. But if the ratio is lower, then it would be as low as $2billion a year.

So $40 billion figure gets reduced by somewhere between $2 and $3 billion and we have lost in public revenue at least $37 billion a year through failing to capture capital gains, or failing to impose full land rentals, which is essentially the same.

To put this in perspective, the GDP of the country is $227billion in the year to March 2014.

The revenue from income tax is $29.8 billion and the total revenue from taxes $72.5 b. Expenses were $73.1 billion in the last budget.

So $37 billion is being pocketed by private property owners every year when the value has been created by the wider public. This money rightfully belongs to the public.

(Compare this: Labour’s Capital Gains Tax would yield only $1b a year “in time” and the Greens Capital Gains Tax would yield $4.5 b/ year “in time”)

On the other hand, the government has confiscated $30b of our earnings through income tax and taken nearly $18 billion from our expenditure in GST, making everything less affordable. No wonder there is poverty in New Zealand. No wonder there is inequality.

But revenue from land rental would not be the government’s only income. We should be charging rent for the monopoly use of all natural resources, not just land. The principle that we should pay for what we hold or take but not for what we do or make means that we should pay taxes on our monopoly use of the rest of the commons. What is the commons? Everything that occurs naturally or is part of the social or cultural capital – water, fish, forests, electromagnetic spectrum, minerals, oil, gas, as well as the monopoly use of the infrastructure. The latter includes taxes on use of airports, hydroelectric power stations, ports, and so on. It also includes use of the commons for emission of pollutions. The biosphere is used for emissions of greenhouse gases and the rivers, lakes, and seas cleanse the pollutants from farms. We already tax tobacco, alcohol and gambling and would continue to do this.

Lifting the tax burden from the productive sector by taking off income taxes, GST, corporate tax and interest revenue taxes would allow productivity but, given the burden of resource taxes, the pattern of productivity would be very different. It would look more like a post fossil fuel economy.

Would the revenue be sufficient to run a country? We currently spend $73.1 billion. (Budget 2014-5). So we would need a further $36 billion. Karl Fitzgerald in his Australian study worked out the other resource tax revenue and managed to match the current revenue. There is no doubt we could too.

I am reminded of a quote from Henry George, author of Progress and Poverty, who said
“For this robbery is not like the robbery of a horse or a sum of money, that ceases with the act. It is a fresh and continuous robbery, that goes on every day and every hour. It is not from the produce of the past that rent is drawn; it is from the produce of the present. It is a toll levied upon labor constantly and continuously. Every blow of the hammer, every stroke of the pick, every thrust of the shuttle, every throb of the steam engine pay it tribute. It levies upon the earnings of the men who, deep underground, risk their lives, and of those who over white surges hang to reeling masts; it claims the just reward of the capitalist and the fruits of the inventor’s patient effort; it takes little children from play and from school, and compels them to work before their bones are hard or their muscles are firm; it robs the shivering of warmth; the hungry, of food; the sick, of medicine; the anxious, of peace. It debases, and embrutes, and embitters.”

From interest to reciprocity, savings pools are a great innovation.

Posted on August 22, 2014 by Deirdre

Among all our discussion of currency and tax changes at national level we must never lose sight of the good things happening at local level. For it is at the level of neighbourhood that we all exist. It is at community level where our comfort comes from. It is from the ground up that initiatives and innovations happen. New Zealand has a unique innovation here.

It is at local level where we can take action to restore local economic resilience and maximise our chances of survival after a major bank failure and economic crisis. Nicole Foss has reminded us yet again that the system must crash. “When the music stops there is only one chair for every 100 dancers”.

In August 2014 I had the privilege of attending the annual hui of the Living Economies Educational Trust. Among the local resilience initiatives being taken are green dollars, timebanks and now savings pools. It is the savings pools that I want to talk about here.

A savings pool is a family sized group of people (4 to 30 people) who get together regularly for the mutual financial purposes. It is a cross between a purchasing cooperative, a support group and a pawn shop. There is not a scrap of interest paid to anyone.

So how does it work? Members meet at someone’s home monthly. They discuss what they will contribute to the group’s shared pool. It might range from $10 to $200 a month, but where the membership is say 10, the group’s monthly savings can quickly range from $100 upwards. Before long you have a sum of, say, $3000.

But you don’t want this money languishing in the bank. You want it out amongst your members doing good. The members volunteer in turn what their financial needs are. Perhaps three in the group have financial needs. Susan draws attention to her credit card debt, Jim is desperate for a new car so he can get to work and a Rosy needs to pay a dental bill. The group then pays attention to those three needs. They figure they can work out how someone can take Jim to work for a while and decide to pay off Susan’s credit card. Without having to pay interest, Susan can put more into the pool each month.

Susan’s promise is to pay $50 a month to pay the pool back, plus another $50 as reciprocation (equal give and take) towards her future pool account. She pays a total of $100 a month now. Or else she could pay $50 a month for double the period. Her choice.

In savings pools trust is important but there is a saying “Trust in God but tie up your camel”. Tying up your camel entails prudent purchasing agreements. Collateral is usually necessary. e.g. if I want $1000 from the group to pay off my credit card debt and I have a $5000 car, the group can own my car and I enter into a purchasing agreement with the pool to buy back my car for $1000. That way the pool is more like a special kind of pawn shop. The car should be insured.

The whole group reviews their next month’s contribution, and the result is a bigger fund. Since they don’t know Rosy well they meet in her house next time. As trust builds and the social capital of the group grows, they realise Rosy should be next in line for a contribution from the pool as her teeth really are causing her trouble. Maybe there is enough in the pool to meet her needs now.

Rosy offers some appropriate property for sale and purchase, plus an equivalent savings/contribution to the pool.
The accounting spreadsheet is available for them all to see. They add up what they will have at each month in the future, aware of some of the future demands on the use of the funds.

When Jim’s turn comes around for a car the pool has $5000 with which to buy a car. The car belongs to the pool. Jim uses it and pays off $100 a month. But as before he also has to put in another $100 a month so that others can have access to his money during the period he pays it off. If $100 a month is all he can afford then the term could be extended for two years. That is reciprocity in action. So instead of paying it off in one year Jim takes two years. At the end of the two years ownership transfers to Jim. He has paid off $5000 plus he has put another $5000 in the pool. When he has paid off his $500 and contributed another $5000, he can withdraw the second $5000 if he wants as it is his money. Meanwhile for all that time it has been at work for the pool’s benefit.

So you see not only has the group lent without interest but nobody gains from being a borrower without paying an equal amount back to the pool. Reciprocity replaces interest.

There are now at least 22 savings pools in New Zealand and membership is growing fast. Several people are now available to help new groups form. They do this by running a game (it’s more fun than monopoly) where they are each given an identity (e.g. a retired couple with no mortgage or a solo mother with part time work) Each person is then handed a crisis/opportunity card saying what happened that month for them (unexpected expense they can’t meet or an inheritance or ‘no change’). Then they role play what might happen within the group. At the end of the game people are itching to start their own savings pools.

These groups work particularly well if they start with a group who already know each other. It is also good if you have a cross section – those with extra money they want to protect in case of an economic crisis and those whose finances are more precarious. If a person dies or moves away their money can be withdrawn, together with their savings points (amount of money multiplied by the number of months they have had it in there) and passed to their heirs.

You need a person who will be a good recorder.

I have been to several of these events. Enthusiastic members of existing pools tell us of the celebration and joy when a credit card is paid off. One group had a party where they ceremoniously cut up the card.

The first financial threat is a global downturn causing major economic contraction and loss of ability to service mortgages. The second is bank insolvency where depositors (unsecured creditors of the bank) find their accounts have been frozen overnight and wake up with a “haircut”. In crises the solvency of banks depends on the elimination of debt and calling in non performing loans (mortgage foreclosures and asset seizures).

Savings pools already own all assets not yet paid for. Contributions will tend to dry but but the pool community remains. Loss of liquidity results in temporary paralysis of the system, but no loss of its real underpinnings

The assets of savings pools or more strictly Buyers Clubs in New Zealand are now growing at between 75-100% a year. In other words they are nearly doubling every year. If you would like to find out how it all started have a look at the 15 min video done by its founder Bryan Innes here.

For more information go to the Living Economies website where you can read more and see a typical agreement.

To start one in your area contact either Peter Luiten, Bryan Innes, Phil Stevens or Helen Dew. Or leave your information here

High time the universities changed their teaching on money creation

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Deirdre

It’s disturbing when university professors tell lies about the money creation process. I thought universities were supposed to be repositories of knowledge and their statutory duty was to pass on knowledge. And when they fail in that duty and pass on myths to their students who then go on to hold jobs in banking, media and all the related jobs, how much greater the crime? And when journalists pick up untruths from the academics and their graduates, how can a society learn the truth?

Some years ago I was contemplating spending my remaining years suing a university for inaccurate teaching about money creation. I was enraged that a trusted societal institution should fail so profoundly in its statutory duties when the consequences were so enormous and profound. But I chose instead to co-found the New Economics Party and I don’t regret it.

Every now and then Professor Steve Keen from Sydney has a sparring match with Paul Krugman, the former Nobel Prize winner in economics and columnist for the New York Times. The publishing of a paper by three Bank of England economists – Michael McLeay, Amar Radia and Ryland Thomas – dispelling myths about money creation would have set it off again. They were so keen, they even did a youtube video filmed in the gold vaults of the bank. Writing on his debtdeflation blogspot, Keen said he eagerly awaited Krugman’s reaction to Threadneedle Street’s paper. He is not expecting university lecturers to change their lectures any time soon.

As for me I am a bit embarrassed that the first chapters of my book Healthy Money Healthy Planet – Developing Sustainability through New Money Systems pbl Craig Potton 2005 refer to “fractional reserve banking” and the “money multiplier effect” which, according to both the Bank of England and to Michael Kumhof and Jaromir Benes of the IMF are just plain wrong. I wish I could change it.

So how is money created? Well I actually wrote both versions of money creation in my book and the second one is right. I must have confused many readers and apologise.

The Bank of England paper dispels two myths. It says:

“Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money. The reality of how money is created today differs from the description found in some economics textbooks:

• Rather than banks receiving deposits when households save and then lending them out, bank lending creates deposits.

• In normal times, the central bank does not fix the amount of money in circulation, nor is central bank money ‘multiplied up’ into more loans and deposits.”

They say “This article explains how, rather than banks lending out deposits that are placed with them, the act of lending creates deposits — the reverse of the sequence typically described in textbooks.”

It’s a lovely clear paper, accessible and readable. The two videos with it are filmed against the unforgettable and authoritative background of gold nuggets in the vaults in the Bank of England, a clear statement in itself. It describes how some money is created by buying assets, outlines the constraints on bank lending and reminds us the way money is destroyed is by paying back loans. It says clearly “Banks do not act simply as intermediaries, lending out deposits that savers place with them”.

Knowing that commercial banks create most of the broad money supply and that savings takes money out of the total in circulation, I have always been suspicious of comments of bank economists, journalists and politicians who urge more savings. So here is a quote on saving that I like. “When households choose to save more money in bank accounts, those deposits come simply at the expense of deposits that would have otherwise gone to companies in payment for goods and services. Saving does not by itself increase the deposits or ‘funds available’ for banks to lend.” I like it. It makes sense.

So are universities the right place to start? I am not sure. It is logical enough to argue they train society’s professional economists and influence journalists and politicians. But it may also be useful to focus on educating journalists to be suspicious of academics in economics. After all do other disciplines have websites and books similar to “Unlearning Economics” and “Sack the Economists” and jokes about not letting facts get in the way of a good theory?

This blog is not about solutions. It is about getting the facts about banking and money creation right in the first place. When solving problems you have to start with facts not myths. And whether you are a Social Creditor, Positive Money adherent, New Economics Party member or anything else you will have your solutions to public money creation. This is not the forum to debate solutions.

Well so what should we all do? Any of these would be a start.

1. Send the paper’s link to top politicians through whatever media you fancy, be it twitter, facebook, email or snailmail.

2. Get active in any organisation or group that tells it like it is.

3. Have a look at a student’s economic textbook and write to the university who prescribed it pointing out the authoritative paper and urging they teach facts not myths.

4. Ring up any radio station that perpetuates the myth of intermediation pointing out it is wrong.

5. Join with others in this campaign.

6. Offer to help the New Economics Party

7. If you are a student, then organise petitions to your academic staff and changing the textbooks.

Deliberating in public “would have a chilling effect on free discussion”, say MPs

Posted on August 7, 2014 by Deirdre

Last year we went to the trouble of collecting nearly 900 signatures for a petition. When I was finally informed that it was going to be discussed on a Thursday by the appropriate Select Committee, I said “Good, I will come”. “Oh, no,” said the secretary, “this is not an open session”. Having been involved in local government where meetings are almost always in the open I was gobsmacked.

Well the petition was turned down and we are none the wiser as to why. We don’t know what arguments were put forward or used in objection, we don’t know anything – only that they invited a submission from the Reserve Bank because they sent us this recently, together with their final report.

After discovering this behind doors policy, I wrote to the Speaker, saying that Parliament had legislated to require local authorities have their meetings in public (give or take a couple of exceptions) 22 years ago. Why did they now expect the same standards of open government from themselves?

The Speaker wrote an excellent letter back and invited us to submit to the Select Committee on Standing Orders. We did this and before long they invited us to give evidence. We got a reasonable hearing.

But a few months later when I asked what the result was, the secretary gave me a link to the committee’s report and lo and behold there was nothing about having Select Committees in open session. Again we have no idea what the arguments were and who argued which way.

The only part of Parliament we see is the tribal raruraru in the House and it is an embarrassment to notice there are school children in the gallery watching it all. The Westminster System certainly shows its ugly side.

But Select Committees, they tell us, are the most constructive part of Parliament. So why can’t the public see them cooperating and deliberating? Why do they close their doors? What have they got to hide?

No wonder so many are turned off Parliament and don’t vote. All parties seem as bad as each other at the moment.

And today the advice from the Clerk of the House was posted on Parliament’s website. “No”, she said. “While I agree that it would be useful for the public to see the constructive discussions that occur in closed meetings, the nature of these discussions would be likely to change if they were conducted in public, or they would take place outside the committee room. In particular, opening proceedings would affect the provision of free and frank advice, have a chilling effect on free discussion and political negotiation amongst members, and increase the likelihood of lobbying.”

Well that was what one MP told us when we went there. Oh how dreadful seeing them being constructive. Oh how surprising seeing them negotiate. Well it makes one wonder what is so different about being an MP when councillors at local level can deliberate in public with the media and the public present. The latter is democracy we trust, the former is a closet democracy.

And it seems the MPs followed the Clerk’s report, because that is how they decided. And no one will ever know if one of them didn’t agree. If this is the effect of the adversarial imperative of the Westminster system it is not serving well and it is time our adversarial system was reformed.

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