Opinion: In the same way that homophobic comments often start a preface ‘some of my best friends are gay…’
I should acknowledge that some of my best friends are lobbyists.
I like political people.
And lobbyists are political people - often really great, fun, smart, political people.
They’re also not pretending to be something they’re not. They work on behalf of clients to get them in the room with powerful people who make decisions to have their perspectives heard and push their clients’ agenda.
So I don’t have a problem with lobbyists though I do have a problem with the broader concept of those who have money and means having greater access to power and privilege.
And where I really take issue is with Government departments hiring these external forces to circumvent and harm our delicate democracy.
And there’s one particular government department which sticks out like a grotesque malformed thumb in Guyon Espiner’s investigation into lobbying and that’s Pharmac.
The drug-buying agency hiring lobbyists to further foment its fortress of opacity.
And with respect to Draper Cormack the firm they choose, whatever the sum they spent was too much. They were sold a pup.
First of all, advising a government department CEO to effectively lie and pretend they had somewhere to be after select committee so as to avoid journalists. That is bad bad bad advice.
Secondly, advising their comms team to stall when reacting to media queries - also bad advice.
Third, profiling journalists - the Berlin wall is down people!
Fourth, if the senior comms advisor has to ask a lobbyist for a one-liner to respond to why it took so long to fund epi pens - that advisor shouldn’t be in the job. The lobbyist replying there isn’t really a great answer so here’s a non-answer - that lobbyist shouldn’t be paid.
Fifth, if the best advice a lobbyist can give to try to improve Pharmac’s reputation is to do a puff piece of the CEO in the women’s weekly - honestly. You may as well be burning the cash you pay them. It’s not rocket science - the bigger conundrum would be convincing Women’s Weekly it’s worth the column inches.
Finally, how much did the lobbyist's brain dump of proactive story ideas cost the taxpayer? How much did this doozy cost on contraceptive numbers - “are New Zealanders hornier at a particular time of year”.
So yeah I have a problem with cash for access. I have a problem with government departments squandering our cash to obstruct accountability - on top of their legions of spin doctors who appear trained to do the same.
It’s so much more insulting that the money they’re spending which could be going towards funding drugs is about as creative and clever as you might expect from a doorknob.
