Four-year parliamentary term legislation to be introduced, would go to referendum
The coalition will introduce legislation on a four-year Parliamentary term, subject to a referendum, with all three parties supporting it to a select committee.
Oh National want a ‘good faith’ debate now do they?
Fuck them!
They have had a bad faith debate over the Treaty.
A bad faith debate over crime.
A bad faith debate over public housing.
A bad faith debate over the Ferries.
A bad faith debate over school food.
A bad faith debate over fast tracking powers.
A bad faith debate over FamilyBoost.
A bad faith debate over tax cuts.
A bad faith debate over public health.
IN ALL THOSE ISSUES, National has pursued a bad faith debate BUT NOW THEY NEED OUR BUY IN FOR THEIR 4 TERM PLAN – oh now these rich fucks want a good faith debate do they?
Go fuck yourself.
Why the Christ would any of us be so stupid to let these corrupt pricks have an extra year?
NZ has one of the most powerful Parliaments in the Western World – no where else can you just read d law into power, so NZ has the most powerful Parliament in the Western World, and National want to add a year that power with bullshit overview?
Why would you muppets get tricked into this?
How masochistic is NZ as a people to agree to this?
Allowing a new Government to decide every election whether they want a 3 year term or 4 term is insane, you can’t be this stupid?
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“ NZ has one of the most powerful Parliaments in the Western World ”
No. No it doesn’t. New Zealand has one of the most subservient Parliaments in the Western World. Power resides unchecked in Cabinet and is rubber-stamped by an increasingly docile legislature.
For a government to choose its own term of office sounds weird and highly undemocratic and it is in fact both those things. But from another perspective there is a method to it. Once you have established the principle that a government can, subject to certain conditions, extend its term of office beyond the constitutional norm, then, helped by the fact that that New Zealand sovereignty is vested in the monarch, it can expand that principle to go for a five or ten year term. At present New Zealand is a pseudo-democracy. When the politicians have extended their period of absolute non-accountability to four years it will be well on the way to overt dictatorship.
Rubbish.
Yes, for once I agree, your one word comments are rubbish.
Lets cut it to two right now and get rid of these fuckers right now .
How come it has not been passed under urgency already they could have set up some more Maori bashing shit and pushed this through while the hobbits were not watching
Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your view the 3 year term cannot be changed without a 75% majority vote in parliament or referendum.
Either way at the moment big business will dictate the results of either system.
The proposal as it stands is ludicrous, why would you vote not knowing if you were voting for a 3 or 4 year term.
Even if each party said it was going to be one of the other would you trust them.
Even if you went with Seymour and his idea of stacking the select committees with opposition members what would you achieve. We already have a government that ignores select committee reports or doesn’t even have committee and ignores advice from Treasury and other government bodies and favours lobby groups and donors.
Nothing will change if you have either a 3, 4 or even a 5 year term.
“Evil prevails when good people fail to act.”
Someone in Wellington should call upon the *governor general to suspend the current idiocracy and announce a snap election. Those fuckers need to go before they do anymore damage.
* But is that within her remit, do you think?
What I would say to you, so as to make it crystal clear, we need another year to get lazer focussed on outcomes and cleaning up Labours mess.
In my life as a voter the bastards have had two shots by referendum at increasing the parliamentary term to four years and been soundly defeated each time.
Who are these chumps pretending to be now?
Did someone in NAct go: “Hey guys, I just saw the Star Wars prequels and ya’ know, the bad guy in that just kinda’ took over by extending his term indefinitely. And what’s more, everyone rolled over and agreed with him!”
But seriously, no New Zealander in their right mind would support this notion, given the pitiful lack of democratic input this country has from its majority working class electorate.
If a government does a good enough job over 3 years, then they’ll get re-elected to make 6.
Funny how this rabble, increasingly looking like being a one term circus, want to change the rules a la’ Palpatine.
Just imagine: “Look, what I’d say to you is, there is no evidence to suggest any member of the National Party has been using the dark side of the Force. If they did, they would be failing to meet my expectations.”
Utterly, absolutely, resoundingly: NO to four year terms.
“Evil prevails when good people fail to act.”
Someone in Wellington should call upon the governor general to suspend the functionality of the current Idiocracy then announce a snap election. These fuckers need to go before they do anymore damage. They’re not by us for us so who’s are they and who do they work for? But then who cares, right? We must reacquaint ourselves with the solemn notion that we must protect ourselves and to be honest, we’ve been doing a shit job of that for the last 89 years.
I agree- Imagine the nightmare of Jacinda for 4 years- or the TPM Greens and Labour.
Stick to 3 so we can boot them out.
Jacinda is a lovely person and she was a very kind and people focused Prime Minister. You obviously have never had a nightmare.
History will define her well. Not so the knuckle draggers
Stick to watching the wiggles.
A wonderful dream of Jacinda whilst you wet dream over Key and uncle Fester.
Currently the 5% threshold is a serious barrier to the accession of new parties to parliament. A new party has to establish its credentials in a first election where with luck and after a year of solid preparation it might gain around 1% of votes. If it does not give up at that first hurdle (as many do) at the next election in 3 years time it will have credibility as an established party with significant support. It might then crack 5% but on past experience it is more likely that it will take at least one more election to make it into parliament. This is the empirical reality. So seven years for a new party to make it into parliament. That becomes nine years if parliament has a four year term. Then another four years to demonstrate their competence in parliament. A total of 13 years which is a very long time in politics. After nine or more years the issues and conditions which gave rise to the new party may have changed dramatically. The measures that they set out to oppose may have been set in concrete or entrenched beyond any serious hope of change. Think, for example, of the neo-liberal economic restructuring of the late twentieth century. After seven years the founding members of the party may have passed on. So the fixed term of parliament coupled with the 5% threshold is a very effective combination against putting in place new instruments of political representation aka new political parties. A four year term will make it that much harder. Maybe impossible. Certainly that is what the incumbent parties will be hoping.
So will this be good or bad for democracy? I believe it will be good, because it will remove the last vestiges of conviction that people can make a difference in the colonialist pseudo-democratic political system. It will dispel the illusion that politicians can be held to account within a meaningful time frame. If enacted into law, the four year term will discourage the formation of new parliamentary parties and the continuation of parties which failed to get over the threshold at the first or second attempts. Faith in the system will be eroded even further. Conversely the four year term may encourage a switch to extra-parliamentary political activism and the development of rangatiratanga. That has to be a good thing.
Why would anybody want any of them in for four years? Three is far too long.
Four years of this lot would be criminal, there has to be some form of separate control of whoever is the govt. NZ needs an upper house to control a manic executive like the Nat circus and the righty tighty racist fascist fuckwits in Act.
What a fucking laugh the two gay chaps from the UK
More accountability for all of them not less.
Michael Laws has great a rant on the Platform today.
To vote for ‘Four Years’, is to vote for more wars (before we can vote to support or oppose them).
Most wars are over in four years. A four year term government could take us into a war and not have to account for their actions for four long years. Four years is way too long for any New Zealanders to kill or die, in an unpopular war, without democratic oversight.
Who wants to give the Nacts, or even Labour, the power take us into a war for four years?
Most NZ governments, serve more than one term.
Three, is the most common number of terms served by New Zealand governments. The second most common number of terms served by a New Zealand government, is two terms, if government MPs can’t achieve their party’s policy goals in nine, or six years, there is something seriously wrong with them. Even 6 years is a long time in politics, the second most common time New Zealand government’s serve in power.
There have only ever been two – three year governments, in the entire history of New Zealand parliamentary democracy.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/20-06-2024/a-complete-history-of-new-zealands-one-term-governments
Even in 3 years a government can enact a lot. And if a lot of what they enact is unpopular, we can remove them before they can enact (and embed), any more unpopular legislation.
We need more democracy, not less.
We need more youth engagement in our democracy, not less.
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 for a four year government, they will not be able to vote for the first time until they are 22.
Make It 16 is a youth-led, non-partisan campaign aiming to uplift and strengthen youth voices by lowering the voting age to 16. We believe 16 and 17-year-olds are just as affected by government decisions as people over 18
https://www.makeit16.org.nz/
If a four year term is ever enacted, we must demand that the young people’s campaign to ‘Make It 16’ must also be enacted.
We need more democracy, not less.
Don’t vote for less democracy.
Vote ‘NO’ to a four year electoral term.
The 4 year term proposal has reared its ugly head yet again – this is the third time since 1975. Each time it has gone to a referendum, and each time it has been resoundly defeated. I expect the same thing this time. The preconditions for any extension to our current 3 year term have been well published in many, many historic documents. They include: restoration of a second house, a written Bill of Rights with penalties, and STV as the voting system. Our current unicameral parliament, even with PR as the voting system under MMP, is merely an elected dictatorship. If NZ is adult enough for for the well published conditions, then parliamentarians will heed this and act on it. If it isn’t, it won’t.