I’ve often fantasised about having QC’s put the party leaders through a televised, live, under oath grilling during the campaign. Have a basic set of standard questions, three follow ups allowed on each. If they dinnae follow through once in power they have to defend theyselfs agin perjury and some sorta breach o’ faith charges. If there are extenuating circumstances for not following through on what they said, fair enoughski.

Also, and too, experienced qc’s acting on some sort of warrant from the supreme court mebbe a little more correctly motivated than a numpty journo trying to squeeze a gotcha out of them before the ad break in 9,8,7…

http://politicalcompass.org/nz2008

All the parties on the right (excluding Labour) have an authoritarian bent.

edit – woops, that was meant to slot in about 12noon

In fact I believe my comment was that the comparison was ridiculous because EVEN the most generic comparisons are so far out of whack the specifics are not even worth talking about.

But I am probably wasting my time explaining this to a right wing troll…or whatever the opposite of your irrelevant insult of my post was.

I favour state funding of political parties (all secret money banned), longer terms for government but no polly can serve more than two terms, bans on concentration of media ownership and a much more active and investigative media (including state funded) to keep the system honest, more formal use of referenda, and perhaps some form of emergency referendum where 60% of the population can demand an immediate election (or a regular check, like a public version of the confidence votes in parliament). But I’m just wittering off the top of my head in a hurry here, haven’t thought this through.

I just get very wary of the less savoury aspects of the human character, especially when exposed to any levers of power. It seems we can’t help ourselves we humans.

The current system in NZ imo has many many good features and a few not so good. Simply finetuning and amending the existing system has to be the best way to deal with the flaws. The concentration of power in the executive is one example where it could be improved – say by enshrining some sort of Bill of Rights (not just legislation) so that the executive is subject to a form of judicial control and the legislature has some limits. This dilutes the power. Another amendment may be the greater use of binding referendums – again it dilutes and spreads the power.

So my solution would be along those sort of lines – amendments to dilute and spread power. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You know, power is the greatest aphrodisiac. People often go on about business people and their lust for money. From my own experience few such people actually lust after money – for most it is the power that is the draw (after they have a bit of money to get started). Keen eyes need to be kept on the power positions within a society.

What you think?

“In the commercial world, such an obvious breach of promise would be actionable in the courts. Unsurprisingly, the legislators that draw up the laws to protect us from the business wide-boys carefully exempt themselves from similar sanctions.

It was all just an election bribe. There ought to be a law against it ”

And it is further backing for my contention that power should not be concentrated in their hands.

But just quickly: The branch that you had trouble remembering, the legislature, is the one that is supposed to control the purse, declare war and write the laws. They are the only branch in the US system that is democratic, and is the branch that represents ‘the people’ most directly’.

And yet, ironically (and I’m not drawing any meaning from this) it’s the one people have most trouble remembering. Why is that? They are the branch that has been neutered most ruthlessly.

Ask yourself who has benefited most from the US’s expensive wars since WWII, paid for by the people and their great grandchildren. I put it to you as a question. All those 100′s of billions since 2001 alone, with so little oversight it’s ridiculous. Has the taxpayer benfited? Or perhaps other interests. Whose interests was the govt acting in? Was it the left or the righth driving?

You cite the break up of Standard Oil as an example of the govt being in charge. In the century plus since then, I suggest the roles have reversed.

“National has structured its credible economic package to take account of the changing international climate. Our tax cut programme will not require any additional borrowing.”

A few days later, Mr Key launched “a tax package for our times” that is “appropriate for the current conditions”. He said it would require “no additional borrowing, or cuts to frontline services to fund it. There is, in fact, a small saving to be made, of $282 million”.

Somehow, cutting taxes dramatically was going to increase government income. On December 16, Mr English was up in the House confirming “National will not be going back on any of those promises, as we fully costed and funded them“.

The Government is now making out some economic thunderbolt has suddenly hit New Zealand and thrown their pre-election calculations out the window.

But even economic ignoramuses like myself knew a global crisis was nigh. The experts had been saying so for long enough.

National never honestly expected to deliver:

Almost since the day they were elected into office, National’s leadership has been softening us up to the likelihood they’ll renege on their key election promise – a $4 billion, three-year programme of personal tax cuts. …

In the commercial world, such an obvious breach of promise would be actionable in the courts. Unsurprisingly, the legislators that draw up the laws to protect us from the business wide-boys carefully exempt themselves from similar sanctions.

It was all just an election bribe. There ought to be a law against it…

i knew it would be pointless positing such on a blog like this with all its attendant blinkers blindspots and bozos.