Democracy on the cheap: Skint Parliament to turn off the radio
After years of trimming budgets and doing things on-the-cheap to make ends meet Parliament's secretariat has hit the budget wall and plans to end radio broadcasts. It's a symptom of MP's fear of funding democracy properly.
The public often see politicians as big spenders on a plushly fitted gravy-train. Weirdly, the opposite is often more true. MPs get so fearful of the cash-cow image they massively under-fund themselves, their offices, and Parliament.
Ultimately this makes their jobs harder and democracy both less accessible and less effective.
There are many ways that funding-fear bites into democracy. In the most recent example Parliament's secretariat (the Office of the Clerk), after years of cost cutting without obvious public impact, have finally hit the budget wall and are forced to make major public-facing cuts. Specifically, the broadcast of Parliament on RNZ's AM network - something that began in March 1936.
Listen to David Wilson talk to RNZ's The House about funding and the decision to drop radio.
An end to radio broadcasts of Parliament
The radio broadcast contract costs Parliament about 1.3 million a year - which is roughly the size of the immediate hole in their already cut-to-the bone budget. David Wilson, the Clerk of the House of Representatives, puts it succinctly.
"That is just a cost we can no longer carry."
The irony of Parliament needing to cut the radio broadcast is that it won't save much public money. The network of AM masts and transmitters (which also carry RNZ National) is considered an essential disaster recovery network - something well-demonstrated recently. Without Parliament helping cover the significant maintenance cost of the huge masts, RNZ will have to swallow that cost alone. To add to the irony RNZ's budget is also frayed to breaking point. Parliament though will get to limp on through another budget cycle.
So, unless this year's Budget delivers a reprieve, come July there will be no more MPs on the radio. Sorry to everyone who wants to follow Parliament without internet access or needing to sit in front of a TV.
New jobs, no new cash
But even cutting radio seems unlikely to give the Office of the Clerk much leeway. They have the problem of having achieved too much too efficiently and having endlessly found new ways of holding it all together with ticky-tacky until it could no longer endure…