"In a modern democracy... You have to have responsiveness and you have to have public involvement in the decisions all the time, not just the time of elections.
What happens in NZ is we tend to go to sleep between the elections and there isn't enough public involvement in the decision-making system. We need in this country much more deliberative democracy if we are not to go the way they've gone in the US or Britain ..."
"I think that as politicians we also have to look in the mirror and say; are we engaging the public? Because actually when the issues are put in front of people, and it seems like it's going to be a very important decision and there are real alternatives, turnout does go up."
Bolger had me enthusiastically agreeing for a second there, and then he said;
"Now the big challenge to lead on... is how do we manage a world where most of the work is done by AI... The society that will be totally different, when most of the jobs that we know about today will be gone. 90% of... legal work will be able to be done by AI."
Then in the panel discussion with the other PMs, I was fascinated by this exchange;
"We certainly don't need an appointed second chamber, but I think we would benefit from an elected second chamber. Let me test your tolerance... given the judgement [by former Court of Appeal President Justice Robin Cooke] that the Treaty was a partnership... that we have a second chamber that is 50% Māori and 50% non-Māori - elected."
"It's very difficult in a democratic system to say some votes are worth more than others. That's the difficulty with the American Senate... and also the House. I mean, you really have got a long way to go if you depart from the principle of one person, one vote."
Over the last few decades, neoliberal policy has enabled a new feudalism, where a few hundred families own as much as one half of the population. These rentiers now have huge influence over both business and politics. As a series of distractions from this real and concerning neo-feudalism, its lackeys are whipping up fear of Māori having their treaty rights fully recognised in practice. Implying this would make them into a feudal aristocracy.
"I argued that what differentiates the 1985 Amendment Act from the 1975 Act is the ‘recognition of iwi-Māori rather than pan-Māori as the inheritors of Treaty settlements’. That recognition established the reviving tribe as “both political player and economic corporation” and has been foundational in promoting the tino rangatiratanga or ethno-nationalism exemplified in the He Puapua report."
While granting of pan-Māori rights could arguably be described as "ethno-nationalist", granting them to iwi simply can't. Because rights are being granted not to everyone of a certain ethnicity, but on the basis of a particular group's history of association with a local area. In other words, recognising the role of iwi as the fundamental unit of Māori democracy moved us away from ethno-nationalism. Both the well established Pākeha one, and the nascent pan-Māori one.
"The He Puapua Report proposes revolutionary change for New Zealand. The question of how we have arrived at a crossroads where New Zealanders will have to choose between an ethno-nationalist state — which He Puapua leads to — or a democratic-nationalist one has its origins in three events in 1985, 1986 and 1987."
The choice to contrast "ethno-nationalist" and "democratic-nationalist" sets up a false dichotomy. It implies that recognising Māori right to self-government (tino rangatiratanga) is incompatible with democracy. It also implies that there's only one way to do democracy; the European way. Which sounds remarkably "ethno-nationalist" to me.
Where kiwis are actually losing important democratic rights is in things like trade agreements, PPPs, outsourcing of public services, and "Fast Track" consents. All of these reduce our ability as citizens to get detailed information about how public infrastructure and services are being run, or to have a say in projects that may impact on our communities and our environments.
In practice, co-governance tends to increase public access to information and involvement in oversight.
Me:
> It also implies that there's only one way to do democracy; the European way. Which sounds remarkably "ethno-nationalist" to me.
Rata states this explicitly;
"Māori and non-Māori cultural practices may be accommodated in the public sphere but only to the extent to which they are consistent with the principles of liberal democracy."
ie principles of European democracy. In Rata's formulation, Māori cultural practices must remain subordinate to political traditions of the settler culture.
Eh? Social psychology has a wealth of research on implicit bias, in which people intend to do one thing, but hide from themselves that they really do otherwise;
"The extent of Treaty ideology in the university is more disturbing than in society at large. Universities are responsible for leading the public scrutiny of social and political life. Academics are even protected in doing so...
Where are the academics in the social sciences, the law schools, in philosophy and in education undertaking this critique?"
Professor Elizabeth Rata, School of Critical Studies in Education, University of Auckland
Not to mention the fact that democracyproject.nz, which published this piece by Prof Rata, is hosted by Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.
Claiming that one side of a debate is being censored, while presenting that side in a public medium that nobody is asking to censor it, is a typical US conservative tactic. Invoking a completely false image of an underdog speaking truth to power.
"However, attuning people to use 'Treaty articles' instead of 'Treaty principles' will provide the mind bridge required for people to accept the placement of the Treaty of Waitangi into law. That will be the event constituting ethno-nationalism."
Eh? Te Tiriti is, by definition, the foundation of all NZ law. It's the instrument by which the settler government gained the right to make and enforce laws at all.
@strypey Such a weird piece by Rata. As just one example, the "principles of liberal democracy" she extols include constitutional government and the rule of law - with both of these having important English precedents going back centuries and which can only claim legitimacy in Aotearoa precisely because of Te Tiriti. Yet she also claims and celebrates the notion that a Westminster style Government can just discard foundational parts of the constitution. 1/
@strypey Would she be so cavalier as to suggest we could just retrospectively reject parts of the common law and still be a liberal democracy? At best she's highlighting foundational inconsistencies in the principles of liberal democracy, especially as it exists in Aotearoa right now. You can't have continuous rule of law under a constitutional government here without Te Tiriti. 2/
@strypey This inconsistency is why Brookfield, for example, advanced the (questionable) notion that the Crown undertook a "revolutionary seizure of power" - something which Rata prefers to understand as a benign reinterpretation of the constitution of the sort she thinks Westminster-style governments can just do while still considering themselves to be liberal democracies. 3/3
@scattermutant
> I am a complete amateur when it comes to history or any field of the law. Just spouting my opinions.
Same, same. Keep it up!
I think Rata is profoundly wrong on many points (see the rest of the thread), but counter-intuitively I value her willingness to be so badly wrong in public. Listening to many experts, especially where they disagree, and debating it out in public fora, is how knowledge generated by the work of experts is translated into democratic consensus.
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