What is "People Power"?
If you would like to order a copy of the book "People Power", please email roger@betterdemocracy.co.nz
"People Power" is the legal power of "the people" to write and pass their own laws, or repeal laws they no longer want. ("The people" can also "recall" – this is, fire – politicians when they deem it necessary.) Also called "Direct Democracy", People Power legally enshrines the fact that "we pay their salaries, so they work for us".
Radical? New? No. People Power has been a much valued part of the political system in different countries around the world for many years.
People Power (Direct Democracy) is very simple to operate. It works through something called Binding Citizens’ Initiated Referendums* – rather like the referendums we already have in NZ, the big difference being that the results actually count.
The key word here is "Binding". This means that the government is legally obligated to abide by the results of the referendums – whether it wants to or not. (Right now, in NZ referendums are merely "advisory" and not binding on the government at all.)
We urgently need real democracy, now more than ever, as the wishes and needs of the majority of the people are often far less important to governments than those of "special interest" groups, the ruling party elite and/or multinational corporations. Our current system apportions real power only to the very few at the uppermost layers of the political pyramid. And these few – the "power elite" – rarely act (or ever have acted) – with the interest of the people (or the planet) at heart.
People Power is about how this problem can and must be addressed, peacefully, and rationally – for everyone’s benefit.
* Is it "Referendums" or "referendums"? Both "referendums" and "referendums" are correct.
Table of Contents
Introduction ....................................................Page 3
NZs Urgent Need for Real Democracy
Dr Robert Anderson ........................................Page 16
Full Democracy
Brian Beedham (The Economist)......................Page 21
David Lange
Interview with Jonathan Eisen..........................Page 29
Geoffrey Palmer Misses The Point on BCIR
Jonathan Eisen..............................................Page 39
Direct Democracy: Our Coalition with the People
NZ First Policy Statement...............................Page 42
A Sure Way to Restrict the Power of the State
The Rt Hon Winston Peters ............................Page 45
A Swiss Perspective
Erwin Alber....................................................Page 49
The Greens and BCIR.....................................Page 51
BCIR: How It Can Work in New Zealand
Steve Baron...................................................Page 55
BCIR Q & A
Steve Baron...................................................Page 60
Limitless Government?
Roger Kerr ....................................................Page 65
An Australian Politician Speaks Out
Russell Cooper...............................................Page 68
BCIR Controls the Power of Elites
Steven Neitzke...............................................Page 80
Christine Fletcher:Beyond MMP......................Page 81
How I Changed My Mind on BCIR
Simon Upton .................................................Page 95
The Referendum Party of the UK .....................Page 99
Sleepwalking into the European Superstate
Sir James Goldsmith .....................................Page 100
How to Fire Your MP Wikipaedia.....................Page 110
Recalling the Father of Recall
Hiram Johnson...............................................Page 111
So Now What Happens?
Roger Monckton.............................................Page 112
Steve Baron E-mails the Politicians..................Page 115
Preface
The contributors to this book represent widely varying backgrounds, occupations, income levels, political persuasions and philosophies, from the political left, right and centre. However, they all agree on one thing: that New Zealanders urgently need to reclaim some of the power we have lost over the years to both elected politicians and unelected bureaucrats.
Indeed, governments have become increasingly less responsive to our legitimate needs and wishes, and more inclined toward high-handed, oppressive control. Our vaunted system of "representative democracy" has failed to guarantee the well-being of the people and the survival of a healthy, habitable planet. Instead it has become the servant of the "special interest" groups, the result being increased profits for them, but increased social problems and mounting environmental damage for us and the world..
How did we let this happen? For one thing, we stopped thinking of ourselves as citizens, and co-creators of public policy, and instead became consumers, happily leaving the big decisions for governments to sort out, while we all went shopping. Slowly, as we settled into denial, becoming used to the perks, raises and rewards we got for being good little cogs in the big machine, our planet was being killed off piecemeal by the very system that was buying us off so effectively.
We fell asleep at the wheel, forgetting what real democracy was, happily buying the Big Lie that this IS democracy, when in fact it is only a pale imitation. Year after year, government after government, betrayal after betrayal, one stupid decision after another, we heard the same story: that if we don’t like it, we can vote for the "opposition" next time around. That was our "democratic" chance to correct the noxious blunders of the previous government. Unfortunately it never worked out that way.
Few of us have stopped to ask exactly WHY it was that we had to settle for this "representative democracy" that had been failing us so badly for so long, when we could have the real thing – Direct Democracy with Binding Citizens’ Initiated Referendums – as they actually do in Switzerland (for 131 years!) and elsewhere.
Now, thanks to the mountain of bad decisions made by various governments, it has become a matter of great urgency that we not only ask why we can’t have real democracy, but demand that we do. Apologists for "representative democracy" will tell us that real democracy is "impossible" and that Switzerland is "different". Don’t believe them. The fact is that real democracy is achievable and practical.
And the Swiss? They’re just people like us.
Introduction
In 2003, the New Zealand government carried on the time dis-honoured practice of ignoring the wishes of the majority of New Zealanders, as its predecessors have been doing for decades. A small sample:
| • | After two years of vigorous debate, at least 70% of the people of New Zealand were opposed to the NZ government’s lifting the moratorium on the commercial release of genetically engineered organisms. GE is an issue of huge concern to a large majority of New Zealanders who correctly believe that the country’s food supply will become contaminated (as it has in the US) and that GE could endanger their health. Their beliefs are strongly supported by a growing body of scientific evidence of some very serious health problems occurring as a result of GE – evidence which the government (and its Royal Commission) has steadfastly ignored. |
| • | In the same year, 2003, the same minority (Labour-led) government, with the help of another minor party (The Green Party), pushed through legislation to radically alter the constitution of New Zealand, by abolishing the Privy Council, our independent highest court. This occurred despite the fact that the vast majority of the people wanted it kept intact or its status at least voted on in a binding referendum. |
| • | In 2003, also against the wishes of the people, the same government signed a treaty with Australia to severely restrict the free access of the people to often life-saving nutritional supplements – one day before the outcome of a select committee hearing was to be published – opposing the move. |
| • | In recent years a number of controversial, important and deeply felt moral issues such as legalising prostitution were decided by the slim majority of just one or two MPs in "conscience votes". These are votes in which individual MPs are released by their party leaders from their formal obligation to vote as these party leaders dictate (though there may be "backroom" ministerial pressure). But MPs do not necessarily poll their constituents on what their conscience has to say, before they vote. |
| • | In recent days it is becoming apparent that the governing elite want to amalgamate New Zealand and Australia into one country, selling the idea to Kiwis on the basis of "convenience" (Look ma, no more passports!) and "shared currency" and "security". It is at this point doubtful that we will ever be allowed to vote on it, at least in any meaningful way. |
In all of these and many other important issues the people of New Zealand have been betrayed by governments that arrogantly assume that they and only they, know what is "best". New Zealanders have been denied their true democratic rights and told that if we don’t like it, then wait until the next election, at which time we can vote in the party we voted out the last time.
The trouble is that New Zealanders have "waited until the next election" for generations now, with less and less of a say over matters that vitally affect us.
We live under a government of the rich and powerful, by the rich and powerful and for the rich and powerful. Moreover, with approvals by our elected dictatorship for new technologies like GE, this system has become a serious danger to our health, and indeed, our survival.
The answer?
How then does one then rein in these unbridled and unchecked governments that often do precisely the opposite of what the majority of voters want?
History teaches us that violent revolutions don’t work; rarely if ever do they improve the lot of the people. Often they just replace odious regimes with even more odious regimes.
The answer is that we do it by demanding and then working for real democracy. We then vote only for those parties and candidates mature and wise enough (or simply just smart enough) to make BCIR a central plank in their platforms.
Real Democracy is actually quite a simple thing, despite its being exceedingly rare and difficult to come by. It is basically the freedom and the right of voters to choose or refuse one law or regulation at a time. However, if simplicity and simple logic were enough to introduce it to our society, it would have been here long ago.
Most politicians pay lip service to the "idea" of democracy, but when it comes down to the crunch, most of them just follow the party executive, and a small group of non-elected people and corporate lobbyists who shape policy.
Those who consider themselves "in power" usually hate real democracy because that means actually sharing "their" power with the people. All too often they fail to realise that it’s the people who pay their salaries, and for whom they are supposed to be working. And since "power" and not "justice" or "doing the right thing" is the name of the game, they naturally tend to crave that power, and then hoard it.
Along the way our political masters (and their tame pundits, educators and media commentators) tend to twist logic, common sense and indeed the English language into contortions worthy of a Lewis Carroll novel.
First they contend that despite the evidence to the contrary, our current system of "representative democracy" is in fact "democracy". Then, when pressed to explain how it can possibly be the real thing, when "democracy" means the rule of the people, they then argue that if it isn’t really the real thing, then it is as near to the ideal as we can possibly get. End of story.
They slide around the the central point, which is that under this system we only get to elect governments which have a near absolute ability to pass whatever legislation they – not we – deem right and proper.
Then, with their backs to the wall, they try to argue that society simply "wouldn’t work" if we had REAL democracy, where the people had the right and ability to initiate and pass REAL laws which the government had to abide by and enforce. For them "we, the people", are really "we, the rabble".
They conveniently neglect to mention that there are several countries where the people actually have had that right and ability for many years (in one case for 130 years), and it works just fine, thank you very much.
How? It’s simple and it’s fair to all.
Ordinary members of the public – people like you and I – who care deeply about an issue, initiate (write up) a law they wish to see passed, and then if they can get enough signatures to "trigger" a referendum, the people vote on it in a BINDING REFERENDUM.
The word "binding" means that what the people say is "binding" ... ON THE GOVERNMENT.
Regardless of what the politicians and the bureaucrats want, if the people vote for it, it becomes the law of the land.
Wherever it has been used, it has become a successful check on governments. Indeed, Binding Citizens Initiated Referendums (BCIR) is the much needed mechanism to enable real democracy to become a reality.
"But wait," say the detractors. "New Zealanders already have the right to initiate referendums." And they’re right, at least up to a point. While technically, we do have a legal right to conduct referendums (The Citizens Initiated referendums Act of 1993), the only problem is that all NZ referendums are merely "indicative" – meaning "advisory" or "non-binding".
This law, of course, is extremely convenient for governments, because they can then ignore them whenever they choose to do so.
Which just happens to be all the time.
In fact, one would be hard pressed to find any "advisory" or "non-binding" referendums having been heeded by ANY government of the day since the law was passed in 1993. Thus, it would not be unfair to conclude that not only are non-binding referendums not worth the effort put into them by the people of New Zealand, but they aren’t even worth the paper they are printed on.
It may be distressing for some to ponder, but real power in this country rests with the government's executive branch, and to the domestic and overseas interests and elites to whom they, in turn, answer. It does not rest with the people. If it did, then how does one explain the systematic betrayal of the authentic, expressed wishes of the majority of the people?
Face it. We live in an elected dictatorship.
So how did "representative democracy" become "elected dictatorship"?
Two hundred years ago, in young democracies like the US, "elected representatives" represented a relatively small number of people, usually less than 500, and they were thus very much in touch with their electorates. In addition, the American "founding fathers" created a system of "checks and balances" in government, wherein each of the three branches (legislative, executive and judicial) all had some power, but not all, and were obligated to work together to work out balances among competing interests. It worked fairly well for about 200 years, until powerful corporate interests managed to corrupt the system.
These days, our elected representatives are often beholden to these large, multinational corporate interests whose annual turnover is often greater than the GNP of many countries. Their needs and wishes are often quite at variance with the needs and wishes of the people or the planet, for that matter.
For example, whose needs were served when the NZ government lifted the moratorium on GE organisms? The people's ... or Monsanto’s and those of the domestic biotech industry?
And whose needs were served when the Minister of Health hastened to sign a treaty with Australia to restrict the people’s access to nutritional supplements – the people’s, or the pharmaceutical industry’s?
The fact is that in the 21st century "representative democracy" is an oxymoron – a contradiction in terms. Democracy means that the people get to rule themselves, make their own laws. Pure and simple.
But is it possible?
The answer is a resounding YES. In fact this has been a reality in Switzerland for more than 130 years, with more than 300 decisions having been made directly by the people themselves, regardless of what the politicians wanted.
In addition to Switzerland, Binding Citizens’ Initiated Referendums are today used in twenty-four States in the USA in virtually every election. BCIR is used in some Scandanavian countries, Austria, Italy, and in Australia on Constitutional changes. Binding Referendums are occasionally used here, the MMP decision having been made by a Binding Referendum, but that was because the government decided on having one; it was not initiated by the people.
Some of the (flawed) arguments against BCIR
So what’s the problem, then, in bringing Binding Referendums into our mainstream political life, having binding referendums, say, once a year?
As far as we can tell, the only problem is the unwillingness of our "elected representatives" to share power with their ostensible employers – the people themselves. Consequently you will hear arguments coming from them that don’t hold water.
The basic arguments against BCIR are:
• The people can’t be trusted to make the right decision.
• The people can be corrupted by the moneyed interests (as if the politicians can’t – and aren’t).
• Legislation is often too complex for the people to make an intelligent decision. (We’re just not smart enough to understand all this legal stuff.)
• Referendums would be "too expensive" and "time consuming".
• "Representative democracy" (Elected Dictatorship) is working, so why change a good thing?
• Every pet concern or project would go to referendum, causing massive boredom over time and unnecessary expense.
• It caused serious financial problems in California where it was used in "Proposition 13" to reduce taxes.
As you will see in the pages that follow, despite the fact that all these arguments are seriously flawed, they are still trotted out by politicians and other apologists for the system. These people are deeply suspicious of real democracy, and don’t believe that we, the people, can be trusted to make the right decisions about matters that directly affect us.
We believe that these arguments are elitist, destructive and fundamentally wrong – and indeed have been PROVEN WRONG on numerous occasions. They are basically hysterical responses to an idea that is simply advocating that we adopt a system that has been tried and proven effective in hundreds of instances for more than a century.
Would BCIR abolish the need for Parliament?
Advocates of BCIR are not proposing to abolish parliament or the executive branch of government, nor are they advocating that we have a referendum on every issue that comes along. On the contrary, BCIR would be used only on issues New Zealanders believe are vitally important, perhaps one to three a year, the referendum to be held just once a year.
Collecting enough signatures to trigger a Binding Referendum is not that easy, as proponents of a particular referendum would need, say 5% of the electorate simply to get their proposal on the ballot. (The current Referendum Law enshrines 10% as the number needed to trigger a referendum.) The small cost of printing ballots and advertising the Referendum and then taking the time to study the issues and vote, is the price of admission to Real Democracy.
Can we "the people" really be trusted?
People in general think of "themselves" as trustworthy, able to think things through and discuss things rationally.
It’s just the "other people" who we’re not so sure of, never ourselves.. However, everyone is the "other people" to someone else. People who find themselves high up on the power pyramid like to make everyone else believe that only they – "the experts" – can be trusted, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
But we have reached the stage where after centuries of betrayal by the elite, people are finally realising how they have been unscrupulously manipulated and coerced. We are finally waking up to how badly run "the system" really is, and how seriously unbalanced and destructive it has become.
And as we begin to awaken we also begin to trust our own better judgment, our logic, and our common sense. Indeed, history has shown that we, the people, most certainly can be trusted to make the right political and economic decisions – when given all the facts and the arguments in a free and open debate.
Can the people be "bought off" by big money and the advertising it can buy? A careful reading of past referendums shows that "big money" has more influence in "representative democracies" than it does in binding citizens’ initiated referendums. We are learning that it is the politicians who cannot be trusted to make the right decisions for the people, preferring as they often do to cater to large corporate interests who not only "own" the party in power, but the "loyal opposition" as well.
The point here is simple: If the people succeed in getting many thousands of signatures to trigger a referendum, that would obviously mean that they have a popular cause, and are more difficult to buy off than say, key politicians.
Simple logic would indicate that it is more complicated and expensive for "the moneyed interests" to get their way in a BCIR than it is under the current rigid party system.
When we are told by those who hate the idea of real democracy that we can’t be trusted to make the "correct" political decisions, what they mean is that we can’t be trusted to make the same decisions that they would make.
Can the people make a mistake, a wrong decision in a Binding Referendum? Of course we can.
However, even if sometimes we make mistakes, they are certainly no worse than the mistakes made by our so-called "representatives".
Did BCIR nearly bankrupt California?
Many opponents of Binding Citizens’ Initiated Referendums (BCIR) are quick to claim that BCIR is the reason California is doing so bad economically. The argument of these people is that the citizens of California have held their government to ransom and nearly bankrupted it through BCIR.
"Look what BCIR and Proposition 13 has done to California!" they exclaim with repugnance. "This proves the people can’t be trusted with decisions on taxation and government spending."
The 'notorious' Proposition 13 cut property taxes by 57% and reduced tax rates to 1% of a property's market value, based on its 1976 assessment. The reason Californians voted for this Proposition was simply because property taxes had risen sharply and in many cases trebled in a five year period. Opponents of BCIR always neglect to mention that this was the same five years period during which the California government had amassed a surplus of over five billion dollars.
Basically, the people of California said enough was enough! (Opponents of BCIR also forget to tell you that Proposition 9 in 1980 could have reduced State income tax by 50% but was defeated by 2 votes to 1.)
As for California’s current state of affairs, poor political judgment and corrupt management might be somewhat to blame. Perhaps that is why the voters recalled Governor Grey from office and elected Arnold Swartznegger to take his place.
There is another glaring illogicality at work here: If BCIR is responsible for California’s economic problems then how do you explain why Switzerland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world even after 130 years of BCIR?!
Those who have the audacity to use California to support their case against BCIR are simply ignorant of the facts.
• The contributors to this book range all the way across the political spectrum, illustrating the fact that in an important sense the cause of Direct Democracy or BCIR transcends one’s political preference or party affiliation. From the head of the Business Roundtable to the various Green Parties overseas, from the ex-Premier of Queensland to a leading anti-GE scientist, Binding Citizens’ Initiated Referendums is a cause that unifies everyone who cares about achieving more democracy and political accountability than we currently enjoy.
This book is presented in the hope that it may inspire New Zealanders of all political persuasions to examine and correct the flaws in the system we all live under, ever mindful of the need to respect each other’s opinions and integrity.
We believe that BCIR is a brilliant way to achieve positive change peacefully, without hatred and confrontation. It is a way, perhaps THE way, for us finally to achieve the democracy we have been taught is our birthright.
Steve Baron
Jonathan Eisen
Auckland, New Zealand, 2004
David Lange:
The interview with Jonathan Eisen (9.6.04)
DL: Now... you are interested in referendums!
JE: I am interested in Binding Citizens’ Initiated referendums.
DL: Just binding ones.
JE: The New Zealand 1993 legislation provides for advisory ref ...
DL: Indicative.
JE: I have been studying how they have worked in different countries around the world, especially in Switzerland, and I’ve concluded that it’s a damn good idea, especially in that it provides for some much needed checks and balances on the executive, something we don’t apparently have here in New Zealand.
DL: Well, that’s easily said, but it’s not quite correct. We have a check and balance on the executive every three years.
JE: Yes, but what about in the intervening three years?
DL: You’ve got the right of access to courts ...
JE: According to the 1986 Royal Commission on Electoral Reform Binding referendums are not advisable, so long as the following three conditions are met: 1) that the government holds regular elections; 2) that the government respects the informed opinion of the electorate; and 3) that the government respects the select committee process. As far as I can tell they have fallen short on numbers two and three, and I say so in my piece on Geoffrey Palmer in the book.
DL: It’s a very hard test to discharge, because you can have the process and dismiss the outcome. In other words, you can respect the (select committee) hearings but not take any notice of what they do.
JE: You know what they did recently with the TGA (Ed: The Australian Therapeutic Goods Admininstration).
DL: No...
JE: They were having select committee hearings on that and Annette King decided that she was going to enter into a treaty with Australia (ed: to "regulate" nutritional supplements) one day before the select committee was due to report out, against the idea.
DL: Well, yes, that’s what I’m saying. You can "respect" the select committe process, letting them talk as long as they like, till the cows come home, and it’s perfectly within the bounds of your power to ignore the outcome.
If you’re talking about protecting the public from excesses we do not have the structure in New Zealand which provides for touchstones of constitutional definition and which provides absolute bedrock yardsticks against which the conduct of politics can be judged. We have a much more fluid, evolving, constantly changing thing which in the end depends for its authority on the three yearly mandate. Sometimes the excesses of power can be overlooked in the triumphalism of something which is popular at the time and therefore sweeps the government back into office (or the opposition into power), so that you cannot with any precision identify the specific issue on which the mind of the electorate changed. And therefore, you can’t say that the government was bad marked because of that. You can actually have governments that get into office again despite public condemnation in respect to one or two aspects of their administration but public acceptance of the bulk of their administration...
JE: What happens when you get governments reelected that ignore every single referendum that has been sent their way?
DL: Yes, that’s right, but you have to judge the context, what the point of those things was, whether or not they were really being ignored...
JE: There is no question but that they were being ignored. Which brings up the question of sovereignty, which is what this whole question of binding referendums is all about. Do you believe that ultimately sovereignty rests with Parliament or with the People?
DL: The people, in the end. However, the process of getting there is very convoluted.
JE: Can you comment on some of the arguments against binding referendums?
DL: Many of the arguments against binding referendums are demeaning. They assume that people always vote for things which are popular, which carry benefits without acknowleding the costs ... These arguments have been largely discredited by the experience overseas. People have not behaved like that and they have taken caution and responsibility when they go for the options.
There is, however, an argument that is becoming less valid now that politics is becoming less principled. There was a time when political parties and principles, manifestos and mandates meant something more than what they mean now. They had a conviction that they wanted to achieve, holistic outcomes, global measures which had a degree of interdependency and were coherent. And there is an argument that Binding CIR can trespass on the possibility of integrated politically sustainable interactive developments. If we still had parties which had coherent, widescale political platforms, it would be a very compelling argument. That is not the case anymore, and indeed MMP has made it almost impossible, so that there is a logic to having binding referendums in conjunction with MMP, because both spring from the same sort of impulse, which is to gain maximum democratic traction by giving voice to smaller groupings. With the current parliamentary governmental set up the implication inevitably is that you’re not going to have a monolithic government majority; the need now therefore is to accomodate the aspirations of smaller "slabs".
JE: It didn’t happen that way, did it? MMP did not weaken the power of the parties.
DL: No, it did, considerably.
JE: Well, one could argue that in the case of the Privy Council, two minority parties, Labour and the Greens, got together and pushed through a constitutional change in which more than 80% of the people wanted to have a say in, a referendum.
DL: Most people didn’t have a clue. Most people in my electorate think that the Privy Council is a lavatory board.
JE: Very funny.
DL: It’s also very true.
JE: But the central point is whether or not two minority parties have the moral right ...
DL: I would say that they have a moral duty.
JE: I would argue that if you want to change the constitution you should go to the people.
DL: You don’t go to the people to change the constitution because, that’s our constitution. We change our constitution without going to the people because our constitution says we do.
JE: When they abolished the Upper House, how did they do that?
DL: They voted it out.
JE: Who did?
DL: The government. They filled the Upper House with a lot of dummies and then used them all to kill themselves. Its only in recent times that we have introduced the constitutional "cautionary flags" and Geoffrey Palmer had a lot to do with that. And we have also tended to encourage judicial activism which 25 years ago would have been unheard of. (By the way, I helped stop the abolition of the Privy Council when I was Prime Minister, not because I had any love for the Privy Council but because I thought we were going to give the whole of the South Island to the Maori.)
We’ve gone through a lot of change in NZ in the last 25 years. We have had more judicial activism, more academically gifted people who have felt the need to become more protective of institutions and not lightly to change them, to be cautious in matters of constitutional change.
JE: But where in all of this were the "we, the people"? While the judges were becoming more activist, and the politicians more academically gifted, governments were at the same time making treaties all over the place for which they had no mandate (witness the most recent one with Australia) while the people were given the opportunity every three years to change the ruling parties, which were largely two sides of the same coin.
DL: The treaties issue is not unique to New Zealand. It is happening to all countries. What we have done, though, is introduce more robust procedures to let the Parliament invigilate (oversee) the exercise of the power of the executive in treaty-making procedures. When I first went to Parliament the Foreign Affairs Select Committee met twice a year to approve the accounts. It was like being on holiday. Now it means a lot. They do exactly this: they invigilate what the government is doing in accepting international obligations so that they review every damn treaty that the government enters into and they are catching up on a lot of them. We have a process which is to be likened to some extent to what they have in the United States...
JE: That’s unfortunate.
DL: ... because you have a situation where the executive needs to have the approval of the legislative branch before it undertakes to do international terms like free trade. You don’t have an unimpeded executive mandate in the US and you don’t have one in New Zealand.
JE: What you do have, though, is an almost uninterrupted encroachment on national sovereignty, being steamrolled by the globalisation engine. And who is pulling the strings on governments around the world? It could be convincingly argued that the multinational corporations are firmly in the driver’s seat in the United States, helping to create wars, most recently the one on Iraq, which are designed to directly benefit the financial interests of very indentifiable corporations.
DL: The Reagan presidency was of course the Bechtel (The Bechtel corporation, a large multinational involved in construction) presidency.
JE: That’s right. Reagan’s Secretary of State was Bechtel president George Schultz.
DL: And the George W. presidency is the Halliburton presidency.
JE: OK, back to the central question: What part do you see Binding Citizen’s Initiated referendums playing in the reformation of a system that is running amok around the world. Can it become a brake on the influence of the large corporations, for example?
DL: Oh, if you had binding referendums on various specific ad hoc policy issues, you’d have yourseves a total brake on the influence of anyone. However, the benefit of such a policy is also its detriment. What is so good about it in terms of thwarting malign, evil, manipulative selfish conduct by external powers, given the sheer power of the vote, in the reverse is something that can stop people of good wiill doing the right thing on a planned and calculated tapestry ...
JE: But have you ever heard of Binding referendums stopping people of good will?
DL: No, no. I don’t know. But the argument, at least theoretically, is that if you have the power to subvert evil, you also have the power to subvert good, too.
JE: Of course, theoretically. However, in practice, governments around the world that are not responsive to the people have systematically subverted the good for centuries. Indeed, that is the whole point of the need for BCIR. The power of the people has been bled away from them on a systematic basis, except for the voting ritual they practice every three years. In the US, our vaunted checks and balances system has been totally subverted, to the point where nearly every single member of Congress has been bought off.
DL: I can’t tell you from looking at our present political behaviour what would be the probable outcomes of various binding referendums, because we’re in a state of confusion. We don’t have the power of blatant majority government anymore, and now we have drifting nuances and shifting coalitions of opportunism...
JE: Shifting opportunism, yes. Very good. But there is at least one instance where you can pinpoint a probable outcome. Last year year the polls indicated that more than 70% of the New Zealand public did not want a bar of GE in their food or environment. In fact, what inspired me to do this book was when I read that Switzerland was having a binding referendum in 2004 on the commercial release of GE, and I thought, "What’s good enough for Switzerland is good enough for New Zealand." When you have a government that has been deliberately and willfully ignoring and disparaging the informed opinions of the citizens of this country, to bring in this technology that can be hideously destructive to the human immune system, for the benefit of the large corporations, you have a government that urgently needs some serious checks and balances. Now if we had – or have – a binding referendum on the commercial release of GE in this country, there is no question about the fact that the people of New Zealand would have rejected it.
I am confronted with arguments like "the people are not well enough informed to make intelligent decisions", which may well be true where they are poorly informed or not inclined to inform themselves. But by the very nature of the referendum process – in order to get a referendum, you need to collect two or three hundred thousand signatures for goodness sake – you would certainly get an informative process. Anyhow, it seems that when given the chance, the people often seem to make much more intelligent decisions than their political masters do.
DL: Well, you could do it (have BCIR), but you would wind up creating a new sort of jurisprudence. One of the problems with it is how in less than sparkling issues, you would have to nurse the situation to begin with rather carefully to make sure that you only get quite graphic, stark questions you’re articulating.
JE: You’re quite right. If we get a year’s time to educate the people and the budgets are allocated for the debate, let the chips fall where they might.
DL: There’s no question but that.
JE: No question about what?
DL: That you could do it.
JE: Of course we could.
DL: And if you failed? ...
JE: Then we’d fail. But here was a case where Monsanto and others put a lot of money into trying to convert the New Zealand people to the cause of genetic engineering, and they lost – at least in the opinion polls.
DL: They lost in the end, too, at least I’m quite sure they will because they won’t want to keep going.
JE: From your mouth to God’s ear. I hope you’re right, because this is a hideous technology. Here we have a government which has ignored the informed opinion of the people, acting as the functionaries of the multinational corporations. What other remedy, other than Binding Citizens’ Initiated referendums, can you see for this?
DL: Revolution.
JE: I’m talking about a peaceful thing, no shots fired.
DL: The standard answer that I’ve given. You get your shot every three years.
JE: Well, that’s not good enough, is it?
DL: But you also inherit what has been accomplished in the preceding three years, which gave you cause to sack them, so that you don’t wipe off three years of outcomes because you change the government. You embrace (much of? – ed.) what the previous government did.
JE: That’s exactly why they call it the "loyal opposition". Exactly who they loyal to these days? Who do they work for?
DL: The answer is that at the moment in our system we have our triennial elections.
JE: And that doesn’t seem to be working, does it?
DL: The answer is that it isn’t working worse than it ever did. But that is not to say that it works satisfactorily. I don’t think that it’s deteriorated. We’re probably doing some things better than we used to, in constitutional terms, over the years.
JE: OK, so it’s not working any worse than it did over the years. Nevertheless, here we have just one case, where the government ignores the very well informed opinion of the people with possibly grave health, economic and environmental consequences. If we have to wait three years down the track to throw them out, what do we get? Another government that will do precisely the same thing. We don’t want to have a revolution here, just to have the needs and the voices of the people heeded. All we want is a check on this kind of behaviour. This is an insane decision that the government is making. If the people don’t have binding referendums that can negate that, there is nothing that will, is there?
DL: No, and you’ve got a dilemma in our constitution. You can do it (BCIR), but you’ve got to go further. You have to have a procedure for unentrenching the new constitution. In other words, if you have a binding referendum phenomenon in association with a general election, you would effectively be electing a conditional government, a government based on the premise that they can’t do X or Y. It’s not been in New Zealand in our entire experience.
JE: I know.
DL. I’m not arguing with you. I’m only saying that there’s a novelty about it – which is not to deny its potential good. It is a specific means of easing concern about a specific threat to liberty, health or choice. It does require a considerable degree of public education and awareness. It is wrong to believe, though, that people always behave selfishly. In fact I believe that most binding referendum topics will be of a selfless variety, probably.
JE: Selfless.
DL: Yes, "selfless", rather than selfish. And it can be accomodated within our parliamentary and constitutional structures. It’s funny, because for me it brings back all the old arguments in favour of MMP. Everything I ever about it is the same as what I used to hear about why you have to have MMP. All it shows is that mortal systems can’t do God’s work.
JE: Was it Churchill who said that "the cure for democracy is more democracy"? It was either Churchill, Lincoln or Jefferson. These people said everything. Anyhow, MMP does not seem to be achieving the desired results, at least as far as many of its former supporters are concerned. As Christine Fletcher writes in her piece, it seems to be making the parties stronger, if anything.
DL: You’re very limited in what you can really do in Parliament, as an ordinary MP. For example you can’t introduce a bill which requires a government appropriation or government expenditure. It’s out of order. Only a government can determine what the expenditure of the government should be. People (MPs) just don’t realise how limited their power really is. They can’t be constructive or innovative as some would like to be in procuring outcomes. They simply don’t have the power to make legislation which commits the government to expenditure.
JE: Having studied BCIR and how it works in other countries, it seems to raise the spirit of the community when people realise they don’t have to wait till the next election to get something done that they want or need doing.
DL: It actually takes the heat off the politicians, doesn’t it?
JE: There is a tremendous amount of frustration out there, thousands of people who can see that they are being ignored, that they simply don’t matter, except when someone is looking for their vote. The result has to be a bit of embitterment together with the disappointment, a bit of depression, anger.
Ends