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Originally published as “People Power” (2004) – Edited by Steve Baron and Jonathan Eisen. This book is available in most public libraries. I’m pleased to make it available here on my blog for wider access with corrected punctuation.
“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 keyword 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.
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.
“New Zealanders have been systematically betrayed by governments that arrogantly assume that they and only they, know best.”
• In the same year, 2003, the same minority (Labour-led) government, with the help of a 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 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 a highly dubious point whether 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.
“Authentic democracy is basically the freedom and the right of voters to choose to accept or refuse one law or regulation at a 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?
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 to 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.
“Along the way our political masters (and their tame pundits, educators and media commentators) twist logic, common sense and indeed the English language into contortions worthy of a Lewis Carroll novel.”
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) 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 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.
“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.”
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 Referenda 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 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 often quite at variance with the needs and wishes of the people or the planet, for that matter.
“As far as we can tell, the only problem (with BCIR) is the unwillingness of our ‘elected representatives’ to share power with their putative employers – the people themselves.”
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 Scandinavian 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 emotional 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.
“It is the politicians who cannot be trusted to make the right decisions for the people, catering as they do to large corporate interests.”
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.
“If BCIR is responsible for California’s economic problems, then how do you then explain why Switzerland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world even after 130 years of BCIR?!”
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 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-year period during which the California government had amassed a surplus of over five billion dollars.
“SOLUTION: We vote only for those parties and candidates who are mature and wise enough (or simply just smart enough) to make BCIR a central plank in their platforms.”
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 judgement and corrupt management might be somewhat to blame. Perhaps that is why the voters recalled Governor Grey from office and elected Arnold Swartnegger 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 Round Table 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
By Dr Robert Anderson, PhD, has lectured for 25 years in physics, chemistry, laboratory technology and nuclear medicine. Currently, he reports on the dangers of genetic engineering. His new book is THE FINAL POLLUTION: THE COMING GENETIC APOCALYPSE.
Abraham Lincoln once expressed the democratic ideal as “Government of the people, by the people and for the people.” Increasingly, at both national and local levels, our elected representatives have reversed this ideal and set themselves up to engineer and enforce their own agendas.
For example, countless thousands of New Zealanders marched in all the major cities to protest against the introduction of GE into our country. By all accounts, they represented the 70% of all New Zealanders who do not want GE in their food or environment.
“The 200 biggest companies in the world employ less than one-third of one percent of the global work force, but they control more than one quarter of the world’s wealth.”
They were studiously ignored.
Thousands of letters and petitions were handed to the Minister of Health requesting that NZ retain control of its own vitamin and nutritional supplements.
The government flagrantly denied the right of New Zealanders to have free access to affordable nutritional supplements, signing away our sovereignty to Australian authorities.
New Zealanders had a contract with their government to hold a lifetime driving licence. Without the slightest public input, it was revoked and a high-tech identity card replaced it. All recent referenda (except the one creating MMP) have been ignored, including the one mandating tougher prison sentences for violent offenders.
“In fact, there are numerous examples where money has conspicuously failed to influence the average voter, but in similar situations has succeeded in influencing the elected representative.”
When asked why our government still has not ratified the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol, which enthrones the “Precautionary Principle” and the right of sovereign nations to protect the safety of their food supply, Marian Hobbs coyly replied that “any decision to ratify the Protocol will need to be made after extensive public consultation.” She is fully aware that the majority of New Zealanders fully support its ratification, but like all of the other issues that do not suit her government’s agenda, it is ignored.
Without doubt, the driving forces behind the obdurate attitude of this government is the so-called “Free Trade” agenda – a serious part of globalisation. In this scenario, NZ sovereignty, along with that of most other countries, is being sacrificed as “obsolete” and an impediment to the march of total corporate world dominance.
The overall effect is that New Zealand is now bleeding to death. We have a government that not only refuses to acknowledge that globalisation has seriously destructive consequences for millions of people and the natural environment, and that it is, in fact, an intimate partner in this process. Consequently, not only is accountability to the people of NZ now considered obsolete, sensible and quite logical arguments against globalisation are summarily ignored in the interests of corporate profit. It is true that those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it. Sadly, it seems that the only thing we learn from history is that no one learns anything from history.
More than forty years ago, NZ Minister of Finance Nordmeyer seriously warned New Zealand to stay well away from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). One of our top economists, Wilf Rosenburg, said much the same. At the time these ominous warnings were given out, we had 98% employment in our country and a “staggering” three hundred thousand dollar debt.
All over the world, an apocalyptic vision of the world’s future, formed by the destructive policies of the “New World Order,” are causing grave fears in many nations. New Zealand is no exception. The global market now empowers unaccountable corporate chiefs and disempowers governments and the democratic will. The democratic values of her people will be warped by the economic imperatives of these giants, encouraged and supported by the IMF.
Is this simply the expression of an irrational fear? I don’t think so. Their chequered history of corruption and greed gives rise to a chilling realisation of what is to come. As Vandana Shiva, fighting for the poor farmers in third-world countries, said recently in an interview:
“No matter where you look, the IMF and World Bank are basically taking away the resources of the people, putting it in the hands of global capital, destroying the livelihood of people in the name of efficiency and forcing destitution on millions of people. Its policies are nothing short of genocide.”
In our own case, factories – unable to compete in the “international market” – close down at an alarming rate, often setting up overseas to use cheaper labour. The Bendon factory, Clarks shoes, the South Island wool and paper mills – the list grows longer by the month.
“The rise of direct legislation (democracy) is part of a continuing conflict between the ideal of government by the people and the idea of rule by an elite. The two assumptions on which all elite theories rest are: first, that the masses are inherently incompetent in matters of government, and second, that they are at best apathetic and at worst are unruly creatures with an incurable propensity to destroy culture and liberty.”
As the corporations grow ever bigger and more powerful, the planks of democracy begin to bend under the load of strict rules that ban trade barriers even when these barriers protect the environment. In this Brave New World, corporate profit has become so sacrosanct (and the natural world so manipulated and exploited) that even life itself is able to be patented.
The TRIPS and other agreements, often put together in secret, ensure easy access for the transnational corporations to break down barriers and influence dramatically the democratic process of governments. The people of Brazil, charged exorbitant interest rates on their loans, are now forced to cut down the precious Amazon rainforests.
No wonder people are feeling helpless.
You do not require a first-class honours degree in economics to predict the result. It is clearly a no-win situation. Our unemployment list grows longer (permanent unemployment is now an accepted part of our economy), money is withdrawn from schools, hospitals and social services, and the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. New Zealand used to be largely middle-class with virtually no poverty. Now one in three children live in poverty. See what “progress” brings.
Meantime, in this senseless march to the day when corporations rule the world, “we the people” have no say in the matter. And “our” government goes out of its way to please its real masters: the multinational corporations and their instruments like the IMF and the World Bank.
The answer has not been found in demonstrations, pickets, petitions or non-binding referendums – all of which the government ignores.
However, where direct democracy has been tried, it has succeeded in constraining and indeed guiding the government of the day. Direct democracy encompasses Binding Citizens’ Initiated Referendums and has proved itself as an efficient tool to rein in the excesses of executive power. With BCIR, the people have real democracy, not its pallid second cousin, Representative Democracy, which basically allows us to vote in the preferred dictatorship of the next three years.
Instituting Direct Democracy can make a government genuinely responsive to the people, rather than the corporations, which are substantially reduced in influence.
What about the arguments that BCIR would open the door to the “undue influence of money” in which the people’s vote could be bought (as if the politicians’ votes cannot). This implies that the people can be bought by the “monied interests”, while our elected representatives somehow miraculously transcend it. This idea is obviously wrong; in fact, so wrong that one must immediately be suspicious of anyone who offers that argument against BCIR. In fact, there are numerous examples where money has conspicuously failed to influence the average voter, but in similar situations has succeeded in influencing the elected representative.
This book will present the case for Direct Democracy, which is another way of saying “real” democracy. We cannot afford another year to go by without it. Your next vote should be only for those parties and candidates that support BCIR.
The fate of New Zealand hangs in the balance.
by Brian Beedham
I trust an article originally published in The Economist, 21/12/1996 and on the internet. Brian Beedham has been Foreign Affairs and Associate Editor of The Economist.
This survey argues that the next big change in human affairs will probably not be a matter of economics, or electronics, or military science; it will be a change in the supposedly humdrum world of politics. The coming century could see, at last, the full flowering of the idea of democracy. The democratic system of politics, which first took widespread root in the 19th century, and then in the 20th century beat off the attacks of both fascism and communism, may in the 21st century realise that it has so far been living, for understandable reasons, in a state of arrested development, but that those reasons no longer apply; and so democracy can set about completing its growth.
The places that now consider themselves to be democracies are, with a handful of exceptions, run by the process generally known as “representative” democracy. That qualifying adjective should make you sit up and think.
The starting-point of modern democracy is the belief that every sane adult is entitled to an equal say in the conduct of public affairs. Some people are richer than others, some more intelligent, and nobody’s interests are quite the same as anybody else’s, but all are entitled to an equal voice in deciding how they should be governed. There is therefore something odd in the fact that in most democracies this voice is heard only once every few years, in elections in which voters choose a president or send their representatives to an elected parliament; and that between those elections, for periods of anything up to seven years, it is the presidents and parliamentarians who do all the deciding, while the rest of the democracy is expected to stand more or less quietly on one side, either nodding its head in irrelevant approval or growling in frustrated disagreement.
This is part-time democracy.
There exists in a few places a different way of doing it, called direct democracy. In this straightforward version, the elected representatives are not left to their own devices in the periods between elections.
The rest of the people can, at any time, call them to order, by cancelling some decision of the representatives with which most of the people do not agree, or, sometimes, by insisting that the representatives do something they had no wish to do, or perhaps had never even thought about.
The machinery by which this is done is the referendum, a vote of the whole people.
If democracy means rule by the people, democracy by referendum is a great deal closer to the original idea than the every-few-years voting which is all that most countries have.
The test is: “who gives the order?”
It has to be the right kind of referendum, of course. A referendum organised by the government, posing a question of the government’s choice in the words the government finds most convenient, is seldom much help to democracy. Nor many referendums are quite as blatant as the Chilean one of 1978. (“In the face of international aggression… I support President Pinochet in his defence of the dignity of Chile.”). But General de Gaulle in the early 1960s plainly saw his de haut en bas sort of referendums as one means of making sure, as he put it, that “the entire indivisible authority of the state is confided to the president”, meaning himself. Napoleon liked the technique, too. Even more modest politicians are unlikely to resist the temptation to put a spin on their referendums’ wording: “Your government, having after careful thought decided that X is the right thing to do, asks you to agree…”
No, the proper referendum for democracy-strengthening purposes is the one which happens whether the government wants it or not. This can be arranged by constitutional requirement, an instruction in the constitution saying that certain kinds of change in the law must be submitted to a vote of the whole people. Better, because this way is more flexible, an agreed number of voters can insist, by putting their signatures on a petition, that a law proposed by parliament must be submitted to the people for their approval or rejection.
Change calls for change
These are the channels through which power previously dammed up by the politicians can be made to flow into the hands of ordinary people. The politicians, naturally, present various arguments against doing anything of the sort. Some of their arguments do not stand up to a moment’s examination. Others are more serious, and one in particular raises a genuine problem for direct democracy if a current weakness in the economies of Europe and America becomes a permanent fixture.
On the other hand, the defenders of the old-fashioned form of democracy have to face the fact that the world has changed radically since the time when it might have seemed plausible to think the voters’ wishes needed to be filtered through the finer intelligence of those “representatives”. The changes that have taken place since then have removed many of the differences between ordinary people and their representatives. They have helped the people to discover that the representatives are not especially competent. As a result, what worked reasonably well in the 19th century will not work in the 21st century. may find direct democracy more efficient, as well as more democratic, than the representative sort.
This is a far bigger change than any alteration in the way the representatives get elected – proportional representation rather than the first-past-the-post system, alternative voting, and so on.
These are just variations in the method by which power is delegated. Direct democracy keeps it undelegated.
First, then, a picture of how direct democracy actually works, a matter about which most people have only the haziest idea.
It is still, admittedly, a pretty scattered phenomenon. Slightly over half of the states in the United States use it, some with fairly spectacular results, though it so far has no place in American politics at the federal level.
From the ridiculous to the sublime
In all, almost 450 nationwide questions have gone to a vote of the whole Swiss people since the current system got going 130 years ago – over half the world’s all-time tally of national referendums, and overwhelmingly most of the genuine, non-Napoleonic sort.
At three and a half a year, that may not sound all that much. But the pace has been accelerating lately; and, when you add the votes in which the Swiss decide what to do in their cantons and communities, it means that three or four times a year they are invited to read in the meticulously impartial documents sent to them through the post, or watch on television, or pull off the Internet, the arguments for and against up to a dozen assorted issues, and give their decisions.
Switzerland: both a model and a warning
The first lesson from Switzerland is that direct democracy is hard work. The second is that, though it makes politicians less important than they like to be, it does not remove the need for an intelligent parliament. The system works most efficiently when politicians stop assuming they know best, but do their proper job with modest zeal.
This proper job, as with any parliament, is to sit down, discuss the problems of the day, and propose solutions for them. The difference in a direct democracy is that the parliament’s solutions are not necessarily the last word in the matter until the next general election, which may be years away. In Switzerland, 50,000 signatures on a petition, a bit over 1% of the current total of qualified voters, are enough to haul any countrywide law before the Swiss people. Twice that number of signatures will put a brand-new idea for a law to the people’s decision, even if parliament wants nothing to do with it. Because of a Swiss quirk, new federal laws coming from outside parliament have to take the form of amendments to the constitution, with the result that Switzerland’s constitution has come to look like an overstuffed cupboard; but there is no reason why the same process could not put such new laws on the ordinary statute-book, as happens in many American states and in most of Switzerland’s own cantons.
The outcome of Swiss referendums, 1866-1993
Total Number of Parliamentary laws and decrees brought to the people’s vote: 115
| Result | Number | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Accepted | 56 | 48.7% |
| Defeated | 59 | – |
New laws proposed from the people: 110
| Result | Number | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Accepted | 11 | 10% |
| Defeated | 99 | – |
Parliamentary counter-proposals: 27
| Result | Number | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Accepted | 17 | 63.0% |
| Defeated | 10 | – |
Constitutional amendments proposed by parliament: 143
| Result | Number | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Accepted | 104 | 72.7% |
| Defeated | 39 | – |
and parliament get on better these days than they used to; only about a quarter of the acts of parliament put to the referendum since 1960 have been rejected, compared with well over a half 100 years ago.
Still, a certain weariness has crept into the proceedings lately. The turnout for referendums, once pretty regularly 50-60% or more, went into a decline in the 1950s. Despite a few moments of big-issue excitement, it has been floating around the 40% mark for most of the 1980s and 1990s. The people of Switzerland have lost some of their enthusiasm for voting, compared with people in most of the big representative democracies.
It does you good, in moderation
This almost certainly does not mean that the Swiss no longer think direct democracy a good idea. The much likelier explanation is that, as the population has grown (and since women won the vote in 1971), the number of signatures needed to summon a referendum has become a much smaller proportion of the total number of voters than it used to be. This means not only that there is a lot more voting to do – ten nationwide votes a year on average in the 1990s, compared with three in the 1920s and 1930s – but also that a fair number of referendums are the work of small and excited groups of enthusiasts. This turns people off, and some of them stop voting.
The politicians thereupon explain that direct democracy is dying, so they themselves should be put back in charge.
This can be remedied when the Swiss overhaul their voting system, as they plan to do in the next few years, especially if they look at what some of their more adventurous cantons are already doing. If the number of signatures needed to call a referendum is raised to something nearer its old share of the electorate, there will be fewer referendums. If the procedure for collecting signatures is made a bit stiffer (some Swiss supermarkets will let you do it at the check-out counter), maybe more of the referendums that do take place will be seriously thought through. The voting turnout will then presumably go up again; the fear that referendums are becoming the voice of excited minorities will subside; and the superior look on the politicians’ faces will duly disappear.
There is still a solid basis for partnership between the politicians of Switzerland and the people with their special power. The voters are content to let the politicians do most of the routine work of politics, and to listen to their advice on many complicated issues.
The politicians, for their part, have learned that ordinary people are often surprisingly (to politicians) shrewd in their decisions.
In the 1970s, the voters refused to be frightened by anti-immigrant propaganda into sending home most of the foreigners working in Switzerland (and this December they declined to tighten the rules against asylum-seekers).
In the 1980s and 1990s, they were persuaded to dig into their pockets to start paying value-added tax. And not long ago, there was a splendid moment after most of the political class had shaken a furious fist at the voters’ refusal to accept an anti-urban-sprawl planning law.
The politicians then discovered that just as much sprawl could be prevented more cheaply by a different scheme.
Politicians and people may occasionally snarl at each other, but they have learned how to work together. The Swiss will go on doing democracy their direct way.
David Lange: The interview with Jonathan Eisen (9.6.04)
“Binding Citizens’ Initiated Referenda is a specific means of easing concern about a specific threat to liberty, health or choice.”
DL: Now… you are interested in referenda!
JE: I am interested in Binding Citizens’ Initiated Referenda.
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 Referenda 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. You can ‘respect’ the select committee 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.
JE: You know what they did recently with the TGA (Ed: The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration).
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 committee 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 system. 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 government condemnation that get into office again because of two aspects of their administration, but public acceptance of the bulk of their administration…
The demands and pressures on ministers and other politicians mean increasing delegation and, in effect, a further retreat from truly representing the people. While we deplore that, we often have no choice. If it is difficult enough explaining to people why something did or didn’t happen when you were in charge, it is impossible to explain to them why an increasing body of law in this country is derived from the Federal Government’s flagrant abuse of its Foreign Affairs power. Simply, I see that abuse as a corruption of the Constitution and will never accept that we should have law based on an executive decision to sign some United Nations protocol and, therefore, be accountable to some obscure committee which may well comprise some of the most corrupt and brutal dictatorships on the planet.
In this context, I am bemused by the fact that those who argued that appeal to the Privy Council in London should be abolished because they dismantle our judicial sovereignty are now among the ranks of those justifying this tugging of the forelock to U.N. committees. I might add that the idea that we can’t discipline our children because of our agreement to that U.N. Rights of The Child Convention, for example, has a far greater impact on average Australians than deciding whether or not we have a republic. However, the government, which merrily signs these U.N. Conventions and protocols, asserts the view that a republic would make us “independent”.
There is an increasing and deliberate tendency for judges to take upon themselves the role of “interpreting” the law and not simply upholding and enforcing it. I do not subscribe, and never will subscribe, to any notion that highly paid lawyers have any better idea of what social policy should be than any other citizen, and I do not accept that elevation to any bench somehow equates to elevation to the right hand of God.
Judges who strike down laws enacted by elected governments because they see themselves as the “conscience” of society are striking at the very heart of democracy.
If courts are allowed to, in effect, fiddle about with a directly-voted majority view for any reason, then the whole concept will fall flat on its face, and that will be the final blow to any hope of a genuine, participatory democracy. If courts do try to do anything beyond ensuring that the will of the majority is enforced, then they should be sent packing because there should be no greater power than the will of the majority.
BCIR: A Two-Edged Sword
I openly acknowledge – as all advocates of the concept would – that, politically, it is a two-edged sword. Frankly, if the majority of people in Queensland expressed themselves in favour of, for example, abortion on demand and the complete decriminalisation of marijuana via referenda, I would have to reconsider my personal objections and the reasons in favour long and hard.
Certainly, I would argue strenuously against such proposals and hope that the “No” cases in both instances won, but I wouldn’t deny people the right to their say on these important issues simply because I feared my side might lose.
Similarly, those on the left in politics would have very good reason to fear the results of referenda on the Mabo decision or Immigration policy or any number of laws introduced by stealth via the Federal Government’s signing of the United Nations Protocols. However, if their commitment to democracy is strong, they would argue their case and then calmly accept the result. It really would be truly “power to the people” and all of the bastards would really be kept honest.
Mr Chairman, the ultimate challenge to those involved in politics is to ensure that all Australians honestly feel that they do have a real say in how they are governed. The people are rightly dissatisfied with the ritual dances of election campaigns every two, three or four years, with all their slogans, jingles, cliches and concentration on a few personalities, and they want to take back the right to a real self-determination of their own lives and society.
Excerpts from a speech given to the DIRECT DEMOCRACY SEMINAR, CANBERRA, 28 JULY 1994
January 2004
Copyright 2003-2004 by Stephen Neitzke, stephen@ddleague-usa.net.
After more than two hundred years of anti-democracy sophistries and propaganda, downplaying the people and upping representative government, most citizens have been conditioned to emotionally reject any talk of increasing democracy at the national level.
This emotional level rejection of change means that most citizens do not examine the history, evidence, or intellectually honest arguments in favour of increasing democracy. It also means that we the sovereign people go on giving away our responsibility for political affairs to those who’ve proven beyond doubt that they’re not to be trusted – to those whose great contempt for the common people runs to thumping up servility in the uninformed elites, that they, the elitists, can more effectively stonewall and whitewash their wealth-driven and self-serving corruptions of governance…
Constitutional renewal is a matter of WHEN, not IF. It’s a matter of how quickly we can organise and accomplish the wisely balanced governance that we do not have now. The vague constitutional status quo allows too much arbitrary control by powerful individuals in all three branches of government, with near-zero accountability. We have too much hollow law, made in the face of public outrage, with provisions that purposefully do not resolve the problems that the people demanded be resolved. We have too many unresolved, critical, interdependent, political problems because leaving them unresolved is good for money-power. States’ rights and citizens’ rights have been diminished too much by contemptuous politicians. Constitutional renewal is about increasing clarity and democracy – adding in citizen lawmaking, repealing representative government, increasing accountability for officials sworn to uphold our constitution, and regulating corporations as well as industries.
Centralizing, “representative government” only is the creation of elites, for elites, and by elites. De-centralizing governance with a blend of citizen lawmaking and representative government is creation of the people, for the people, and by the people.
“In the past twenty years or so, people have become increasingly cynical about the political process. They feel betrayed, isolated, ignored and totally fed up. I don’t blame them…”
It’s not because “the people” are smarter than their “rulers”, or more capable or better able to make “the right” decision, or somehow more worthy.
It’s simple because “the people” are more likely to want what is best for them rather than what is best, say, for large multinational banks and corporations.
Historically we find that when real democracy has been adopted (and it doesn’t come easily, thanks to the powerful forces that seem always to be arrayed against it), it tends to manifest as a happiness in the people, providing as it does the foundation for universal well being and personal fulfilment. How? – by fostering the general feeling that each person actually counts, is important as a person, is valued and respected by the community, which is, after all, the larger family that we all belong to.
And in a real democracy, each vote matters. Note that I say not that everyone HAS a vote, but that each vote actually matters to the development of public policy that is formulated for the public good.
What I see now is that we are further from that ideal than we have been for quite some time.
As a result we are seeing increasing numbers of people – especially the young – turning away not only from political participation, but also definitely not voting as a way of saying “why bother?”
And in many ways they are right. There is a good reason that voter participation generally is at an all-time low.
That’s because we don’t live in a real democracy, and their votes often don’t matter.
They feel a deep cynicism towards political parties, politics and manifestos generally. They often correctly believe that party manifestos are only written to get them elected, and that political and social promises are only made to be broken, creations as they are of politicians who are just out for political power, money, and prestige.
Look at the political treatment of the student loans scheme by parties over the last 15 years. A big and bad case of political expediency. What a gigantic turnoff this must be if you are a first-time voter!
Regrettably, many young people I know believe the best way to hold politicians accountable is simply not to participate. (There’s a bumper sticker that reads “Don’t vote. It only encourages them.”)
They think that if you participate, you’re buying into a dishonest system. And in a sense they’re trying to take the moral high ground, thinking that without their participation the system will collapse under the weight of its corruption – their participation in the system will collapse and that will be the case.
I think it’s quite simple: you make the system genuinely responsive to the needs and wishes, directly and meaningfully.
If you know that your vote has meaning and counts for something, you will vote; you will participate in the system. We thought that MMP would do the job, but while MMP has at least created the opportunity for diverse opinions to be represented and heard, it has not altered our blame culture or noticeable our distrust bureaucracy. If we are completely honest, we should recognise that MMP has fallen short of our expectations, and it’s time to correct its shortcomings. My colleagues and I didn’t intentionally mislead anyone by advocating MMP. It’s just that we were wrong about its abilities to correct the problems that we thought it would.
In fact in many ways, MMP has made them worse. And now, it appears, it’s the time to make those corrections we knew we might have to at the time MMP was adopted.
I have finally come to a new appreciation of the truth in Thomas Jefferson’s words: “I know of no safe repository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves.” In hindsight we thought that a structural change along the lines of a more equitable voting system would solve the problems…”
by Simon Upton (Minister of the Environment – 1997)
Ten years ago, I published a rather earnest little volume called The Withering of the State. It seemed an appropriate title in the dawn of the Rogernomics-era blitzkrieg on the State-as-we-knew-it. Such was the euphoria of the moment that no cows were sacred. Even politics itself seemed ripe for deconstruction. I singled out the party system for my least generous comments. MPs, I observed, were not “representatives” in any normal sense of the word. Parties were closed shop protection devices through which sweeping tracts of policy debate were effectively removed from public view.
My verdict was grim: “Stated bluntly, the degree of power a voter has in influencing representative government is minimal. The individual is all but impotent. Voters are the captives of a monolithic system. They are forced, effectively, to vote for parties for enormous menus called manifestos to which they may be substantially opposed, or of which they are, more likely, largely ignorant.”
Political reform came in due course, but scarcely for the reasons or in the manner I had advocated. MMP opened the market to a bit more competition, but none of the incentives on politicians changed. In fact, the opportunities for rent-seeking and deal-making have been enhanced.
If it were not for the monetary and fiscal pillars of the Douglas-Richardson “constitution” we would be just as vulnerable to pork barrel politics as we ever were. So when Michael Laws announced that MMP was, for him, just the first step on the road to direct democracy (political control by referendum) I found myself gloomily predicting the ultimate tabloidisation of politics and my retirement to the Auckland Islands.
Imagine then my disorientation in picking up The Economist’s bumper Christmas issue to discover, among the many lengthy and solemn essays that it considers the readers hanker for on holiday a long survey on what they call “full democracy”. The 21st century would, The Economist predicted, see the flowering of democracy with the representative variant (our present system) cast aside as a crude precursor to full control by citizens.
What particularly intrigued me was that The Economist justified its prediction in terms almost indistinguishable from my own a decade ago. I quote:
“These days, voters do not need a special class of people called politicians to interpret their wishes; they have learned that politicians are a rather unreliable lot, and the trade unions into which the politicians have organised themselves, the political parties, are growing feebler. Between them, these three facts can push open the door to direct democracy.”
The parties have always been there to serve the parties, and it wouldn’t matter how policies change, the party goes on serving itself in order to survive. It’s the logic of all organisations, really.
That summary is, to my mind, incontrovertible. So I am forced to ask, do I concur with The Economist’s prescription? On balance, my answer is yes. Given the views I held 10 years ago, I’m surprised with myself. Back then, I dismissed referenda as replacing the power of the parties with single-issue lobby groups. I doubted that complex issues could ever be committed to the simple arithmetic of voting and that most voters would end up imposing their wills.
But the more I look at the pressures on Parliament, MPs and ministers, the more I wonder whether the public at large believes that politicians can deliver justice to them, either. Would the quality of judgement and scrutiny brought to bear in a referendum be so inferior to that which is available to politicians?
This is not meant as a snide reflection on my colleagues. It’s just an honest assessment of what human nature allows for 120 people to do. In the first place, you have to divide the 120 into two camps with very different motives – Government and Opposition. You have then to ask how any individual within either camp can seriously get their minds around the detail of more than a fraction of the live issues.
Over the years, I have counselled new MPs to specialise if they are to survive. Having a view on everything is a guarantee of glib and garrulous behaviour. There will be key issues of principle that, from time to time, arouse wider interest. But for much of the time, MPs will rely on just one or two colleagues to make the essential judgements. It may even be defended as form of “representative” democracy. But whether it any longer does justice to the issues in a world awash with information has seriously to be questioned.
It is not hard to see why, in the middle years of this century, when fundamental issues about democracy and freedom were at stake and a hot world war was succeeded by a cold one, political debate was polarised around stark alternatives. But that has all evaporated. As The Economist notes, the agenda of politics has become much more prosaic. And with that sea change, party politics has become much less compelling. Why do policy programmes have to be bundled up into manifestos (or, in our case, since MMP, detailed coalition agreements)? The reality is that voters, directly, can make many of the decisions currently delegated to politicians if they are given all the facts and the proper information.
The Economist marshals powerful evidence that recourse to referenda hasn’t paralysed Swiss politics nor has it inflamed it. There is as much apathy there as here. Contrary to my earlier scepticism, I now think more minds could now be more fruitfully applied to many issues if they were opened up to referenda. But I expect there would still be a remarkable degree of lethargy. Voters are no different than politicians – there are limits to the number of issues they can feel strongly about at any one time.
With recent referenda in mind, my readers may be aghast. Do we really want to have to vote down stupid questions like how many firefighters should be employed on a particular truck? No, we don’t, and we shouldn’t be put off by the circus. The fact that the Citizens Initiated Referendum Act provides for non-binding referenda almost invites trivial subjects and low turnouts. Binding referenda matter, and we could expect them to be taken more seriously.
The most serious issues about referenda revolve around the rules that govern them. If the tyranny of party majorities in Parliament is a concern, why should we welcome the tyranny of the majority through the ballot box? It’s a fair question. The greater use of referenda would certainly challenge us to ask important questions about the limits of government. What areas of individual behaviour should be beyond politics and political interference? What laws and institutional arrangements should be immune from change at the hands of a simple majority? Why should basic rights needed to be taken out of the bear pit of politics?
As a believer in limited government, I would be very concerned to see unlimited taxing and spending power handed over to a referendum-led majority. But if the tyranny of Parliament is a concern, we would perhaps be in a better position if a referendum for new taxation and government spending.
If only we can muster the courage of our convictions and make our voice once again be heard, before we all become slaves to the machine and are silenced forever.
“The peoples of Europe must be liberated from the control of the bureaucracy, and power should return where it belongs – to Westminster.”
The Referendum Party in the UK: A Case Study
The Referendum Party was founded in November 1994 by Sir James Goldsmith to campaign for a “fair” referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain in the European Union. His position was that under the Maastricht Treaty, the UK would be giving up too much of its sovereignty to the EU.
By “fair”, the Referendum Party means that the public should be allowed to vote on the broad issue, not granted a “pseudo-referendum restricting the question to political issues”, and during the public debate, the time and money allocated to each side should be split evenly between those for and those against.
“The situation now exists wherein laws passed in Westminster are no longer supreme. As British judges have confirmed, the supreme law of this land is now European law.”
The Referendum Party freely admits to being a single-issue party – it did not field candidates in constituencies where other parties had expressed support for a referendum.
On 11 March 1996, the party took out full-page advertisements in a number of papers which neatly set out its entire political position and raison d’etre. “The Government is indicating that it is moving towards granting a referendum. That’s all to the good. But it must be genuine…as an agreement to hold a referendum only if the Cabinet decides that sterling should be absorbed into the European single currency would be an empty gesture.”
On 28 November 1996, the Referendum party revealed the wording of the question they would pose to the British electorate in the event of winning the general election. It asks, “Do you want the UK to be part of a Federal Europe? or Do you want the UK to return to an association of sovereign nations that are part of a common trading market?”
While the party did not win, it drove the point home to the people of the UK, indeed to all of Europe, how democracy and national sovereignty were being systematically undermined by the politicians of the major parties, and the “Eurocrats” in the UK and Brussels. This had the effect of reinvigorating the idea of a referendum as a tool to be used in matters of national political interest.
by Sir James Goldsmith
Excerpts from a speech given by Sir James Goldsmith at the 1996 Referendum Party Conference in Brighton.
We are here today for only one reason. We want the people of this land to be able to make the most important decision a country can face – whether or not it should continue as an independent nation.
We seek no power for ourselves. We are not politicians and do not want to become politicians. We are people drawn from every walk of life, from every region of the nation, and from every major political party, left, right and centre. Among us are doctors, teachers, businessmen, housewives, farmers, fishermen, and others.
We represent a broad diversity of views. But we are united in one unshakeable belief. We reject the idea that this country’s destiny as a proud and sovereign nation can be brought to an end through the backroom dealings of politicians.
“The sovereignty of this nation belongs to its people”
The sovereignty of this nation belongs to its people and not to a group of career politicians. It is the people and they alone who must decide, after a full debate and a public vote, whether or not Britain should remain an independent nation or whether her future will be better served as part of a new country called Europe.
Our purpose is to fight to obtain that right to decide. And when the decision has been made, the Referendum Party will dissolve.
We all find it hard to grasp just how enormous is the issue that faces us.
As we go about our daily lives in a normal way, how can any of us believe that our history as an independent nation is being quietly and surreptitiously brought to an end? And yet, that is what is happening.
Consider for a moment the qualities that define a sovereign nation – those that distinguish it from a vassal state or from a province of a larger nation or empire.
• These are: the right to pass laws in our own land, the right to run our own economy for the benefit of our people, the right to determine our own foreign policy, to organise our national security and to control our own borders.
• Each of these fundamental national rights has either already been abandoned or is now under imminent threat.
When our political leaders assure us that they will never allow us to be part of a federal European state, alas, they are not telling us the truth.
Already, they have signed treaties which have surrendered an indispensable part of our sovereignty. And they did so without explaining the facts to us and without our consent.
Already signed treaties which have surrendered an indispensable part of our sovereignty. And they did so without explaining the facts to us and without our consent.
The situation now exists wherein laws passed in Westminster are no longer supreme. As British judges have confirmed, the supreme law of this land is now European law. Already, we have signed away the right to run our economy for the benefit of our own people.
The Governor of Germany’s Central Bank puts it concisely. Referring to economic and monetary union, he says, “it will lead to member nations transferring their sovereignty over financial and wage policies as well as in monetary affairs. It is an illusion to think that states can hold onto their sovereignty over taxation policies”.
So much for our control over our financial and wage policies, our monetary affairs and our taxation policies.
And the governing European political caste has put forward proposals to transfer to Brussels control over our foreign policy, our national security and our frontiers.
However, the European constitution is based on a wholly different set of ideas. To the European Commission, the constitution grants what in Euro-jargon is called “the monopoly of initiative”. That means that only the Commission is empowered to put forward proposals concerning the governance of the European Union.
Remember when Jacques Delors, the former President of the European Commission, addressed the Trade Unions Council here in the U.K. in 1988. He told us then that 80 percent of our national laws would be made in this way. This is totally contrary to our idea of democracy.
“The Commission is unique in another way. It is the only institution in a supposedly democratic community which has the right not only to create laws but also to execute them. This is totally contrary to our idea of democracy.”
The Commission is unique in another way. It is the only institution in a supposedly democratic community which has the right not only to create laws but also to execute them. This is totally contrary to our idea of democracy.
And what is more, the Commission has been granted the right to act in secret, and its members, the Commissioners, are unelected bureaucrats without any democratic legitimacy.
They are the people that can produce laws which are supreme over the laws passed in Westminster.
Here is the proof that their principal electoral promises and manifesto proclamations are empty of any substance. Three Committees, the European Commission, the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank, consisting of unelected bureaucrats, have been or are being handed almost total power over the lives of all the peoples of Europe.
The overwhelming majority of those powers has traditionally been in the custody of our Parliament, our Courts of Law and our Government. Now they have been or are being abandoned and decisively and irreversibly by our politicians, and without our consent.
We have been encouraged to sleepwalk into surrendering our nation.
Let me explain how all this has come about. As we know, the construction of the European Union was designed by Germany, assisted by the elite civil servants of France.
It draws the bulk of its inspiration from Germany’s constitutional heritage. The ethos of that constitution is drawn from Prussia, and Prussian political thought was moulded principally by the German philosopher Hegel.
So the key to understanding the institutions of the European Union is to understand how the German constitution, itself, came about. I seek your indulgence to remind you of this essential piece of history, the better to grasp what is happening to us today and understand how we find ourselves bound by a constitution that is alien to everything we have respected and stood for a thousand years of our history.
“Already they have signed treaties which have surrendered an indispensable part of our sovereignty. And they did so without explaining the facts to us and without our consent.”
“The people… do not know what they want.”
Hegel, the philosophical father of the German constitutional tradition, believed in the State and despised the people – or “rabble” as he often called them. He wrote and I quote: “The people … do not know what they want. To know what one wants is the fruit of profound insight, and this is the very thing that the people lack.”
“We should venerate the State as an earthly divinity”, he added.
Hegel explained that only the bureaucrat is the true servant and master of the State, and believed that elected bodies, such as Parliaments, were only useful to perfect the process of subordinating the people.
Prussia began to unify the independent nations of Germany in 1834. At the tim,e they were still independent monarchies. The first step was to create a common market or customs union known as the “Zollverein” englobing nineteen nations. The peoples of the various German nations were told that its purpose was to form a large and free trade area. After some armed struggles, the common market was converted, in 1867, into a political confederation.
The people were told that this would help to consolidate and to develop the common trading area whilst maintaining substantial independence for the participating nations.
Four years later, in 1871, the trap was closed. The Confederation was expanded and converted into a single German superstate dominated by Prussia.
The Parliament was no more than a democratic looking front, whereas real power was concentrated into the hands of the leading civil servants.
The principle of irreversibility was made absolute. No nation could withdraw from this new German superstate.
I am telling you all this because it relates directly to the way the European Union has been created.
Remember what happened. First came the Common Market. We, also, were told that its purpose was to form a large and free trade area. Then we moved on to a grouping of nations and we, also, were promised that we would retain essential national sovereignty.
“Three Committees, the European Commission, the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank, consisting of unelected bureaucrats, have been or are being handed almost total power over the lives of all the peoples of Europe.”
Of course, a Parliament was established, but real power was concentrated in the hands of the leading civil servants. The principle of irreversibility was also introduce,d prohibiting any nation from leaving the European Union.
And now the trap is being closed. We, also, are being led blindfold into a federal super-state. The French civil servants, who are both the servants and the political masters of the French state, acted as handmaidens in this enterprise. They were flattered, suborned and rewarded and were vain and arrogant enough to believe that by collaborating with Germany, they would become the co-masters of Europe. They seem incapable of understanding that they are just being used.
That is how the European Union was created – in total contradiction with the fundamental principles of British democracy. It placed all real power into the hands of unelected civil servants and did so with the help of fools, weaklings and worse.
Hegel would have been content. The power of the civil servants would not be “polluted” by the people, nor “the rabble” have any influence.
Well, we are the rabble. And we have had enough. As Edmund Burke said in 1784, “there is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.” We have reached that limit.
We are not interested in what politicians say. We look at what they do and why they do it. Almost every day, I receive letters from Members of Parliament swearing allegiance. They tell us that, deep down, they have always wanted a referendum and that it would be unfair for us to field a candidate against them. Then we check their voting record, and we find that time and time again, whenever they have been offered the opportunity to vote for a referendum, they have either voted against or run away and abstained.
We place no trust in those who put their careers above the interest of their nation, nor in those who alter their views so as to be re-elected or to obtain promotion.
The strictest possible institutional control is essential to ensure that this spirit of cooperation should never again be allowed to grow into the malignancy which produced Brussels and the other European institutions.
The peoples of Europe must be liberated from the control of the bureaucracy, and power should return where it belongs – to Westminster.
We just cannot stand by and see this nation surrendered.
From Wikipedia, the free Internet encyclopaedia.
It’s called a “Recall”, and it makes politicians think twice before they go against the wishes of the people. The people of California just had one. They fired their Governor.
In a representative democracy, representative recall provides a procedure by which constituents can remove a representative from office before his or her term ends. It is a means of expressing formal disapproval of such a representative.
This constitutes an instrument of direct democracy. Some consider this measure alone sufficient to satisfy grassroots democracy advocates, but most find it inadequate without other measures, e.g. referenda, electoral reform, bioregional democracy, that increase political accountability and increase the role of citizens.
History of recall in North America
The recall process became available to Americans during the Progressive era reforms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which spread across the United States. The ability to recall elected officials came along with the initiative and referendum processes as part of an early wave of electoral reforms.
The movement in California was spearheaded by then-Governor Hiram Johnson, a reformist, as a “precautionary measure by which a recalcitrant official can be removed.” It was instituted as a way for the populace to fight back against political corruption and the powerful railroads and banks, which had enormous influence on state governments.
Eighteen states today allow the recall of state officials, but, before 2003, only one Governor had ever been successfully recalled. In 1921, North Dakota’s Lynn J. Frazier was recalled over a dispute about state-owned industries. Until Gray Davis’s recall in October of 2003, no California statewide official has ever been recalled, though there have been 117 previous attempts. Only seven of those even made it onto the ballot, all for state legislators. Every Governor since Ronald Reagan in 1968 has been subject to a recall effort, but none until Grey Davis, the 37th Governor of California, had to face a special recall election. In 2003, several million citizens petitioned the government for a gubernatorial recall election.
The Canadian province of British Columbia has representative recall. In that province, voters in a provincial riding can petition to have a sitting representative removed from office, even a Premier presently leading a government. If enough voters sign the petition, a referendum takes place, and if a successful by-election follows as soon as possible, it gives the opportunity to replace the politician in question. Fourteen United States states have similar measures in their constitutions – and many more municipalities – but generally the recall process is more readily than in British Columbia, which in January 2003, achieved a record twenty-two such recall efforts (all of which ultimately failed, however).
Recall via internal political party mechanisms
An actual recall law need not always apply to all representatives. Given effective party discipline and laws which give parties the power to disendorse sitting representatives, then an informal system of representative recall becomes possible. Again in Canada, the federal Canadian Alliance (CCA) made representative recall part of its platform for electoral reform and implements it (in a way) within its party. If the members of any CA riding association vote to recall a CA federal Member of Parliament presently in office, that representative loses all funding and support for re-election, and other CA members cannot sit in the caucus with them, and would be meant to campaign to have them out of office (in a by-election). In effect, these measures force the resignation of the recalled member, as they become ineffective due to political isolation, social pressure and ridicule.
See also: representative democracy, electoral reform, grassroots democracy
Recalling the Father of Recall
Hiram Johnson was born and raised in Sacramento, and it was there that he was indoctrinated into politics. As a young man, he accompanied his father, armed with pistols, into a “den” of dishonest politicians and watched as his father fearlessly denounced them for their corruption.
Although the political poles of father and son were to differ in later years, the younger Johnson was never to waiver in his campaign against corruption. Johnson initially worked in law offices as a stenographer and shorthand reporter, but eventually became a lawyer himself. He attracted the attention of prominent statesmen when he successfully took on the corrupt. Two years later, Johnson, politically a Progressive, was elected Governor of California, although he had never held public office before, and became a champion of BCIR and Recall. He believes that his words are as relevant today as they were in 1911.
From Hiram Johnson’s Inaugural Address (1911):
In some form or other, nearly every governmental problem that involves the health, the happiness, or the prosperity of the State has arisen, because some private interest has intervened or has sought for its own gain to exploit either the resources or the politics of the State. I take it, therefore, that the first duty that is mine to perform is to eliminate every private interest from the government, and to make the public service of the State responsive solely to the people…
While I do not by any means believe the initiative, the referendum, and the recall are the panacea for all our political ills, yet they do give to the electorate the power of action when desired, and they do place in the hands of the people the means by which they may protect themselves. I recommend to you, therefore, and I most strongly urge, that the first step in our design to preserve and perpetuate popular government shall be the adoption of the initiative, the referendum, and the recall…
The opponents of direct legislation and the recall, however they may phrase their opposition, in reality believe the people can not be trusted. On the other hand, those of us who espouse these measures do so because of our deep-rooted belief in popular government, and not only in the right of the people to govern, but in their ability to govern; and this leads us logically to the belief that if the people have the right, the ability, and the intelligence to elect, they have as well the right, ability, and intelligence to reject or to recall; and this applies with equal force to an administrative or a judicial officer…
Roger Monckton
Roger Monckton is a Civil Engineer and a Project Management. He brings a critical eye to the components of BCIR and the ramifications of various strategies.
How could BCIR be introduced to the NZ political system?
Most likely, it will occur when a political party endorses BCIR in its party manifesto as a non-negotiable policy plank. Then BCIR is introduced either when that party wins a majority and forms the government, or when that party, going into coalition with another party to form a Government, negotiates its introduction.
At this stage (May 2004), NZ First alone among the major parties has proclaimed BCIR as a non-negotiable policy. It is unlikely that NZ First will win an outright majority in the next election, so therefore the second option is more likely the one that will be taken.
A vote for NZ First currently offers the best possibility of succeeding with BCIR – but only if they help to form a coalition after the next election.
And keep their promise.
There is another option, of course. That is: if NZF actually gets to help form the next government, they may wish to hold a binding referendum on BCIR. The country would then have a binding referendum on whether we should have binding referendums.
How many signatures should be needed to initiate a binding referendum?
Simply put, the number of signatures required should be large enough that special interest groups won’t waste everyone’s time, but not so daunting as to discourage the people from participating in the process.
Switzerland, with a population of 6 million, has a requirement of 50,000 signatures – a figure which is perhaps too low, whereas in NZ at present, under our non-binding referendum legislation, 300,000 signatures are required to trigger a referendum – a number which is far too high. I believe that a threshold of 100,000 signatures would provide the needed balance.
Should Parliament have the right to veto the result of a successful referendum?
Steve Baron of Voters’ Voice Action Group believes that to get BCIR accepted into NZ law, we first need to gain acceptance by parliament (NB – not by the people of NZ). In fact, the Voters’ Voice petition to Parliament asking for Direct Democracy is an interesting exercise in itself, as he is no doubt well aware that it will certainly be ignored.
However, there is a subtle force at work here in that the petition, while an exercise in futility on the one hand, on the other it, has helped to introduce more than 50,000 New Zealanders to the idea of Direct Democracy, and enlist their enthusiasm and support. Moreover, when Parliament does its usual (non) response, it will further prove how much we actually NEED Binding Citizens’ Initiated Referendums so that they CAN’T ignore us any more.
The Parliamentary veto as strategy
Already, we see NZ First having emphatically endorsed the idea, in some measure, no doubt thanks to the Voters’ Voice proposal. 75% of a parliamentary vote within 30 days of a successful referendum would overturn that referendum.)
The argument as to whether or not the voters of NZ are like errant children who need parental supervision is thus irrelevant to this strategy.
The simple fact is that BCIR, with a possibility of a Parliamentary veto, is in fact less threatening to the establishment, more reassuring to them that the rabble at the gates could be turned back, as a last resort.
Strategically, it was probably a good thing then to have this veto idea presented as part of the package, as it makes BCIR more possible, thanks to effectively removing the hostility of MPs and their establishment allies as a factor in the debate.
There is, of course, always a possibility of Parliament’s abusing the veto. However, as Baron points out, it is highly unlikely, despite the fact that various governments have ignored the popular will on so many occasions.
The reason?
While NZ governments have been seriously out of step on so many occasions in the past, it is in no small measure because they have not BLATANTLY and MEASURABLY gone against the SOLEMNLY EXPRESSED will of the people – voiced as a SPECIFIC VOTE in a BINDING REFERENDUM.
I believe that any government would be extremely reluctant to so visibly DEFY the popular will by exercising a veto that actually negated the results of a Binding Referendum. It would not only be political suicide, it would instantly and dangerously alienate more than half of the entire voting population.
If we then concede, albeit reluctantly, that BCIR is more likely to happen if Parliament retains some sort of veto power, it would be far more equitable if this power were vested with the individual MPs in a conscience vote, e.g. beyond the powers of cabinet and the Party executive. Their vote would be recorded and made public to their constituents – to whom they are answerable.
Let’s be honest. There will be a steep learning curve during the implementation of BCIR, but we are lucky in that much can be learnt from the many examples of successful functioning BCIR from around the world. We all know it is easier to learn from other people’s mistakes while at the same time taking the best points and integrating them, ingeniously of course, into our NZ culture.
BCIR is a natural part of the very core idea of what democracy is all about, and while the various efforts to delay and suppress its arrival here are understandable, it is time they ceased, in the interests of well well-being of the entire country.
Here is a small selection of emails from Steve Baron’s correspondence with various NZ politicians:
Lianne Dalziel, Minister of Immigration
Parliament Buildings
Wellington
25/6/03
Dear Lianne
Thank you for your letter dated 19 June 2003, and thank you for taking the time to visit our website.
You might be a little disappointed to know that I have no hidden agenda, am not a member of any political party or any religious group. However, even if I did have some hidden agenda, what difference would it make unless the majority of New Zealanders also wanted whatever this hidden agenda was? I’m simply one of the many New Zealanders who have had enough of politicians not listening to US!
It does, however, appear that trying to convince a politician that we, the People, need binding CIR is like trying to talk an alcoholic into giving up when he doesn’t perceive that there is any problem.
It would seem to me that most MPs believe that ultimate Sovereignty rests with Parliament; however, I believe ultimate Sovereignty rests with the People. And to say that the People can have their say every few years is simply not satisfactory.
Many years ago, Thomas Jefferson recounted that “I know of no safe repository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves”. I agree.
Our group does not have a membership, but we do have hundreds of supporters who have registered this support via our website or the post; these days, our numbers are growing very quickly as more and more people realise the sound logic of BCIR. We do not have a constitution or executive. Voters Voice is just me, a group of friends of contacts, and anyone, regardless of race, religion or political association, who wants to support us in making New Zealand a more democratic society.
On a personal note, I am a 43-year-old divorced father of four, two of which live with me. I run three businesses and have been self-employed for nearly twenty years.
I hope that satisfies your curiosity. Best wishes, Steve Baron
UNITED FUTURE PARTY and COALITION PARTNER
Peter Dunne
C/- Parliament Buildings
Wellington
Dear Peter
Thank you for your letter dated 5 June 2003. I was extremely relieved to get your letter for two reasons. First of all very few MP’s have even bothered to respond with anything other than the standard “we have received your letter” response and secondly I would have felt disappointed me more if you and your Party hadn’t responded because I was one of the many New Zealanders who was impressed with you on the “Worm Election Show” and decided to vote for you because you were the one of those on the show that seemed to be above politicking!
I am rather disappointed your Party is not more supportive of our cause, given what you say in your Citizens Charter, but I do appreciate the openness of your letter and the fact that, given sensible reasoning, you might, we hope and trust, reconsider your stance.
New Zealanders are tired of being ignored by politicians who think they know what is best for us, and any Party supporting binding CIR is sure to win the attention of a majority of New Zealanders. Yes, we have indeed delegated our authority to MPs, as you put it in your letter, but that still make us feel you should realise power is vested in the Executive Committee of the governing Party? Very little, I’m afraid, and to time you are aware of that, considering the heat you have taken from Parliament.
Even a Government MP has very little say, and when people like John Tamahere are muffled because they aren’t towing the ‘Party Line’, can you honestly say we have a democratic society? Some might even consider it an elected dictatorship!
Moreover, just because someone may vote for the Labour Government or the United Future coalition Government does not mean they agree with everything that Government wants to do. However, those in power falsely believe they have a mandate to do what they want when they want, and get away with it because we have no checks and balances in New Zealand – unlike Switzerland, Austria, Italy and many US States, which have binding referendums.
Far too often, we see governments elected on the basis of certain promises they make during a campaign, only to have these promises broken. In some cases, a complete U-turn is done, and the government does the exact opposite of what it promised the voters it would do if elected. This is precisely why New Zealanders have such a low opinion of MPs and distrust them, and that is why we have such a huge effect on us as a nation. I believe binding CIR would give us all a sense of empowerment and a pride in ourselves and our country, something that would have a huge effect on us as a nation.
I’m also afraid I do not accept your off-hand comment about familiarity breeding contempt as far as Switzerland and California are concerned. When the people there feel strongly about something, they are very quick to voice their opinions by way of referenda. The impression I get is that you feel New Zealanders would want to have a referendum every week.
However, this is simply not the case. Firstly, a person or group would have to collect approximately 300,000 signatures. If anyone can do that, then there has to be a groundswell for debate and change.
There are many things that I believe New Zealanders may want to have a say on and should have a say on. A few that come to mind are the number of MPs, Euthanasia, Immigration, Prostitution, Police numbers, the Privy Council, etc, etc, but I hardly think they want one every week. They just want the chance to be heard and know it will be acted upon if they do feel strongly! They want to have a say in their future, and that it is to be taken lightly.
It is nothing short of arrogant for MPs to assume that they always know what is best for New Zealand and New Zealanders, and that sharing power with the people would be “irresponsible”. History has proven time and again that the people can make intelligent decisions. Unfortunately, the goal of many governments has become simply to retain power, and they have abandoned their real reason for being, which is to serve the needs of the people and protect the environment.”
Pressure from minority lobby groups, unions and overseas Governments that are not in our best interests often leads to laws and regulations that are not in the best interests of the people. And many a Minister has been given bad advice by advisors who, in many cases, are only feathering their own nests and creating more bureaucracy to enhance their own positions.
The underlying feeling I get from many MPs, even though they won’t come out directly and say it, is that they think New Zealanders are not competent enough to make sound decisions. History has proven time and again that the people can make intelligent decisions. May I remind you that it wasn’t all that long ago that women were considered not intelligent enough to have the vote, now we have a female Prime Minister!
There is a large range of issues that are relevant to BCIR. If the people of New Zealand want, for example, to double the size of their Police Force to feel secure, then that is what they should get, even if it means paying more taxes or taking the money away from some other area. The Swiss once had a referendum to have a major overhaul of their roading system, but voted against it because they felt they wanted better hospitals. Once the hospitals were sorted to their satisfaction, another referendum was held to overhaul roading, and it was approved by a large majority. The Swiss people are not stupid, and neither are the New Zealand people. After all, many of us voted for you and your Party didn’t they?!
You say in your Citizens’ Charter that “Successful government will only occur when there is a true partnership between citizens and their government”. How can you say that and deny New Zealanders having binding CIR? If we don’t have binding CIR, the Government is only paying lip service to New Zealanders, and that is not a true partnership. To date, the Government has totally ignored what the people have told them they wanted in the last two referendums we have held. That is downright arrogance and totally distasteful to New Zealanders.
Peter, it’s time for change in New Zealand. New Zealanders want Direct Democracy; they want politicians to listen to them and act on it when something is important to them. Wasn’t that what you were elected to do …represent the wishes of New Zealanders? Binding CIR is not a replacement for the Government; it is an adjunct. I look forward to your response.
STEVE BARON
Winston Peters: “Populist”?
It was a hot day, and I was having a beer with my golfing partner to quench the thirst after a round. He started a conversation about politics in general. Not that I’m that big a Winston Peters fan, but I asked him what he thought about the NZ First push for binding referendums? “Winston is just a populist”, he said, in a ridiculing type of tone. So after hearing his comments, I decided later to do an online search of newspapers. It soon became obvious to me from the articles I read that any politician who said anything in opposition to the current Labour government had to be a populist and someone to be ridiculed. So then I did an online dictionary search about the word “populist”. Here’s what came back:
“A member of a political party claiming to represent the common people. A believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people. A supporter of the rights and power of people.”
It would seem to me that New Zealand could do with many more populist MPs if a populist MP means one that listens to what we, the common people, want!
Steve Baron: Voters’ Voice Action Group
Even though no one wants to eat GE “food” or have GE organisms released into the environment, the biotech industry (and its government supporters) are still hard at work trying to push it down our throats.
Kiwis have learned that GE can multiply uncontrolled in the environment, and can breed new and unnatural diseases. It is now proving to be the most dangerous technology ever devised, with new diseases traceable to GE contamination beginning to crop up. Indeed, all the independent safety studies done on GE conclude that it should never be released.
But our pressure is starting to count. Monsanto has decided (for the moment) not to develop GE wheat, the government is still not bent on approving it for human consumption. Why? Read THE GE SELLOUT – the book that tells it all – the shonky science, the corrupt politics and the “PR exercise” that was the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification.
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A. Because it CAN.
For years, hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders have signed petitions and “non-binding” referendums on a wide variety of issues – only to be ignored.
From the need to keep NZ GE-free in our food and environment, to stricter sentencing for violent criminals; from giving our firefighters a decent break, to restricting the number of MPs – the people of this country have tried over and over again to tell the government what they want.
But we have failed to get their attention, much less their support.
That’s because, thus far, our “referendums” have only been “advisory”, and successive governments have been able to ignore them, and us – the citizens of this country, who are, after all, their real employers.
The answer? Make New Zealand a real democracy with Binding Citizens’ Initiated Referendums.
The word “binding” tells it all. It means that when we, the people of New Zealand, put an issue to a popular vote (a referendum) the result becomes the law – whether the government of the day wants it or not. It’s called DIRECT DEMOCRACY. It doesn’t replace Parliament and the executive branch of the government, but it does put a check on them and makes them more responsive to the people. And more responsible.
Can it work here? Of course it can. In fact, it is used in several other countries, like Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and 24 States in the US, to name a few.
PEOPLE POWER explains why this is the only way we can regain the power we have lost – and how we can do it.
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