NRT: The Constitutional Conversation

Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, March 5th, 2013 - 6 comments
Categories: accountability, Parliament, political alternatives - Tags: ,

A useful note from NRT (we should have covered this last week).

The Constitutional Conversation

The Constitutional Review launched its “Constitution Conversation” website [last Thursday], seeking submissions on key constitutional questions such as the length of the Parliamentary term, the role of the Treaty, and whether to entrench the Bill of Rights Act. These are questions we should all have an opinion on, because they affect the way our country is governed and how much of a say we have in it. And we should speak up about those opinions – because if we don’t, the politicians will take our silence as consent and write the rules to their own advantage, to give themselves more power with less accountability.

The website has a number of topic areas, on aspirations, the constitutional framework, the BORA, the Treaty etc. You can make a submission at the end of each topic page. Or you can make a general submission here. If you still do hardcopy, then there’s information on that here.

6 comments on “NRT: The Constitutional Conversation ”

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  1. vto 1
    5 March 2013 at 11:00 pm

    Nothing about a constitution can surely be passed into any form of reality before the active consent of the people it seeks to assert its position on has been offered.

    • Roflcopter 1.1
      6 March 2013 at 9:14 am

      The role of the Constitutional Advisory Panel is not to make a constitution, and they’re very clear that any movement towards one would be at the will of the people.

      The role of the Panel is to listen to what people have to say, and determine what (if any) further work needs to be looked at in detail after the engagement period, and deliberation.

      Your point here, and the ones below, are exactly the kind of feedback they’re after… it all feeds into the mix.

  2. vto 2
    5 March 2013 at 11:37 pm

    any constitution must be able to be cancelled by simple majority

  3. Colonial Viper 3
    5 March 2013 at 11:48 pm

    Constitutional issues are a completely irrelevant distraction at this point. Great if you have plenty of time, income and academic knowledge to game out all the different fine points of constitutional law.

    It’s like theorising about alternative constructions of ice strengthened hulls, as the Titanic is beginning to list.

    • Ugly Truth 3.1
      7 March 2013 at 7:48 pm

      The fine points of constitutional law are not that important, what matters are the basics, like Parliament misleading people about the theistic origin of common law, or the link between the House of Windsor and the Canadian residential school genocide.

  4. vto 4
    6 March 2013 at 8:35 am

    Place of the Treaty? The Treaty has serious flaws which can never be permitted to become part of any constitution. Don’t care if it is NZ or the Arctic or Fiji or England, these flaws are entirely unsuitable for any community of people. Some aspects perhaps but absolutely not hollisbollis.