Category: Politics
We have pleasure in presenting "A House Divided", the newly released report by the Independent Constitutional Review Panel. The ICRP was convened in October 2012 when it became clear that the Maori Party was using the government’s constitutional review in an attempt to entrench the Treaty of Waitangi into a new written constitution as supreme law
"A House Divided" is a new report by the Independent Constitutional Review Panel, that examines New Zealand's constitutional arrangements, and highlights the threat to race relations posed by the Maori Party's constitutional conversation. We urge every concerned New Zealander to read our report.
The Nordic countries have reinvented themselves over the last two decades, and their progress is testimony to the value of proper reform. They faced up to the problems created by governments that had grown too big and entitlement programmes that had grown too generous, to find successful solutions that reduced the size of government and ‘set their entrepreneurs free’.
Why is it that John Key always asks the wrong questions - that is, how will voters react - and as a result, will rule out most quality policy options, rather than asking, what is the right thing to do? And then, and only then, asking how do I sell it?
The problem for the wider community is that through this process, the government has become captured by the naked ambition of a race-based tribal aristocracy to co-govern the country. That this undermines the government’s commitment to a democratic society based on equal rights - relegating all other citizens to second-class status - appears of little consequence.
The case for ‘co-governance’ between the government and iwi is justified according to cultural recognition and social justice beliefs. However that is to make a fundamental error, one that ignores the dangers of including ethnicity into the political arrangements of a democratic nation.
New Zealanders will soon get a chance to participate in the Citizens Initiated Referendum on asset sales. The referendum is required under law after the promoters (Grey Power, the Green Party, the Council of Trade Unions, the Labour Party, NZ Union of Students' Associations, and Greenpeace) secured sufficient signatures in a petition to Parliament this year.
In Switzerland, the people have extensive decision-making power. As in New Zealand, Swiss nationals elect the members of parliament and just as in New Zealand, everyone is entitled to address written requests, suggestions and complaints to the authorities. But in Switzerland, citizens get more of a say.
We all know that in the media business, sensation sells. Advocacy groups like Greenpeace have long taken advantage of this by peddling scare stories - the world is running out of oil or food or trees, polar bears are dying out, the earth is becoming overpopulated, or melting glaciers are flooding the planet. Regrettably not enough people understand the need for scepticism over such reports.
A new Fairfax poll released today shows that while Labour has not made the inroads into National’s support that it would have hoped from the leadership change, it has stopped the loss of support to the Greens. While the poll indicates that National could govern alone, public opinion always firms up in the run-up to a general election and the polls will inevitably close.
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