Written By:
Marty G - Date published:
10:00 am, September 9th, 2009 - 7 comments
Categories: democracy under attack, national/act government, Parliament -
Tags:
National put Parliament back into urgency yesterday. It is ramming through the extension to the retail deposit guarantee, the RMA amendments, changes to the Biosecurity Act (and something else that escapes my memory). The RMA changes are particularly contentious but we won’t get to know what the Government is planning until hours before it passes them into law.
Urgency has its place, when time is tight – as it is with the retail deposit guarantee because the Government stuffed around for so long. It should only be used very sparingly though because it is undemocratic. It prevents the public and the Opposition having time to digest the proposed law, precluding informed public debate until after the fact. Also, while urgency is on there’s usually no Question Time, the one direct opportunity for the Opposition to hold ministers to account. There’s no reason to be rushing through RMA and biosecurity amendments through in the middle of the Parliamentary year.
This Key Government is starting to use urgency as a default option. Couple that with their practices of not sending important Bills like the Fire at Will Bill to select committee and ignoring the findings of select committees that do report, and we have a picture of a government riding roughshod over the parliamentary institutions put in place to protect our democracy. Hell, why don’t we just say ‘screw Parliament’ and let Key rule by decree for three years?
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Hang on “a single stage definitive referendum could be held next year, then applied at the 2011 election.” So Nats want the new system in place by the next election? Wow, they really are drunk with power. Unfortunately half of New Zealand appears to like it’s alcoholic, abusive master…
Yeah, well they seem to think that riding rough shot over the he parliamentary institutions is what governing is all about. Makes them look decisive to the average dimwit voter. It also means they make really stupid decisions or greedy if you will but nobody finds out until to late.
.. a well known phenomenon, sometimes manifested as “the Stockholm syndrome”, well known among people working with abused individuals.
Could the RMA amendments have something to do with Auckland’s SuperCity ? The waterfront ? Rodney and Papakura Councils ?
Or to distract headline writers from the prospect of seeking cost-efficiencies among intelligence services ? Think of the implications of such a precedent ..
It really does appear that they are using classic power and control tactics used by abusers to maintain dominance. And they’re taking advantage of this bizarre euphoria New Zealand appears to have for them. No wonder they’re doing things under urgency at the moment – they know that the majority appears to have no issue with it.
Of course, all they’re really doing is sowing the seeds of their demise.
By the way, I hesitate to say this but all this talk of abuse does seem mightily ironic given certain matters pertaining to certain President of certain party. Did I keep it vague enough?
You haven’t been listening to Lianne Dalziel – she seems quite confident that a foreshortened select committee process could have been held. You might still want urgency to go through the later stages, but there’s no reason it has to be all stages all at once.
In a rare break with form The Herald gave National a good spanking on this issue very early on:
But they’re still at it. “Cause for concern” indeed. Will media speak up again this time?
You know thinking about the whole under urgency thing?
What is the difference between holding secret meetings while belonging to a select group in order to come up with laws that are detrimental to entire groups of the population pushing the laws through under urgency and only telling what the laws are all about hours before they are voted on and conspiring?
Capcha: paid. yep, they sure are.