Bob Edlin: Simeon Brown would be struck out as a candour-date (if PoO was umpiring)....

.....but the Nats are more tolerant on transparency

Three strikes and you are out.

That’s the principle which the Luxon Government has endorsed when it comes to law and order and sentencing policies.

PoO ventures that maybe it should be applied also to politicians who persistently flunk the candour test.

In the case of a Cabinet Minister, this would result in demotion to the back benches.

Simeon Brown, accordingly, should be ruled out of a ministerial job should he be re-elected in Pakuranga at the general election and Christopher Luxon musters enough numbers to establish a new coalition government and remain Prime Minister.

Would a great talent be lost?

If the state of our health services is used as a measure, the answer should be no, not really.

Brown has held Pakuranga, a seat covering several eastern Auckland suburbs, since 2017, He was re-elected with 26,105 votes in 2023, when National won 58% of the party vote, followed by Labour on 17%.

Presumably he considers himself a shoo-in, because he hasn’t bothered to do what his opponents have done, which is to provide the Policy.nz website with a rundown on why he is standing and his priorities.

In Kapiti, in contrast, National’s Tim Costley has declared “I’m here to serve” and says he is asking for three more years, “so we can improve healthcare, cap council rates, lift achievement in schools, and make life more affordable with no new taxes.”

Among his priorities are improving healthcare and “Delivering more services faster and closer to home, like the new cancer clinic”.

Perhaps he fancies himself as a Minister of Health.

It’s up to Simeon Brown how he pitches for support on his home patch, of course, and if he sees no need to give Policy.nz readers a steer to his priorities, so be it.

The three strikes against him – by the measure of PoO’s umpiring – relate to other matters.

• As National’s campaign chair, he has demanded Labour and the Greens explain which smaller-party policies would emerge from coalition negotiations. But he defends National’s refusal to do the same.

The situation for a Labour-led coalition (he says) is “completely different” compared to a National-led one.

Among other things, according to an RNZ report –

Brown pushed back on reporters’ questions about which of New Zealand First’s promises – which some commentators have estimated at costing $50 billion to $100b – National would take up.

• As Health Minister, Brown has refused to say whether he will make Health NZ hand over information needed to progress stalled pay equity claims by hospice, Plunket and aged care nurses.

 Brown was evasive when questioned at a press conference on Wednesday, repeatedly saying the agency was expected to follow the law but failing to say whether he would ensure it provided the data needed to assess the claims.

The Post followed up in writing, asking Brown to clarify whether he would intervene to secure the information.

He declined to commit, saying it would not be appropriate for him to involve himself in a matter he was not party to. That is similar to the stance adopted by the agency.

• Again as Health Minister, Simeon Brown has been accused of hiding reports by the Public Health Advisory Committee, an independent committee which Ayesha Verrall established in 2022 when she was Minister.

Brown, and his predecessor Shane Reti, received six pieces of advice from the committee in the 2023-26 parliamentary term. Only two have been published, according to Newsroom.

In September, Newsroom asked Brown to list all substantive advice from the committee, when it was delivered and when, or if, it had been made public. He also was asked for an overview of the advice.

Three documents, two of them dating back to 2024, will be published “soon”, according to the response, while another, providing advice about the shape of primary care to 2036, has been withheld.

Newsroom asked Brown why some of the reports had been withheld, whether they were inconvenient to the Government’s agenda, and if they would be published before election day.

We didn’t receive a response.

Fair to say, sitting on reports and ignoring media questions isn’t necessarily out of whack with National Party transparency policy.

When PoO asked Google AI to give us a rundown on that policy, we were told

The National Party lists core values including democratic principles, individual freedom, and accountability, and party members have occasionally promoted transparency measures, such as MP Tim van de Molen’s Foreign Influence Transparency Bill targeting foreign activities.

Google did provide us with the link (in the previous paragraph) to the National Party’s website where its values are set out.

“Transparency” and “open government” are not among those values.

But hey. The game is politics, not law and order.

Judged by his party’s values, accordingly, Brown has committed no offence and can expect to be rewarded with ministerial posts if his campaign management results in the Nats calling the shots in coalition-formation.

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE.