Hooray, a referendum on MMP

At long last National has honoured its promise to give us a referendum on MMP. It has been a long time coming.

Of course the result of the referendum can be driven by the nature of how the question is asked. But it is simple really, do you want a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system or First Past the Post (FPP) or something else?

MMP represents ideology in balance with people. Which should be represented in a House of Representatives?

When MMP was first proposed, I voted for it. Two reasons, having been active in a small party (Social Credit) that polled 26% of the vote and got 2 seats it just seemed totally unfair. Hell life is unfair. Is it fair that small extremist parties get to force policy on the majority? And secondly 9 years of Rob Muldoon dictatorship convinced me that we can't trust pollies with unbridled power so the best way to deal with them is to completely neuter them. MMP looked like it would do that.

I was right. MMP has totally compromised the leadership of our county and ensured that extremist actions are neutered by the extremist views of the fringe, and to me it looks like Parliament is a circus. This said, it was always a circus. It is just that the jockeying occurred in caucus not in the public eye. One could argue that a public process is better. I wouldn't as we now have both processes

I was also wrong in what I wished for, like it or lump it a democratic process has to deliver a leadership model that can lead and make decisions. The world has got more dangerous and faster not less, and leadership is about the capacity to make fast decisions. Consultation doesnt always get a better result. It just gets a slower result and that is at best. I often say I would prefer people to who work for me to make a wrong decision than fail to make one. (So long as they fess up, and so long as I remember not to shoot them that is) MMP fails in this regard, mostly.

But the real issue is this, if we are having a referendum on MMP why not extend this to a total review of our constitutional framework? New Zealand is one of the very few countries in the world with no written constitution. The rights and responsibilities of government and the people are defined by convention. I.e. we have no rights unless you litigate them through the courts. And anyone who has ever had a fight with the Crown on anything knows that perpetual succession and a bottomless pit of money makes a very hard case to win.

Anyway, enough from me on this. Below is an article sent to me by blogger Campbell, a socially responsible and caring New Zealander.

Thoughts on New Zealand Constitutional Reform.

New Zealand is one of only three countries (New Zealand, Britain and Israel), without a written constitution in an era of increasing government intrusion into the private lives of its citizens, that is, historically, quite unprecedented outside times of war.

This intrusion appears to be driven by two interesting facets of the society. The citizens themselves abrogating personal responsibility in return for increasing access to subsidies and benefits paid for from central taxation and the quite apparent need for central government to appropriate increasing powers unto itself, well beyond those required to satisfy the former impulse of the citizens.

In part the latter is also a response to the perceived dangers of international terrorism as well as a feeling of unease within the general populace of the dangers of such criminal elements as organised criminal "gangs", drug trading and socially unacceptable behaviours such as paedophilia and "child-bashing".

This is evidenced with the increasing use of surveillance cameras in our streets and huge, amorphous (and often unchallengeable), data-bases held by both governmental and private entities; all these matters have eroded our civil-rights and eroded too, our citizens' concepts of democracy.

It is an issue that has been addressed before (Unbridled Power, Palmer, G., OUP, 1987), but which currently lies dormant in the minds of the public. Indeed it is actively and deliberately ignored by our parliamentary representatives, in no small part as it would restrict those unbridled powers.

Moves to alter this constitutional vacuum have been sporadic and swamped by both the institutional inaction and the overpowering indifference of the public at large. To a degree our legislators have indeed been "representatives of the people" for as there was no movement from the public, therefore they might proceed unchallenged, if indeed they considered it at all.

There have been moves from within the Parliament (the Select Committee system), to extend a more modern concept of democracy, however this has been greatly ignored by the Executive (Cabinet), as the powers of these committees are advisory and not binding. The power of that Executive is effectively untrammelled.   

We are again readying ourselves to debate the method of representation yet we are choosing to ignore this even more fundamental part of our democracy and of our freedoms. Is it time then for the citizens of this country to debate and establish a written constitution? The answer is a simple ...... yes!

There are two constitutional aspects to this, external and internal structure. Externally, the establishment of trading "blocs" is an international trend; the Free Trade Agreements with sundry countries in the Asian sphere (Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, and with India pending). These may move far beyond the sovereignty issues already posed by multi-national companies. Trading blocs (the EU being an example), require a degree of internal coordination and discipline and this may point to a trend to extra-sovereignty issues such as bedevil the running of the European Union.

To survive financially we will be forced to join such a bloc, to do so without a written basis to our laws is to risk (as Britain does), external powers dictating laws to us. We thus need to address the issue of sovereignty in the coming "New World Order" as it relates to a small nation of four to five millions, situated on the geographic fringe.

Internally we will have to address what democracy means to us - as citizens - beyond the day-to-day effects and efforts of Parliament and the bureaucracy. As a nation we have also to address the issue of sovereignty itself. It is now obvious that we have borrowed ourselves into a disastrous financial position. We have run a Current Account Deficit for fifty years or more and this is unsustainable in the approaching world changes, for it is doubtful if the Pacific/Asian economic bloc will continue to be willing to fund New Zealand's social democracy, so inexplicable to their realities.

What is abundantly evident is that we must rapidly quit the complacency of the past fifty years if we are to survive. One option may well be to action the clause in the Australian Constitution that makes provision for New Zealand to join that federation - however unpalatable that may be to both the public and, especially, to the politicians.

We would at once become a market of twenty five million, still small by the standards of our potential trading bloc, but six times the size of our present position. If we do this, we do gain a written constitution of course, but we would go into the Federation unprepared and with no bargaining chips. With a Constitution of our own (adapted to fit the Australian State models), it would become our State Constitution and we would not enter the partnership bare-arse-naked.

The principle that we have evolved from the British Westminster system is that the Parliament retains all sovereignty - there is no higher authority. In theory there are checks and balances within that system; an upper House (the House of Lords) which acts as a house of review on the Legislative chamber. In New Zealand we did away with this house of review in 1949 and have endured a monocameral system ever since. This has often led to hurried and ill-conceived legislation. Any law can be repealed by the House of Representatives by simple majority.

Until now the Parliament has respected the concept of "entrenchment" (and double entrenchment), but this too is subject to the whim of the majority party and the concept can be dispensed with by a series of simple majorities. It is only "convention" that holds this in check - a convention that is at odds with the primary concept of that very Sovereignty of the Parliament.

An example of this power was the retrospective legislation passed by the National Government led by the late Right Honourable Robert Muldoon. What was legal on the Monday was illegal and, technically, imprisonable on the Tuesday! It caused a furore at the time but the Sovereignty of the Parliament prevailed. Subsequent governments of all stripes have used this precedent with glee.

The reality - our democratic reality - is that our regime is unaccountable and controlled by a tiny minority of the elected House - the Executive Cabinet - and the power of the Three-line Whip. I suggest that it is only the nation's small size that has kept it from corruption; the fact that our local representative lived just around the corner.

It hardly needs pointing out that we gave much of this away when we instituted MMP - for a substantial minority our Parliament is not elected directly anymore but are appointed "List Members", appointed at the whim of party officials. This is demonstrably undemocratic.

Some claim that we should have more Citizens' Referendums and make these binding on the Parliament. This is simply pie-in-the-sky stuff as it does not fit with the current legal framework (the Sovereignty of the Parliament) and, more importantly, it erodes even further the power of the normal elections.

The central point here is that our Members of Parliament are representative Of the people not representatives For the people. Referendums may work in small tribal or village communities (such as the cantons of Switzerland), but even in those circumstances much power resides with a small, if elected, executive. In the modern world I doubt that this is practical anyway due to the inability to educate the electors sufficiently in the time available.

At the moment we have no way of protecting ourselves against the whims of the politicians or their advisors. We have no buffer between the people and a political group - half of whom (as noted), are unelected. And here is something for Republicans to chew on, only the convention of our non-political, constitutional monarchy stands between that total, unbridled power, and us.

We need therefore to have a written constitution to ensure that the people of New Zealand will always be properly represented on matters of moment and, where this power is granted to a government, that it cannot be suborned by a more energetic minority.