Open Government Partnership report
Saturday, February 20th, 2016As many of you will know, in 2013 the NZ government signed up to the Open Government Partnership, a group of countries and civil society organisations that promises to take steps to improve transparency, accountability and public participation in governments. Governments have to submit two-yearly action plans, which are supposed to be “co-created” with the public […]
Open Government Partnership: Are we on the right track?
Wednesday, October 21st, 2015Here’s an op-ed piece I wrote a couple of weeks ago. I shopped it around the media, but they weren’t interested. You’d think the media might have the most to gain from debate about open government. (In the end, Scoop took it). At a meeting in the beating heart of the government precinct late last month, […]
Open government: did the government get it right?
Wednesday, October 14th, 2015The government has released its own draft self-assessment of its performance under the Open Government Partnership. It thinks its doing a pretty good job. Do you agree? The government is seeking comments until this Friday. You can give your views here: NZOGP_ActionPlan@ssc.govt.nz
How the Film and Literature Board of Review almost derailed the Film Festival
Friday, September 11th, 2015Here’s an article I wrote about 10 years ago. It’s about how the President of the Film and Literature Board of Review used her powers to make interim publication orders…. and then stopped. Bits of the law and practice may now be a bit out of date. But I’m inclined to think it’s relevant to […]
Open Government: your chance to have your say
Monday, September 7th, 2015As you might know, the New Zealand government has signed up to the Open Government Partnership, a forum of countries working to promote government that is open, accountable and responsive to citizens. Last year, the New Zealand government issued its first OGP Action Plan for 2014-2016. It sets out commitments by the NZ government aimed […]
The blogger and the journalist
Tuesday, October 28th, 2014The Whale certainly created a splash in the last election. More accurately, it was investigative journalist Nicky Hager and his book Dirty Politics that created the splash. The Whale – controversial right-wing blogger Cameron Slater and his Whale Oil blog, whose emails were leaked to Mr Hager – copped most of the spray. (I should […]
Broadcasting Standards issue
Friday, October 3rd, 2014I wonder when the Broadcasting Standards Authority are going to tell us that one of the BSA board members quit a couple of weeks ago. That hasn’t come out yet, has it? A member of the BSA has up and walked. They haven’t mentioned that one yet, have they? (Some might say that I have just made […]
Web hosts’ defamation liability restricted
Friday, September 19th, 2014In a significant Court of Appeal decision (see Murray v Wishart), hot off the press, the judges have unanimously ruled that a third party publisher (the owner of a Facebook page that contained comments by others) was not liable for other people’s comments simply because he “ought to have known” that they contain defamatory material […]
Some questions for the PM
Monday, September 15th, 2014I’m struggling to find the provisions in NZ’s policy about the classification of documents that allow the PM to declassify documents for the purpose of protecting his reputation (his word, not mine, on Morning Report this morning). Perhaps the PM could help me out here. The PM has said he would declassify documents to prove […]
Is Whale Oil a journalist (3)?
Sunday, September 14th, 2014Yes. Yes, he is. The High Court says so, as Whale Oil points out triumphantly. Like the good journalist he is, he even shows us the evidence: para 145 of Justice Asher’s judgment. Mr Slater then goes on to demonstrate his journalistic chops by entirely failing to report the rest of the judgment. That includes […]
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