RANZ Update

I blogged in August why I had resigned from the Research Association of New Zealand. By coincidence, the last three months have been the busiest period ever for Curia (outside pre-election periods).

There’s three items I want to update people on.

1. RANZ decided (as per their rules) to still consider the recommendation from the Professional Standards Group, and an independent review group did not endorse suspension
2. The independent review group considered the PSG findings with regard to question design and did not uphold three of them, but did uphold one of them.
3. RANZ is reviewing their procedures, as they were found to be significantly lacking. I will submit to that review (even though not a member) and I may even rejoin RANZ in a couple of years if I have confidence in the process. But this is far from assured, as I think it is very hard to prevent the weaponisation of complaints processes. I am still exploring membership options for overseas based professional bodies and have established our own complaints process.

When I resigned from RANZ, I had not yet received a copy of the PSG decision – just that they were recommending suspension or expulsion. In October I finally received a copy, and I am going to detail some of it here, so people can see for themselves what I have been battling.

First I want to go back to an earlier complaint the PSG upheld, over a question on the proposed Golden Mile redevelopment in Wellington. The PSG found the question was in breach of the RANZ Polling Code (and the general RANZ code) and cited a provision of the RANZ Political Polling Code it breached.

The PSG failed to even understand that the Political Polling Code does not apply to issue polling. The Code clearly states:

The code only covers “political polls”, which for the purpose of the code are polls that relate to
public votes such as national elections, local body elections and parliamentary referenda.

The PSG found breach of a code that doesn’t even apply to the poll in question. Such a failure of basic comprehension and interpretation should give warning bells about how much good faith was involved. The political polling code is a prescriptive code (which I helped write) designed only for polls which are about electoral outcomes.

So in the Golden Mile complaint, the PSG failed to properly comprehend the Political Polling Code they said it breached. I can’t recall an error of a similar magnitude by a professional complaints body. There is no shades of grey here. The code is black and white about its scope, and the PSG either ignored it or didn’t;t even understand a code they sit in judgment on.

Then we have the final complaint, about this poll question:

The UK health service (the NHS) has stopped the use of puberty blockers, which begin the gender transition process, for children under 16 as it deemed they are too young to consent. Do you support or oppose a similar ban in New Zealand on the use of puberty blockers for young people 16 or younger?

The PSG stated it breached the RANZ Code in the following ways:

• Includes more than one concept.

• Is long and complex.

• Uses emotive language that pushes the respondent to answer in a certain way.

• Uses context to influence the responses.

The independent panel disagreed on the first three points (and agreed on the last). I want to look closely at the first three, as I think it shows how biased the PSG was.

The question clearly did not have more than one concept. The only concept is should puberty blockers be banned for under 16s. I can’t understand how the PSG could think that (but I have a theory, detailed later).

It is not a long or complex question. I have written thousands of questions and this is relatively simple and short.

There is no emotive language in the question. So why did the PSG state it had more than one concept, it was long and complex, and used emotive language? Note that these were not even issues the complainant raised, or ones I was asked to submit on. These just appeared in their decision. They did not even ask me for input on these issues, which was a breach of natural justice.

If we go back to the Golden Mile decision, the PSG there found the question Do you think the Wellington City Council should commit to spending $139 million, (of which the outgoing Government pledged $71 million) on the Golden Mile project considering the blowout in the Town Hall renovation and growing Council debt? :

• Includes more than one concept.
• Is long and complex.
• Uses emotive language

Now in the Golden Mile case you can make an argument for there being two concepts (spending and debt) and emotive language (blowout), but these do not apply to the puberty blockers question.

So the only conclusion I can reach is that the PSG simply did a copy and paste of their findings in an earlier complaint into the later complaint.

If this is not the case, then please point out to me which words in the question were emotive? And point out what the second concept was?

This is why I have no confidence that the PSG has acted in a fair or impartial basis towards me. And again I note the independent panel did not uphold their findings on those aspects.

The independent panel did uphold one aspect of the PSG decision. They agreed that the question was leading, as it didn’t mention countries that have continued the use of puberty blockers.

I respect their interpretation there, but also respectfully have to agree to disagree. The question wasn’t about picking out a country at random that has blocked them. The UK was used because they had a world leading three year review of the science behind them, which led to the ban.

The review was seen as so influential, that the NZ Government itself said that it would influence their policy, and in fact just this week the Ministry of Health announced a new precautionary approach in NZ towards puberty blockers. This new position took the best part of a year to develop, and many other countries are also reviewing their policies in light of the UK Cass Review.

The question was about a country that had changed its position, and if NZ should do the same. Naming a country that has not (yet) changed its position is not balancing the question because changes take years to occur – it is apples and oranges in my opinion. I guess you could argue that a balance to the UK example would be a country that did have a ban on puberty blockers and recently got rid of the ban. But I’m genuinely not aware of any country that say had a ban on puberty blockers three years ago and has now unbanned them. Let me know if there is one.

Anyway this is the update. I appreciate the work of the independent panel (even though they upheld one aspect of the complaint) and the work of RANZ Board who are starting a review of the complaints process. But it is fair to say I have very low confidence in the current PSG, for reasons which should be obvious.