Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Boyd Swinburn: Health Coalition Aotearoa Co-Chair on calls to level the playing field, when it comes to lobbying

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Boyd Swinburn: Health Coalition Aotearoa Co-Chair on calls to level the playing field, when it comes to lobbying · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So a group calling themselves level the playing field, rallying
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: against New Zealand's lobbying regulations and they're calling for more transparency.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Former Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Attorney General Chris
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Finlson where some of the speakers at the campaign launch
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: last night. They're calling for stronger lobbying regulations, a cooling
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: off period to prevent former ministers from immediately becoming lobbyists,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: and a tightening of political donation rules. So Health Coalition
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: ar TROS co chairperson Boyd Swinburne joins me, Now, goodby
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: to your board.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Andrew, So you.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Held the launch party last night. What were the headlines
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that came out of it.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Well, those sort of things that you said, we recognize
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: as the problem that we have with access and influence
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: on public policy is at the moment too dominated or
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: has been for some years by vested interest, by commercial interests,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: and those groups that are pushing for the common goods
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: for social outcomes, health outcomes, environmental outcomes don't get to
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: say so this is the sort of the playing field
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: that needs to be leveled. Nothing wrong with lobbying so
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: long as it's in balance and we get a public
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: policy for public good, not for private good. So there's
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: a fair consensus building around the need for lobbying laws.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: You know, New Zealand has no lobbying regulations, makes us
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: an outlier in OECD countries and so we need lobbying regulations.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: We need a whole bunch of things to try to
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: strengthen our democracy.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: The fact that you had a former labor politician Heving
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Clerk and a former National politician Chris Finnison there speaking
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: on the issue, does this mean this issue has bipartisan support.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Well, it has to have bipartisan supporter, Scott, and it's
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: an issue which cuts across the political spectrum. We also
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: had Antolli there who's a formal National minister as well.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: We're not going to get progress on this unless both
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: main parties at least are on board and see this
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: slide that we have and trust in government. The Transparency
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: International figures show that New New Zealand's corruption index we
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: used to be top of the world and now we're
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: sliding down each year. We need to rebuild that and
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: get trust back in government.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: And you and your coalition Health Coalition or you actually
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: got into the views you called on New Zealand first
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: to come clean due to the Associate Minister of Health
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Casey Costello's links to tobacco giants. So this is your motivation.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Would this sort of regulation stop that?
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Well, it's not going to be one our magic bullet.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: There's a whole bunch of things we need to do
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: to retrieve our our democracy and make it a fair
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: playing field. But yes, in health where we have tobacco,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: alcohol and unhealthy food. These things cause a third of
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: the health damage in this country and yet we have
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: not been able to get policies through successive governments because
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: of the pressure of lobbying, and so we really need
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: that to improve our health.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: So can I just ask, very briefly, what's the coalition
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: government saying? Are they on board?
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Well, now that we've had the launch, we're going to
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: be taking this around to the governments and to the
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: opposition parties as well, because as you said, this needs
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: to be across parties. The Attorney General, Paul Goldsmith has
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: had some lobbying regulations and reports on it on his
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: desk for some time, so we want to be able
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: to put this stronger case to him. He's had this
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: report about a voluntary code for lobbyists. But that's not
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: nearly strong enough. I need a whole raft of things.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Boyd swinburn I thank you that as Professor Boyd Swinburne,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: who is the tail Royal Health Coalition Co Chairperson.
• 3:50
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• 3:53
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• 3:56
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