Lewis has been talking a bit recently about constructive votes of confidence, particularly when appointing a Prime Minister. At present, the first opportunity the House has to vote down a government is at the end of the Address in Reply...
Brian of the NZ Monarchist blog is worried about how the Treaty of Waitangi could apply if New Zealand became a republic, because the treaty is with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. I really don't see how this is...
Continue reading "The Treaty of Waitangi and Republicanism" »
Lewis Holden has written a good article on the Constitution of New Zealand (yes we do have one). It has a slight slant towards his republican views, but is still a very good source of information....
No Right Turn has a very well-reasoned submission opposing the bill to reduce the number of MPs. He that reducing the number of MPs without reducing the number of electorates effectively destroys proportional representation (the whole reason for MMP), and...
I hadn't noticed previously, but on Tuesday Parliament voted to suspend Standing Orders, to allow the introduction of an omnibus bill to rework a lot of the laws around local government. The motion to suspend standing orders passed by only...
Lewis Holden has posted his thoughts on Mai Chen's article about elevating the Treaty of Waitangi to a supreme law (so laws contradicting it could be struck down by the courts). He specifically points out that a move to a...
There's an opinion piece in the NZ Herald today written by Mai Chen, part of the Chen and Palmer public law firm. She is suggesting that the NZ Supreme Court might be willing to make the Treaty of Waitangi as...
Parliament provides a number of ways for Opposition MPs to get information from Ministers in order to hold them accountable. Once such mechanism are written questions.MPs may ask written questions to Ministers about anything related to their portfolios. There is...
I wrote previously about some limitations that could be made to the rules on urgency in Parliament, to try and slow down the pace of Parliament. The New Zealand Parliament passes a large number of laws at present, some of...
Lewis and I have both posted recently on the possibilities of reintroducing an Upper House in New Zealand, mainly to slow down the pace of legislation. Unfortunately we both agree that such an event is extremely unlikely, as neither National...
Holden Republic has an interesting post waying up the pros and cons of bringing back the Upper House. The post also takes a look at Doug Graham's proposal back in the early 1990s to establish a Senate, which I would...
Sir Humphrey's Department of Unspin has its weekly poll on this issue this week. One of the first comments on that poll points to the example of Switzerland, then it could work for us.However, I don't think it is as...
Continue reading "Should citizen-initiated referendums be binding?" »
My name is Dave Bryant, the author and sometimes philosopher of this website. I've been writing about theology and apologetics for the last few years and recently starting rambling a bit about politics and software development as well. More about me or contact me.
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Copyright © 2000-2007 to David Bryant.
