Will there be a vote on four-year political terms?
New Zealanders may vote on whether to extend political terms to four years at the next election.
At the Bloomberg Address in Auckland Friday, Christopher Luxon said the coalition government planned to propose a referendum for 2026.
Luxon said the idea had cross-party support.
What the vast, vast, vast amount of Kiwis do not understand and do not know is that the NZ Parliament is one of the most powerful Parliament’s in the entire WestMinister Democratic tradition.
NZ has a unicameral Parliament, which means we are one of the few Parliaments in Western Civilisation where you can literally speak a law into power without any Upper Chamber oversight.
The BeeHive is the Lamborghini of Parliaments, in that it’s all one giant midlife crisis masquerading as freedom.
Now why, I say, why, would you all collectively agree to give the most powerful Parliament in Western Civilisation one extra year where they aren’t accountable?
The claim is that moving to a 4 year term ends short term political escapades by the Parties which is bullshit.
A 5 Year Term would do that, a 4 year term simply expands the short term thinking of the Party in power.
5 years forces you to think big.
The Political Parties have more power through our Parliament to do meaningful things, they simply chose not to.
Giving them 1 more year of unaccountability to solve a deep seated issue of short termism isn’t a solution.
5 year terms are a solution to that.
A 4 Year term simply allows the Government to be unaccountable for 12 months longer.
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Not until we get an upper house, or some other mechanism for keeping ther bs artists in check
Good comment . They should have a Maori section to give their voice to policy.
And a Pomme immigrant whining section.
I was reading somewhere that we did have an Upper House right up to shortly after WW2. I’m off to look into more before commenting further.
A bit of a catch 22 here .If you have a shit government like the one we now have 5 years is a long time and imagine the damage they would do in that time and you could in theory end up with them for 15 years and NZ would be gone extinct .However a real good government which governs for the people on the other hand could achieve a lot in that 5 years .You are right 4 years would just allow another year of can kicking and minority bashing as is the case right now .I like the upper house idea as it would prevent the current destroy everything behaviour and we would still be getting 2 real good state of the art ferries for a kick off .An upper house of 21 so there is always a majority vote might do the job .However this house should never be chosen on party lines and we must never move to a system where we end up with a president as in USA .Another thing that needs adressing is campain funding which is becoming a joke as big business is now controlling that funding .A better system might be where the state allocates funding for that purpose and no private money can be used other than say $5k of the candidates own money .
There’s no reason that 4 years would be needed by a good government. Before WW2 you had leading figures in the UK Labour Party talking about how the problems caused by the House of Lords could be bypassed to implement socialism by force in the UK with emergency powers. If they’d succeeded, that war would never have happened.
Four year terms would have lumbered the nation with the Key government until 2020. And doomed it to the Ardern government until 2025. I think the nation quite likes three terms of three years.
Three years good, four years bad, five years badder.
Yup, seeing what happened with UK Tories’ last term makes me pretty content sticking with three years
We kinda already have a six year term. You’d have to be a very shit govt to only get 3 years.
So, I’m for 3 with a right of renewal, if you’re doing OK.
Hmmm. 5 years makes sense.
Oh christ no!
Look how that’s gone in the UK… The Tories efffectively lost their mandate in late 2022 when Liz Truss crashed the economy in a record speed and was the shortest serving PM in british history, but because that term started in December 2019 they had another 2 years with a third PM that term despite the polls showing Labour about 20-30 points ahead
So we go from the Treaty referendum to the 4 year term referendum.
Coincidental or not?
The first mistake the fascist White right wing Gov’t has made?
This could be a rallying point for the left and to land the swinging vote if we play it right.
But does the left have charismatic leaders to ram home this opportuinity?
Not right now unfortunately but by 2026 we should have.
As to the concept of a 4 year term?
People know after 3 years if a Government is doing alright or not.
I thought this Government was shit in July last year with their Maori bashing rhetoric election campaign.
I would kick them out tomorrow if I could. Certainly don’t need 4 years to know they are shit.
If the Government is doing a good job they will get 3 more years.
If not they can be replaced after 3 years.
Definitely an excellent opportunity dropped in our left wing lap .
Yes support the referendum but only to use it to attack the right at the election.
Are our left wing leaders smart enough to make this opportunity count?
Let’s have another Flag Referendum $26 Million I think ????
Are our left wing leaders smart enough to make this opportunity count?
Are they left enough to want to?
We need more democracy not less.
Most NZ governments, unless they are extraordinalrilly bad, do two terms. That is 6 years.
Some do three terms – nine years.
Moving to a 4 year term will disenfranchise young people even more than our electoral system does now.
If a young person turns 18 just after an election, they will not be able to vote for the first time until they are 22.
If a four year term is enacted it must also enact young people’s demand to Make It Sixteen.
https://www.makeit16.org.nz/
No to any term extension. Point to consider
1- Being in opposition means you are a shadow government and need to have costed and sorted policies to promote and be elected upon. When Ardern got voted in the first time, the Labour party was the proverbial possum in the head lights of the oncoming train. Never in their nine years in opposition did they think, or prepare to be, the government. You could read the faces and thoughts; “now what?” Current Labour party is no better at planning to be on the treasury benches, at the next election.
2- We need term limits that a person can serve in the peoples parliament. To many spending thirty or more years sucking the teat for little input or more importantly output. Favour a maximum of 4 x 3 year terms.
3- We need more people with world experience and dirt (as in having worked for a living) on their hands instead of the career path that a communication degree, parliament lackie office clone PR person, party faithful elected on the list slave, we seem to generate these days.
4- We need to do away with list seats. Each and every member of parliament should be voted in by an individual electorate. Slash each electoral size to accommodate the 120 seat (though and argument could be made to only have 60 MP’s). List seats guarantee (except for the Greens) party wishes and policy direction compliance.
5- Disperse government agencies around the country to disperse the “Wellington Beltway” mentality. No reason to have the agencies centralised in an earth quake prone capital.
6- Have a recall process where a government can be held to account if election promises are cancelled or over ridden. Recall process to include the ability for the electorates to hold their local MP to account.
7- MP’s to have proper staffed offices in their electorates. Louisa Wall in Manurewa had a well staffed office where constituents could meet their representative or staffers. You knew you were in Labour country with plenty of signage, parking, people (and fund raising activity) in a prominent Great South Road spot. Labour now has a non person MP with only a phone number and email address for point of contact. No stake in the ground as a foundation to support local people.
Am sure there are many more points to support the people representation better in parliament. Extending terms is certainly not one of them.
You have nailed it, the politicians are elected to serve the people but they mostly only look after themselves.
OMG five years that is terrifying.
Three years is more than enough. You can hang on to them if they have done a good job (actually can’t think of any who really have) and you can boot them out for all the shit they have done like this current lot.
Agree +100% generally most Government’s get a 2 x 3 year Term National or Labour Coalition’s, as we generally give them the benefit of the doubt. Not sure about this COC however my thoughts are probably different to the Average Joe here in NZ.
Agree +100% generally most Government’s get a 2 x 3 year Term National or Labour Coalition’s, as we generally give them the benefit of the doubt. Not sure about this COC however my thoughts are probably different to the Average Joe here in NZ.
If we keep the 3 year term we need to have more cross party agreement on project so we are not wasting time and money with stop go policy on projects like roads transport etc
If a week is a long time in politics, then what is four years?
An eternity, during which the politicians will do untold damage to the nation.
Do we really want to give them an irrevocable power of attorney over the affairs of the nation for four or five years?
The politicians are telling us that three years in office is too short a time. They say that they need to have power for four years, and some are suggesting five. If we allow them five years of unaccountable power and lavish salaries, what are the odds that they will then start arguing for ten or twenty years?
Stop and think about it. Any increase in length of the term of office marks a shift in power from the people (who currently have precious little power) to their rulers (who already have way too much).
The only way in which ordinary citizens can participate in New Zealand’s so-called democracy is by ticking a box once every three years as a way of registering their dissatisfaction (or fury) with the self-serving political cliques who rule over them. How will it help to reduce that opportunity to once every four or five years?
Most of the organisations to which I belong have elections at the annual general meeting, meaning that those appointed to lead and manage have one year in office. If they do well, as almost they almost invariably do, then they are re-elected for successive terms.
Even better would be no fixed term of office. Continuous election under the open ballot would make for stable, responsible and effective government. That would put the voters in charge and that would constitute a genuine democracy.
Hello there Martyn. Good to know you are still thinking positive. Your opinions for 4 or 5 years are all possible. However I feel that neither will make any difference to the performance of our politicians today. They have been soaked in new-brand neoliberalism which is intoxicating with extra toxic. No period will make our pollies better, though if you can think how to restrain (retrain) them it would be good.
Unfortunately it is as Geoffrey Palmer wrote in both Bridled Power 2004 and Unbridled Power 1990. He has written a number of books about our Kiwi ways but we are so interested that even a government link can’t produce a basic list of them. However there are many on sale so happy reading. However the sober study and theory of NZ politics and repetition of goodwill and ways to all men seems pea-brained (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43-7fGKKg2s).
My main reaction is wonder and admiration that he had the strength to persevere and write these texts and others. ‘He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 1991 New Year Honours’.
Jun.25/24 – https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/06/25/geoffrey-palmer-nz-an-executive-paradise-not-democratic-paradise/ –
Excerpted with permission from a speech… to a Young Labour event. The former PM offers recommendations on how to improve law-making, Parliament and the public’s right to influence policy.
…The Cabinet is the major decision-making body. It sets the priorities – it proposes legislation, taxation and policies to Parliament. It is accountable to the House of Representatives and to the electorate every three years.
In our system, the Executive is too big and too powerful. It dominates the Parliament too easily and there are not enough checks and balances in the New Zealand system. New Zealand is an executive paradise, not a democratic paradise.
There are 123 MPs in the present Parliament and 30 of them are in the Executive. That is 24.1 percent of the whole House. Given that the Executive is accountable to Parliament that seems too many ministers – a cabinet of 20 ministers should be sufficient. Cabinet ministers are all paid more than ordinary MPs…
Since 1956 New Zealand has had six reserved provisions in the Electoral Act that can only be altered by a 75 percent majority in Parliament or a simple majority in referendum of the voters. [Just like Brexit? If so, that is not wise.] The most important of which are the Representation Commission that settles electoral boundaries and the tolerances allowed, and the method of voting including the secret ballot. These provisions make gerrymandering the boundaries of electorates for political advantage impossible.
In New Zealand, there are serious gaps in the law when it comes to regulating political parties. One expert says our “disclosure regime was so riddled with loopholes as to operate on a virtually voluntary basis; any donor who wished to keep her or his identity secret could do so easily and completely legally.”
Reform: A Memoir (paperback) 2013
Te Herenga Waka University Press
https://teherengawakapress.co.nz › … › History
In this memoir, Geoffrey Palmer recounts the events and forces that shaped him as well as his many adventures in reforming a wide range of institutions, laws …
But also ‘In the 1991 New Year Honours, [Roger Douglas] was appointed a Knight Bachelor, for public services’, so now you know why the toilets aren’t up to standard.
Thank you grey warbler for the history – or some of it. Anyone who’s studied NZ political history knows the longer parliamentary term has come up for referenda about every decade and a half. Every time it has come up, it has been defeated, by huge margins. Every time, there’s been a survey/poll taken, and the answer is always the same.
There are good and sound reasons for a four and five year term, BUT and it’s a humongous BUT, we, the NZ public will NEVER trust our politicians until they reform parliament with (a) an upper house, and (b) an overriding and entrenched Bill of Rights that parliament can NEVER change. Why?
Because all too often in the past NZ politicians have shown themselves unworthy of the trust they were elected to perform. So until they give us, the general public, what we demand, they can take their wish for an extended term and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
That’s what every survey has told government after government. They know this, but they still keep trying. It’s all in the history books.
If they want a four or five year term, the answer is simple.
1. Reinstate the Upper House.
2. Sign into entrenched law a Bill of Rights with teeth.
The devil is in the detail, but the general consensus over the years is that the Upper House should be part elected and part appointed. The Bill of Rights should be similar to Palmer’s original one before it was heavily chopped AND MUST bind the Crown.
People who are really interested in this one, need to do their homework.
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