John Key; Key Notes on Youtube

The Prime Minister seems to pride himself as being close to the people and makes every effort to appear so by publishing

a regular and personal online chat, even talking about the recent referendum. This would seem to me to be a good place to get our message across that referendums should be binding. Click on this link click here to go to the webpage and make a few comments at the bottom of the page so John gets the real message.

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"What is to be done?"

This referendum was different from the previous ones because it was in fact a “Veto” referendum on a ‘law’ ‘approved’ by ‘parliament’.

To carry out the instruction from the people all that is needed is to reverse out the Bradford changes at once and with a minimum of fuss. All that ‘parliament’ needs to do is to rubber-stamp the decision taken by the people of New Zealand.

The government reversed out the changes in the NZ honours system without any difficulty, and that was at their own whim, not by any command from the people.

So why won’t our politicians obey us? Why do they kow-tow instead to the orders of a bunch of UN bureaucrats appointed by an assortment of very unsavoury regimes?

I think the reason is simple: they cannot stomach the idea that they should obey the orders of the people. Look around the world; is there any state that has a democratic constitution like that of Switzerland? No, there isn’t, despite that model democracy having shone its beacon for 150 years. And you can see why! The political classes of all states are united in one simple thing: their megalomaniac pride. It means that they will never permit the people they ‘represent’ anything more than the basic rudiments of influence by means of the occasional ‘general election’.

What are the implications? No, we don’t want to use force, even though most of their political systems were imposed by force of arms at some stage or other. We have but one resource upon which they depend like manna from heaven: our votes.

The way to bring down all these misbegotten, moth-eaten, corrupt ‘parliaments’ is for the people to completely abstain from voting in their ‘general elections’. Suppose at the next ‘general election’ farce a bare 20% of the electorate voted. The legitimacy of whatever ‘parliament’ resulted would be nil. This would indicate a complete collapse in confidence in the existing political arrangements and would signal the need for a special People’s Conference to put together our first democratic constitution, closely modelled on the Swiss Federal Constitution.

The technique for achieving this result is patently simple: Don’t vote!

“Don’t vote!” must be our slogan and our unswerving purpose. Therefore, in time for the next ‘GE’, we need to mobilise and motivate the same number of people who signed the referendum demand to throw out the Bradford folly. The task would be absurdly easy: just let us all talk regularly to all of our friends and families, colleagues and acquaintances and explain to them why they should *not* vote.

We can start now.

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The people have spoken: now to stop the violence

Sunday Star Times 23/08/09: Michael Laws. A good article well worth reading if you haven't already.

IF THERE is one thing that Friday's anti-smacking referendum will never influence it is those morons who believe that a corrective smack on a child's bottom constitutes child abuse.

The country has rejected this absurd correlation. But it remains a favourite of liberal pressure groups who agitate that any physical punishment equates to assault. The Plunkets, Barnardos and Greens honestly think that preventing white middle-class parents from smacking their kids on the bum for being naughty will somehow save poor, brown kids from being killed by their feckless whanau.

As all the child beatings and deaths of 2009 prove, the anti-smacking legislation has failed. It hasn't stopped one beating, one abuse, one death. And it never will. You can't reason with drugged, drunk, violent parents, acting out their inadequacy, with an act of parliament. If you could, we would all be living in Utopia.

In the past fortnight, three toddlers have been killed two in Northland and one in Manawatu. At least two of the alleged killers fit the ethnic and socio-economic stereotype of your typical offender. At time of writing, the third offender is unknown. What's the bet?

This simple fact has escaped the intellectual grasp of the "Yes" campaigners. It seems self-evident to me indeed to the entire nation but not to the zealots whose faith blinds them to reason. As an air-blown kiss is not a prelude to rape, neither is a corrective smack a prelude to Nia Glassie.

That the Maori Party campaigned for a "Yes" vote, you could at least understand. After all, Maori kids of the underclass seem an endangered species if child abuse statistics are any indication. But I would have thought the culture of violence is actually part of the culture and that requires the more immediate redress.

Ultimately, though, Sue Bradford's private member's bill was all about gesture. In the face of cruelty especially to small children that is often all we have left. Let us not condemn her heart. It was her brain that was in the toilet.

But the question this morning with regards to the anti-smacking legislation is really simple: how come parliament just doesn't get it?

How come they are so out of touch? If we thought they were universally reckless with their allowances and travel perks, then how much worse is this?

Part of the answer is that Prime Minister John Key is out of whack with his own caucus on this issue. But they dare not call him. He has delivered them the Promised Land. His guy-next-door persona keeps them riding high in the polls. They will bear all manner of political correctness if his star stays stellar.

And, to a certain extent, he is right. The police operating instructions effectively undermine the intent of the legislation. The prosecutions taken would probably have been taken under the old practice. And there was too much leniency applied by previous juries and courts to contemplate a simple return.

Without question the best solution has always been and remains so that of the amendment that Whanganui MP Chester Borrows advanced within his caucus in late-2006.

It excused "transitory and trifling" disciplining and it is the genuine compromise that John Key should choose in response to Friday's overwhelming result.

Of course, there will be the nay-saying in the wake of the smacking referendum: that the turnout was too low, the exercise too costly and the question too confused. Again, all these things are true.

But we don't unelect mayors who are elected with less than 50% turnout. And that's most of them.

We don't jettison councils or ignore Maori MPs elected from Maori seats because only half their constituency votes.

Democracy is democracy. Those who bother to vote are entitled to the result and those that don't are not.

And, yes, this was a waste of $9 million. But it could have been easily tacked on to the 2008 general election and cost a mere fraction. That it was not was solely due to parliamentary and Labour Party politics.

As for the question yes, it did take a moment to fully comprehend the intent. It involved as much brainwork as trying to decipher the weather symbols on TV. Again, the fault lies with parliament.

There should be a mechanism whereby the petitioner's intent is wordsmithed for maximum ease.

But it is the nature of the referendum itself that intrigues. Parental smacking is like prostitution, in the sense that each is a moral issue. If we are to have a public morality then it must always be the public who decide. The parliamentary conscience vote stands condemned as a device to establish a country's moral tone. That responsibility rests with all of us, and the Yes/No referendum is a particularly clever way to clarify the public mood.

In Wanganui we have proven that it can be used for more complex perambulations such as choosing various rating structures. And get a 61% turnout in response.

And therein lies the beauty of Friday's result. We are adult and educated enough to choose between contrasting propositions. On a critically important issue: the responsibility to parent. Now it is for parliament to provide us with more such choices. And, like the courts, automatically enact our verdict.

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Smacking: New Zealand has spoken

Obey the referendum: return Section 59 to what it was before the Bradford folly!


To all of you in your 'parliament':

The People of New Zealand have spoken. Now is the time for all of you to show us that you have the grace and humility to accept that you were wrong. To quote the phrase: “What part of the word 'No' do you not understand?”

Every opinion poll showed 80% of us opposed the change. Yet you stupidly went ahead and ignored us. Opinion polls typically sample 1000 to 1500 people, with a margin of error of 3% to 4% . Over 1.6 million New Zealanders voted in the referendum. That is a figure that is 1000 times more representative than mere opinion polls.

You, Ms Bradford, have the insolence to dismiss the 54% participation as unrepresentative. Let's see, you and your 119 comrade mps are 120 x 100 / 1,622,000 = 0.007% of that 54%. Who is kidding whom in terms of representativity? You then try to claim that the 46% of the electorate who did not take part chose not to do so because, in your opinion, they were “confused” by a “flawed” question. Pull the other one! The question was clear cut, and the whole debate was simply about whether your proposed new 'law' should stand or be rejected. But of course, comrade Key did his bit to deliberately discourage participation by saying in advance that he comrade Key would simply dis-regard the result because under the rules set up by your 'parliament' referendums are non-binding.

Well, I've got news for you: your new 'law' is now null and void. It is non-law, it is anti-law, it is merely an expression of your contempt for the people of New Zealand. The advice from the people to the police could not be clearer: do not attempt to enforce what the people have clearly and firmly rejected. The People are the law.

A referendum is true, real democracy in action. By dismissing it and disobeying the command of the people you are courting disaster, because, in effect, you will be rebelling against us.

Sincerely,

Dominic Baron

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EU to adopt binding referendums

This is a historic event in world politics and for those of us who have pushed the cause of binding referendums here in New Zealand, justification that a huge population in Europe believes the same as we do. Here is a press release by two groups involved.

Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe & Austrian Institute for European Law and Policy PRESS RELEASE, May 14, 2009

European Citizens Summit in Salzburg welcomes EU Parliament Resolution on the new initiative right and suggests specific improvements.

"EUROPE MAKES WORLD HISTORY WITH NEW CITIZENS RIGHT"

Salzburg/Brussels – Europe is about to take a historic step in democratization. Overshadowed by other political Europe topics, half a billion collective EU citizens have been given the right by the new EU Lisbon Treaty to take action across borders in the legislative process of the EU. In the future, one million Europeans will be able to present a legislative or treaty amendment proposal just as the Parliament and the Council already can today which compels the Commission to act upon it.

On Europe Day, democracy specialists from across Europe and the world gathered in Salzburg at the invitation of the Austrian Institute for European Law and Policy as well as the Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe, in order to confer on guidelines for the implementation requirements.

The Salzburg Summit here expressly affirmed the resolution adopted by the European Parliament in its last session about the new initiative right which places citizens in the future on the same level with the Commission just like Parliament and the Council. "The European Parliament has stipulated the central principle of free signature gathering", Andreas Gross commented, Social Democratic Group Chairman in the parliamentarian assembly of the Europe Council and added: "In some aspects it would be possible to improve the suggestions of the EP further. This includes the extension of the proposed time frame for the collecting of signatures from twelve to eighteen months. "Now it’s the Commission’s turn", emphasized Anne-Marie Sigmund, the former President of the European Economic and Social Committee: "From now until the enactment of the Lisbon Treaty, Brussels can still accomplish important preliminary work".

The Salzburg Citizens’ Summit further expanded the preparation efforts for a Europe-wide initiative infrastructure. This should allow all Europeans to actively participate in future transnational agenda settings. "It will be decisive", explained Prof. Johannes Pichler, director of the Austrian Institute for European Law and Policy, "that future EU citizens’ initiatives receive financial and logistic support from the EU in the same way as political parties represented in the EP do."

"We propose the organization of a European Citizens Initiative Office", said Bruno Kaufmann, President of IRI Europe, at the conclusion of the Salzburg Summit: "This office should be given a clear assignment and contribute to the citizen-friendly and pro-democratic use of the new instrument". In the coming six months, several task forces appointed by the Salzburg Summit will further develop implementation criteria and present a summary resolution at the beginning of the coming year. "This is world history in the making", a representative of Korea Democracy Foundation declared at one point in the Summit. She observed the deliberations in preparation for the "Global Forum on Direct Democracy" to take place in Korea, mid-September.

Further details as well as the original text of the "Salzburg Manifesto" can be found online at www.legalpolicy.eu or www.iri-europe.org.

For more information, please contact Bernadette Maria Kaufmann, +43 (0) 662 84 39 80,
office@legalpolicy.eu.

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Direct Democracy Works

This is probably the best study I have ever read about referendums and well worth the read. Professor John Matsusaka is Professor of Finance and Business Economics in the Marshall School of Business, Professor of Business and Law

in the Law School, and President of the Initiative & Referendum Institute, all at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California. John is also the author of the book 'For the Many or the Few'.

In November 2004, in addition to electing a president and other representatives, voters nationwide acted as legislators themselves, weighing in on 162 statewide ballot propositions. Voters in 11 states amended their constitutions to ban gay marriage. Voters in California approved a $3 billion bond issue for stem cell research and repealed a state law requiring businesses to provide health insurance to their workers, in Arizona passed a law denying state services to illegal immigrants, in Alaska declined to legalize marijuana, in Colorado required power plants to use clean energy sources, in Florida increased the minimum wage and in Oklahoma established a state lottery. An uncounted but even larger number of local ballot propositions also went before the voters, covering topics ranging from a sales tax increase for police in Los Angeles to land use regulation, such as an April .2004 referendum in Inglewood, California, over whether to exempt Wal-Mart from zoning and environmental regulation if it established a supercenter in the city. The storm of ballot box lawmaking has been raging since the passage of California's famous tax-cutting Proposition 13 in 1978. Many of the critical policy innovations of the last several decades were ignited and fueled by initiatives, including term limits, physician-assisted suicide, legalized gambling, medical marijuana, capital punishment, abortion, racial preferences/affirmative action and, of course, tax cuts. To a remarkable degree, initiatives and referendums are driving the policy agenda in the states. Overall, more than half of all American states and cities provide for the initiative and referendum, and over 70 percent of the population now lives in either a state or city where these tools of direct democracy are available (Matsusaka, 2004). Since South Dakota first adopted the initiative and referendum in 1898, no state has ever chosen to do away with them, and states without are gradually adopting them (at a rate of about one state per decade since the end of World War II).

To read the rest of this article go to http://www.betterdemocracy.co.nz/studies.php and download the 002 file near the top of the list.

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