The task for Simon Upton
The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment plays a special role in New Zealand politics. The commissioner is appointed by Parliament and is therefore not a creature of our government or its ruling party.
The commissioner advocates for the environment and, under retiring commissioner Jan Wright, it has built a fine reputation for fearless independence and deep respect for evidence. So the appointment of former National Cabinet Minister Simon Upton is a matter of public interest and importance.
NZ First leader Winston Peters – an old National colleague of Upton’s – says the appointment of Upton, ‘‘whose political career was far from a blazing success’’, smacks of jobs for the boys and the old boys’ network. Is Peters right?
The fact that both Labour and Green MPs have backed Upton should suggest the reality is more complex. Labour’s Trevor Mallard praises Upton’s intellectual honesty, and the Greens’ David Clendon points to Upton’s long service with the environmental section of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Both MPs conclude he is the right man for the job.
Upton’s early career was that of a somewhat precious, far-Right, free-market ideologue. He was part of the caucus fringe that infuriated National Prime Minister Robert Muldoon and then played a vital role in the party’s neoliberal heyday of the early 1990s.
Upton, who was elected to Parliament at age 23, was once a crusader for shrinking the state and letting the market rip.
Peters is correct in saying that Upton’s career was not a blazing success. His most memorable failure was his highly ideological up-ending of the country’s health system in the 1990s.
This move, along with the Ruth Richardson-led deep cuts in social services, was a disaster. It was later disowned by a more pragmatic Minister of Health, Bill English, who told National it must stop ‘‘defending the indefensible’’ – like the Upton health reforms.
Newer evidence suggests the wet-behind-the-ears, young Upton has grown up and become more sensible. He appears to have become more amenable to social democracy and the need for various state interventions. He now seems to be a species of blue-green.
As commissioner, Upton will need to show he is more green than blue, and more interested in evidence than ideology. He will, above all, have to prove he is independent of his former National colleagues.
He has already shown signs of this. His OECD report, released this month, on environmental performance in New Zealand was hard-hitting, wellinformed and critical of government policy. He said our economy, based largely on natural resources, was starting to show its environmental limits with increasing greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution.
Upton has international expertise with climate change and has previously criticised New Zealand for not doing enough in his area. He usefully rubbished our ‘‘small-country plea’’ that local emissions were globally insignificant, saying the same argument could be proffered by most nations of the world.
This suggests a certain political robustness. As commissioner, Upton will need to show a similar independence.
The young crusader seems to have grown up.