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NZCPR
Guest Forum
Democracy or Dictatorship?
Larry
Baldock
25 April 2010
Do
you think we live in a democracy?
Recently
a radio interviewer asked me, “Why call it a
Campaign4Democracy, when we already live in a democracy?”
Well,
it’s because more and more New Zealanders are coming to the
conclusion that our democracy now consists of just having the privilege of electing a
new dictator every three years! In our system of
representative democracy if those we elect are not listening
to and carrying out the wishes of those that have elected
them, then what democracy do we have?
The
Prime Minister in New Zealand controls the Executive and
Legislative branches of our Government and the Attorney
General, (with approval from the PM of course), appoints our
Supreme Court Judges. Add
to that the fact that the Queen, as our Head of State,
appoints the Governor General on the recommendation of the
Prime Minister, and the Governor General then acts only upon
the recommendations of the Prime Minister, and you can begin
to understand the extent of the abuse of power that can occur.
I
have no doubt in my mind that if the National Party caucus
members had been given the opportunity to vote in a secret
ballot on the repeal of the anti-smacking law after the
referendum, it would have been tossed out ‘by lunchtime’.
After all, many of them, with John Key’s sanction,
had helped me collect signatures to make the Anti-smacking
referendum a reality!
It
would no doubt come as a surprise to many that MPs crossing
the floor to vote against party lines is much more common in
healthy overseas democracies than here in NZ where, party
loyalty, particularly in National and Labour, has become
paramount.
Look
at how much work President Obama had to do to get the votes of
his democratic party colleagues in Congress to pass his health
care reform, or how often backbench MPs threaten to vote
against their party in Westminster. When was the last time an
MP in our House of Representatives had the courage of their
convictions to represent their constituents, and crossed the
floor against the wishes of their party? It is a rare event
indeed and has usually resulted in the party turning on the MP
with vindictive reprisals.
In
fact, I think most voters would be very concerned to learn
that democratic votes seldom happen within a party caucus in
Parliament, and when they do, anyone with a different opinion
from the leader, must raise their hand in a brave, career
damaging move. The secret ballot is a very important
foundation of our electoral system yet within political
parties it almost never occurs.
New
Zealand is the only nation, as far as I am aware, that has
neither a written constitution to clearly define the
boundaries of constitutional power, nor a second chamber such
as a Senate or House of Lords which must vet and pass all
legislation before it becomes law. Added to this
weakness we now have an MMP electoral system in which party
leaders hold considerable additional power over their MPs
concerned about their rankings on the party list at the next
election.
No matter how likeable our political
leaders are at any time, we need to remember that the
‘separation of powers’ principle is for their protection
as well as ours. As Lord Acton said “power corrupts;
absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
To all intents and purposes our Prime Ministers can
assume dictatorial powers and use them to their detriment and
that of the nation.
To
address this serious issue the Campaign4Democracy is
collecting 350,000 signatures on a petition that will force a
referendum on the question of whether Parliament should be
bound to implement the results of any Citizens Initiated
Referendum (CIR) in the future.
Otherwise
there is little sense in spending our taxpayer dollars to hold
a referendum just to have Parliament insult the electors by
ignoring the result.
This
new petition is not the Anti-smacking referendum mark two!
That referendum was just the most recent, and the most blatant
example of Parliament’s disregard for true democracy. There
are many examples.
The
removal of appeal to the Privy Council; the Prostitution Law
reform (passed on one abstention); the Electoral Finance Act
(passed on a small majority rather than the consensus of both
sides of the house as previously accepted); the Anti-smacking
law (passed despite 80% public opposition); the Emissions
Trading Scheme (passed with the support of the Maori party in
what is increasingly looking like a very expensive deal); the
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Recently
signed in a secretive way by the government) - the
list could go on! Add to this the loss of the tradition of
genuine conscience voting in the House of Representatives and
we should all be very concerned.
After
the Muldoon years and the turmoil of the 4th Labour
Government the National party sensed the growing public
dissatisfaction with politicians ignoring the people. As an
election promise in 1990 they pledged to introduce a system of
Citizens Initiated Referenda and in 1993 they passed the CIR
Act that allowed for non-binding referenda. The minister in
charge of the passage of the bill into law, Sir Doug Graham,
said, “It is my belief that we will rarely witness by Parliament the
rejection of a referendum result”.[1]
He
has of course lived to witness Parliament reject the results
of the only four CIRs that have managed to clear the very high
threshold needed to force a referendum. Sir Doug went on to
say “the
intention is to review the use of citizens-initiated referenda
after a period of 5 years, and it may well be then appropriate
to consider a change to the law to make referenda binding at
that time”.[2]
Surely
it is now time for that review!
On the 10 March 1992 the Hon Murray McCully said in his speech on the
first reading of the CIR Bill that the new Act would “profoundly
change the way in which we conduct our democracy in this
country.”
The reason for change in his opinion was because “our
system permits the executive to have too much power. The
Executive is too easily able to dominate Parliament and that
Parliament has become the puppet rather than the master of
cabinet.” [3]
Well
now ‘ain’t that the truth’!
Please go to our website at www.campaign4democracy.co.nz
and download the petition. With your help we can see referenda
made binding as a part of the much needed and overdue checks
and balances within our democracy.
For more about referenda, an upper
chamber, a written constitution and other proposals read the
FAQs on our website.
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