Democracy or demoCoskrie?

There’s been a few rumours running around about the March for Democracy held during the weekend. A little one was there was only 1000 at the march. The biggest one was that $450,000 was spent on it. As David Farrar notes, spending an average of $100 a head to get 5000 or so marchers is not an encouraging turnout when $450,000 was spent.

Except $450,000 was not spent.

I was told by Family First's Bob McCoskrie, one of the march organisers, that the amount was around $200,000; so it was closer to $40-$50 a head for the march. The aim of the march was to protest against the government’s lack of responsiveness to certain referenda that got a high percentage of support for change.

March funder Colin Craig, who also supports Act MP John Boscawen's members bill aiming to alter smacking laws, was asked by a a TVNZ reporter what he hoped to achieve:

"What is your main agenda here? What do you want to see changed?"

"What I want to see changed is I want to see the government of New Zealand listen to large votes from the people of this country."

"Does that mean you want to see citizens initiated referendums become binding?"

"I don't have that agenda."

Craig may publicly deny he has that agenda, but he certainly supports that opinion: he wants to see citizens initiated referenda become binding. All the people in the organising committee for the March for Democracy are united in that view. Perhaps Craig's response was an understanding that binding citizens initiated referenda are unpopular with decision -makers, and he didn’t want to admit that the march was framed as one promoting democracy to purposely avoid the less palatable framing of binding referenda. Furthermore if a significant majority of votes - lets say two-thirds - support a certain position, many, if not all march organisers consider that the wishes of the people should trump representative democracy, even if the aggregate wishes of the people are in conflict with what parliament determines to be the voters’ best wishes.

In other words, in these situations, unlike Auckland Law School lecturer Richard Ekins, they believe that Parliament should be told how to legislate. Furthermore they believe that Parliament should be accountable for these laws, even when passing laws based on biding referenda that they don’t agree are in the best interests of those whom they are representing.

Although McCoskrie told me that a referendum with two-third’s majority support should be translated to legislation irrespective of the size of the turnout, he was less clear, when prompted, as to what he expected the Government to do if 28 percent of voters participated in a referendum and of those, a higher percentage wanted a law change. That is not a mandate for change. Perhaps that is why the March for Democracy focused on referenda that both had larger turnouts and achieved more than 80% of the vote. It looks a bit silly promoting binding referenda when fewer than one in three voters participate.

Despite what some have said, McCoskrie has not turned his back on proportional representation. He doesn’t want to go back to First Past the Post: neither does he support MMP as it currently stands. His electoral system preference is STV. This is perhaps because, as he admits, he hasn't yet thought through the changes that can occur to make MMP work to his liking, and STV is more likely to eliminate vote wastage. His bugbear is that too many representatives are getting whipped for conscience votes. He clearly sees a distinction between getting whipped by party leaders and getting whipped by referenda voters, but considers that a good whipping by voters is more democratic than one by a party whip.

That’s because he believes citizen self-interest trumps the self-interest of governing representatives. But as Robert Dahl would say, who governs?

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We want democracy

On Saturday, several thousand people marched in Auckland, many chanting "we want democracy".

This implies we don't have democracy. I`ll be posting on this sometime this week. But for now, consider this:

What is the democracy that the marchers wanted? What is democracy?
Update Heaps of pix here. The $450,000 reportedly spent on the march is more than the amount that the Kiwi Party, the Libertarianz, the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party and the Family Party spent on the 2008 general election combined.

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The value of representative democracy

Back in August, Richard Ekins, law lecturer at Auckland University, delivered a superb lecture for the Maxim Institute: “ A Government for the People: The value of representative democracy” looking at the value of representative democracy as opposed to direct democracy in light of the anti-smacking referendum. You can listen to that lecture here. The paper has been made available today and you can read that here.

Ekins argues that, despite direct democracy aiming to circumvent political representatives, representative democracy is not second best democracy. Securing the will of the people is of more value than executing the will of the people. Read the whole speech, because whatever I write won’t do it justice. I may try and do a summary later.

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ACT on Campus and democracy

It is no surprise that ACT on Campus supports voluntary membership of student unions. Even if 51% of students want compulsory membership, the group believe that a " fundamental human right" should not be taken away from the rest of students.

So, I expect a statement from ACT on Campus advising that the select committee listening to submissions on the VSM bill should take no notice of submissions that do not support voluntary student membership of unions - akin to the attitude of Rodney Hide with regards to the Maori seats in the Auckland supercity. Substantive democracy doesn't come into it for these people.

Democracy for ACT on Campus means people should be encouraged to have a say - provided that their views are ignored if they don't agree with ACT policy - with the majority of politicians voting accordingly.

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Why National supports Supplementary Member and the Greens oppose it

Heres how the New Zealand House of Representatives would have looked under the Supplementary Member electoral system, with the current seat numbers in brackets for comparison.


New Zealand National Party - 65 seats (58)
New Zealand Labour Party - 40 seats (43)
Māori Party -6 seats (5)
Green Party - 4 seats (9)
Act New Zealand - 3 seats (5)
Jim Anderton's Progressive - 1 seat (1)
United Future New Zealand - 1 seat (1)

National would have governed alone, may as well have had FPP, with no bridle on executive power.

If the five percent threshold was to be removed:
Under SM, only National and Labour would be affected, both losing a seat to New Zealand First. Under MMP, National would have 3 fewer seats, Labour 2 , the Greens 1 , with Act getting an extra seat. Three additional parties will enter parliament: New Zealand First with 5 seats, with Bill and Ben and the Kiwi Parties gaining one seat each.

Had the 2008 election been under SM, Act would have still have got more seats than NZ First- even without a threshold - and with 10,000 fewer votes.

So, does anyone else think that, in the context of discussing electoral systems, a reduction of the MMP threshold would be preferable to the adoption of the SM system, with or without a threshold.

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No members day again tomorrow

Parliament is going into urgency because it has some bills to pass. In other words for no particular reason but convenience. Not everyone is happy about it, because the bills that are being looked at are not of an urgent nature. As a result there will be no members day tomorrow, again and two fewer bills to deal with,.If they put parliament in to urgency after members day that wouldn't suit because then the members wouldnt have a weekend.

But sacrificing members day so often hardly sounds like democracy in action. But most people wont care - they've never heard of members day.

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I find it quite ironic that quite a few two-faced Act supporters are annoyed at John Key's undemocratic stance in ignoring the smacking referendum, but are quite happy for Rodney Hide to run roughshod over the select committee process - and treat a Royal Commission report like it didnt exist - with regards to Maori seats on the Auckland City Council.

On 26 May, Rodney Hide said

I have faith in parliamentary democracy and the select committee process. I have made it plain what my views are, but ultimately the decision will be made by Parliament.

He had faith in Parliamentary democracy because he knew that Parliament would not be making the decision on the seats: Cabinet had already made it on 6 April 2009 as noted in Cabinet minute 0912/7, [PDF] that Māori representation should not be provided for within the new Auckland governance structure. At that stage the select committee hadn't even looked at submissions. A week later Hide told John Key that he would resign if Cabinet changed its mind and Maori seats were introduced in the Auckland City Council.

The select committee has not even reported back, yet Cabinet has already made its decision not to include the seats and Key knew for more than two months that he would lose a Minister if the seats were included. I believe that Key and Hide had always intended not to include the seats even before the select committee process started, and that is simply disgraceful.

Rodney Hide is a two-faced hypocrite. Tau Henare has called him a jerk-off. Hide urged National to listen to the public after Key told the country he'll ignore the referendum results. But Hide had effectively just told the public he would be ignoring their submissions on Maori seats in Auckland before they even submitted to the select committee.

It's a shame that Act supporters are not outraged about Hide's blatant unwillingness to agree to anyone that disagrees with him on one issue, while at the same time being outraged that people don't agree with him on another. For Act supporters, democracy is only under attack if their views are attacked.

There is absolutely no way Act can be taken seriously in this government.

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A basic misunderstanding of politics

Colin Espiner has written an interesting column saying that although Labour should be critiqing the government, this does not mean it has to take a different position on every issue.

I agree. But No Right Turn doesn't. He believes that Labour's stance should flow from Labour values and the values of its supporters - or as he says - the people Labour represent - meaning these values, and the values of all its supporters, are not aligned to those espoused by National. By implication that means National's stance should also flow from National values and the values of its supporters and the people it represents. The only time both parties should agree is if they genuinely agree on the issue - in which case the positions of the respective parties and the majority of their supporters would be aligned.

The problem is that many of Labour's supporters are now National supporters and voted National. Labour has a diminishing support base, but this does not mean that non-Labour voters are not represented by their local Labour representative.What if a National voter seeks assistance of their electorate Labour MP - should the constituent not be represented because his or her values are different to that of his representative? Representation by representatives who are aligned to an opposition party is not just about reflecting party values that oppose the Government in every way - it is also acting on behalf of the interests of constituents,according to their wishes, in matters that concern them, and it is about time people who are interested in representative democracy recognise this.

The same applies to representatives in the governing party. But that is something that Labour and National have forgotten recently. Their party positions change without reference to their supporters and voters, which is why Labour has lost support of Maori as well as other groups and people vote National because they are teh lesser of the two evils. If the Opposition is to oppose the Government in everything - except things they genuinely agree on - Idiot Savant would do well to question the values of political parties. He would do well to explain why National supported the smacking legislation that many of its MPs and party supporters were opposed to.

As representation is a democracy is of a kind that reflects the wishes of constituents, Idiot Savant may well consider the principled stand of Georgina Beyer in voting in according to her constituents wishes, but against the wishes of her party in the Foreshore and Seabed legislation. He may well ask why Labour supported the undemocratic Electoral Finance legislation that even some of its fervent supporters and candidates opposed - but then quickly supported its repeal when National took office.

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Government pretty much decided on postal smacking referendum months ago

note:this post has been updated
The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Robert Peden, has advised the Government that he would prefer that any Citizens Initiated Referenda be conducted by postal vote in 2009 in accordance with the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act 2000. He wasn't given an opportunity by the Government to recommend a postal vote this year.

The Government announced in parliament today that the advice is to be accepted. What it didn't say was that the advice was given to the Government on 17 March - more than three months ago - requesting that a Cabinet decision be made by mid April, two months before the petition was delivered to Parliament. I got the briefing paper emailed to me this afternoon, but due to work commitments, was unable to read it until tonight. But I found it online here [DOC].

The primary reason that the CEO recommended a postal ballot was because he didn't want to do an electoral referendum because he thought it would be too much hard work.

He didn't want the additional administrative challenges of an electoral referendum on top of organising an election, including staff training, and he hadn't got around to arranging the testing the enhancements of the Election Management System. And given that the CEO is not funded to undertake citizen initiated referenda, he hadn't applied for additional funding should the petitions be successful, nor did he appear to want to. It is noted that it cost up to $2.2m more to fund a referenda by postal vote.

Another reason for recommending a postal ballot was because of delays in the two 1999 CIR - delays in part caused by not having distinct colours for each referendum voting paper, meaning the sorting was a lot of hard work. In other words, they didn't get their act together last time and don't want to repeat the process in case they screw up again.

All this can be fixed - its just that the Chief Electoral Officer doesn't want to fix it because doing a postal ballot is a lot easier - it will also mean a reduced response rate,so an electoral referendum could be said to be more democratic.

Yet there is absolutely no reason apart from political pettiness why a postal ballot or an electoral referendum cannot be conducted this year. In fact Parliament could, if it so chooses, vote on a resolution requiring the voting period for a postal ballot to close on Election Day.

If John Key really prefers an election day referendum, lets see his party put forward the resolution if his words are not hollow politicking.

UPDATE Apparently the Chief Electoral Office has been discussing what to do regarding the referendums since late last year and the idea of a 2009 postal referendum appears to have been floated at that time. If so, the briefing is the formal advice of these initial discussions and it means that Larry Baldock and Cheryl Savill, if they were hoping to have referenda at the election, were effectively scuttled before they even got their petition presented the first time - as the Government appears to have informally decided back in 2007 that it did not want an electoral referendum - or a 2008 postal referendum - way back then.If so, the decision was based on politics, not on pragmatism or democracy. In other words, it was rigged.

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Referendum II

Yesterday, I mentioned that if the date of a citizen's initiated referendum on the smacking legislation is to be announced before the announcement of an election day, the referendum can't obviously be held on an announced election day.

However, I`ve since discovered that should an election date be announced between the announcement of the referendum and the date of that referendum, the government can, if it wants to, revoke the former Order in Council and appoint the polling day as the day on which the referendum is to be held.

Or the House can pass a resolution setting the smacking referendum date itself. It can defer the referendum to the following year provided it has 75% support, and it is voted on before 23 September.

I can't see either happening. Assuming the petition is valid, the selective Labour law of common sense is the only thing preventing a printing of the the election papers and the referendum papers at the same time.Also, an early election won't necessarily stop a referendum.

UPDATE: The Herald's John Armstrong concurs

There would be a problem if the election was called before the Office of the Clerk had finished validating the signatures on the petition. That is highly unlikely.

When asked outside Labour's caucus meeting yesterday about how the referendum might square with the election date, Helen Clark walked away. The election timetable is not a subject she is ready to traverse.

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No Right Turn says there is no time for referendum, and he's wrong

Note: see update at bottom of this post
Helen Clark has said it is unlikely that the smacking petition will have its referendum at the election, whereas No Right Turn says it is impossible. He's wrong. John Key says it is:

about democracy, the right of people to be heard and it's the absolute height of arrogance that the prime minister is going to use a technicality within the law to circumvent people's rights to express their views on the issue.

Hes right. Larry Baldock says there is plenty of time to organise a referendum at the election.

Here's how the process works. The clerk of the House has up to two months to certify the petition, have the speaker present it to the house. Then the Governor General has to set a date within a month. So the latest a date can be set, assuming the petition is valid, is 23 September. The earliest is the day it is certified, which could be next month. So by September 23 the Governor General would want to know the election date.

Then if it the referendum is to be held on Election Day the Governor General must issue a writ up to 60 days in advance. That writ must state the last date for return of that writ, being any day up to the the final day of the 60 day period. [And on this point, No Right Turn , where I got some of this information form, is incorrect when he states that "if the referendum is to be held on election day, that must be done 60 days in advance".]

The process can take five months; but it doesn't have to. The last date the election can be held is November 15, although I recon it will be earlier. So if the election date is announced by 23 September (just under eight weeks before the final available election date), there will be plenty of time to organise an election day referendum.

But the Government can be petty and delay the election announcement til after September 23, while announcing a referendum date for next year on September 23 with the excuse that we don't know the election date so we can't therefore announce an election day referendum.[Clarification: But read this .]

If there's enough time to organise an election, there's enough time to organise a referendum. To set and maintain a date after the election would be the kind of petty politics that No Right Turn apparently approves of - and that approval surprises me, given his views on democracy.

UPDATE: I see No Right Turn has done a correction in line with the above. I have also linked a clarification. NRT maintains the process takes four months. That's not the issue. The issue is the announcement of an election date. If the election date is announced on or before September 23, the referendum date can be announced for exactly the same date. Helen Clark can announce an election date today if she wants to - she can certainly signify that a referendum is to be held at the election once the petition is declared valid, so authorities have more time to prepare.

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