The OECD warned us about corruption – we refused to listen

The OECD warned us recently that corporate and vested interests have a level of influence over legislation that compromises our democracy…

According to an OECD report released today, New Zealand needs to tame its corporate lobbying industry. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has ranked New Zealand as the fourth-worst country among its 38 members when it comes to regulating vested interests that try to influence policymaking.

The OCED report for this country, Product Market Regulation indicators: How does New Zealand compare?, says that New Zealand is one of the few advanced economies that still doesn’t “have adequate rules that ensure transparency and accountability in the interactions between public officials and interest groups”. They warn that this absence threatens to produce an “unlevel playing field” in which big businesses can dominate and monopolise New Zealand industries, reducing productivity.

The report evaluates all the regulations in economies such as New Zealand to highlight where regulation, or a lack of it, leads to reduced economic competition. The OECD performs this process every five years, using about 1000 questions relating to each country’s regulatory framework. Overall, the quality of New Zealand’s regulations is deemed to be very close to the average in the OECD—the country ranks 20 out of the 38 organisation members.

Regarding lobbying regulations, the OECD measures each country on a scale between 0 to 6, in which 0 means “more transparent” and 6 means “less transparent”. Countries at the top of the scale, like France and Ireland, have excellent lobbying scores – both on 0.86 out of 6, and even the US is near the top, with a very good score of 1.71. New Zealand is at the other end with a score of 4.93 out of 6. The only OECD countries faring worse are Slovakia (5.14), Luxemburg (5.57) and Turkey (5.57).

You can see how New Zealand fares in the regulation of lobbying in the chart below, taken from the report – the red bar is for New Zealand, the green bar is the OECD average:

…we are an open sewer of corporate and industry interests connected with the donor class who are now simply getting the laws written for their interest, not the common good.

We are seeing donor interests written in as legislation and the privatisation agenda that TDB warned you would come is now being readied as National manufacture a public service funding crisis so they can start selling it off.

We have been warned that the corporate donor class have taken over influence over our laws, why aren’t you angry yet you sleepy hobbits?