20 September 2013

Palino to appoint Chief Science Advisor

Auckland Mayoral candidate John Palino announced today he would appoint a Chief Science Advisor to improve the quality of decision making by the Auckland Council.

“The Prime Minister’s appointed Sir Peter Gluckman to a similar role to improve central government decision making and it’s been very successful.

“Sir Peter is highlighting issues in the way Ministries and Government departments advise decision makers and his recently completed report has found variable use of evidence in developing policy across central government.

“This level of assessment is desperately needed inside the Auckland Council. If Sir Peter had considered local government, he would likely have been in the uncomfortable position of describing ‘selective, inconsistent and inadequate’ use of evidence to develop Auckland Council policy.

“All the means the Council has at its disposal to develop a compelling picture of evidence to inform policy is being ignored because it doesn’t fit with the preferences of a few at the top.

“Transport modelling and assessment is telling us that congestion in Auckland will get worse if we proceed with the Mayor’s programme, but it’s been ignored.

“An enormous international body of evidence demonstrating a link between land constraint and housing unaffordability is being ignored.

“No empirical work on the infrastructure costs of the Unitary Plan has been completed.

“No studies have been conducted into the benefits of the Mayor’s beautification projects.

“Nothing has been done over the past three years to develop a strong set of indicators that enable balanced and objective decision making. All that has been done is a series of workstreams to justify the Mayor’s agenda.

“It’s not science, it’s not professional, and it’s not responsible.

“Establishing a Chief Science Advisor position is becoming more common internationally and is a much better way to spend ratepayer money than the fleet of PR merchants currently employed by the Council to gloss over poor decisions based on defective reasoning.” said Palino.

ENDS

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