Opinion by Tony Orman
Democracy is careering out of control just like a runaway wagon – and heading for oblivion.
Just weeks ago, in late January 2025, “Newsroom” journalist Marc Daalder wrote an article titled “Government smashes record for laws passed without select committee scrutiny.”
The subtitle was “The Government has forced more legislation all the way through Parliament under urgency in its first 400 days than any since at least 1987.”
Of course 1987 was when the 4th Labour government known as “Rogernomics”, was showing utter disdain for the people who had elected them in 1984.
Over the years, I’ve had a few forays into select committees.
I recall making submissions opposing trout farming in the early 1970s where I was allowed to speak for an hour and then answer questions from MPs for half an hour. I made submissions to other Select Committees such as the Maori Fisheries Bill 1990 when I was granted over an hour although two Labour MPs were openly aggressive and abusive.
About the same time I made submissions to the Conservation Law Reform Bill spending an hour during which mPs were respectful.
But select committees the old traditional and time honoured way of making a submission as a member of the public – and voting person – has since been under attack.
Indeed select committees are the only opportunity for a member of the public to make their views known.
Timely
Newsroom’s article just five weeks ago, was very timely. Yet the main stream media seemed to give it no acknowledgement.
What is alarming is that the present coalition parties, when in opposition, decried the 2017 -2023 Labour government’s disrespect and at times bypassing of select committees and the people’s right to input, is now hypocritically compiling an even more tarnished attitude towards vital democracy as pointed out by Newsroom’s Marc Daalder.
But then the Labour government, virtually in coalition with the Maori and Green Parties, passed ’traffic light’ covid legislation with no select committee.
There was zero public input.
Having no select committee for new law, had probably happened before as National’s PM John Key carried out some covert operations such as sending Maori MP Pita Sharples to the UN to sign an indigenous pact.
There’s nothing wrong with the action – if Key had sought and obtained the “okay” from the public. But he didn’t.
ECan Debacle
Among a number, of anti-democratic misdemeanours, one action by the National Key government was totally unprecedented.
Ironically on April Fool’s Day 2010, the then Minister for the Environment Nick Smith and PM John Key and government MPs pushed through Parliament, a bill which sacked the democratically elected Environment Canterbury (ECan) council and replaced it with hand-picked sycophantic state commissioners.
Or should “commissioners” be “puppets”?
The move outraged the Law Society Rule of Law Committee which denounced the ECan Act as “repugnant” to the Rule of Law. Most were appalled.
But National’s PM John Key and Environment Minister Nick Smith were unfazed.
Labour’s anti-firearm law following the March 15, 2019 mosque shooting by a visiting Australian terrorist who inexplicably was granted a firearms licence and the right to purchase weapons and ammunition, was highly undemocratic.
It did go to select committee but it was utterly farcical.
No Credibility
According to reports there were some 12,000 submissions, but the Jacinda Ardern led government, backed by National, rammed it through in a couple of days, thus defying credibility and integrity.
The law abiding firearm owning public were targeted by the new, hastily driven law while criminals and gangs reportedly became better armed (illegally) by under-the-table sales.
Whereas over decades in the 20th century submitters were granted speaking times like an hour and a half and down to an hour, select committees are now invariably just five minutes speaking time.
A couple of years ago, current Council of Outdoor Recreation Association’s Chairman Andi Cockroft made an oral submission to a select committee dealing with the Resource Management Act (RMA).
After being initially granted 15 minutes speaking time the chairman, Labour’s Duncan Webb interrupted Mr. Cockroft’s submission after five minutes and said the committee had heard enough thereby cutting the oral presentation short by ten minutes.
It was an insult to CORANZ, to Mr. Cockroft and to democracy.
Physically Kicked Out
In another case the late Bud Jones was physically manhandled from the select committee room dealing with the Treaty of Waitangi because his views of equality did not find favour with the chairman and cronies.
MPs need a stern rebuke for their disrespect for democracy and it’s been happening for far too long. Worse still, it’s growing in frequency as Marc Daalder’s article adeptly points out. The coalition government is glaringly guilty.
MPs need reminding they are public servants – not masters or mistresses of the people.
The erosion of democracy is starting to plumb dark depths.
Footnote: For Newsroom’s article see https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/01/28/govt-smashes-record-for-laws-passed-without-select-committee-scrutiny/
Socrates said it:- “I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live. ”
Why are politicians so despised by the public? They should have mirrors in the Beehive for politicians to see the reason.
Why do we stumble from one dishonest government to another dishonest government?
The Fast Track Act of Shane Jones and Chris Bishop does away with select committees. Both should be ashamed of themselves.
What about the gutless, sycophantic MPs in National, ACT and NZ First who voted yes for the new draconian law. Shame on you too.
Tony….you’re right.. You are the last of a dying breed. NZ needs a reset. NZ needs a Trump. Where are all the “real men”? ( and strong women?)….:Apathy is the enemy of freedom…..Come on NZ….it’s do or die.
That the current government is attacking democratic institutions comes as no surprise. Leading their main brain trust is none other than John Key, who praises authoritarian leaders like Donald Trump. In fact, the Atlas Network and Heritage Foundation finance both of them. Like the US, New Zealand now is a government of, by and for lobbyists and crony capitalists. Chris Bishop, who chaired National’s 2023 campaign, is a former Big Tobacco lobbyist for Philip Morris. Finance Minister Nicola Willis is a former lobbyist for Fonterra. And David Seymour has long ties with the Atlas Network, the right-wing hydra of right-wing thinktanks that spawns more rightwing think tanks. New Zealand’s long famous reputation as an honestly governed democracy is just an illusion these days, largely because Industrial Dairy, Irrigation and Fertiliser interests frankly find democracy is an impediment to the wielding of power. If you ask them how they can claim to be free market capitalists when they clearly pick winners and losers in the economy and they don’t have an answer. Ecotourism earned more foreign currency than Big Dairy prior to COVID but the way the agricultural industries pollute our rivers is incompatible with the rest of our economy as well as our national brand. Point out that their externalization of environmental costs–that is, asking today and future taxpayers to pay for clean up or health care costs –is intergenerational theft–and they’ll have a simple blunt answer: “We don’t care.” https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/529507/why-sir-john-key-thinks-donald-trump-should-win-the-us-election
Technically MPs are actually Public Representatives but your point is apt – being responsive to the demands of the MAJORITY of the populace, representing their interests, is the hallmark of a true democracy. Instead what we have is a liberal mish mash inversion of this where the law and the enforcers of it, promote the interests of favoured minorities over and above those of the “demos” thus being unequivocal evidence of the enfeeblement of the plebiscite which in turn undermines the legitimacy of parliament. This leads to cynicism about voting at all – why bother, if we are just routinely ignored?
Democracy is defined as government of the people, by the people and for the people BUT that definition does not say WHICH PEOPLE.
The assumption that it is ALL of the people is totally false and allowing the “common people” to vote does not validate it.
Our system of government is of the people by and for SOME OF THE PEOPLE who have the most influence in the 2 major political parties.
This members of this minority are the party authorities and significant donors, who provide the necessary money for the party to function and be successful in elections.
They are the DECIDERS who select, support and promote their celebrity politicians to become elected to represent and serve THEM.
Elections are competitions between the deciders in the various political parties to determine who will win the “Game of Thrones” by offering voters more of what they want at the expense of someone else.
Public “consultation” and submissions have no influence on the decisions that have already been made unless they indicate that there is enough strong opposition to negatively effect party success in the next elections.
The will of the majority is never seriously considered unless the Deciders perceive it as a threat to their political success and power over their subjects.
There is only one way for ordinary citizens who desire any influence in their governance to gain it. That is to join and participate actively in a political party that is able to play the Game of Thrones successfully.
The minority of people that understand this do gain some ability to influence the decisions of the party Deciders and also be rewarded for their loyalty, efforts and contributions to the success of their political Team.
Active participation and influence by “dissidents”, who might disagree with the Deciders, is not wanted. Such people are prevented from becoming involved in local, regional and national meetings and encouraged to stay away and try to establish new little parties that can never threaten the success of the main ones.
That is why there were 19 political parties in the last elections but only 2 with a real chance of winning the competition for government authority and power over the rest of the people.
This time, the deciders in the National Party won and will now be able to reward their influential members, financial donors and loyal supporters for their help.
Those people of the ACT and NZ1st parties will also benefit at the expense of the common people who will then become disappointed and choose Labour (and friends) in a future election.
Our political system is government of the people by the ones that are active and influential in the 2 major political parties and the other 4 smaller ones that support their coalitions.
The rest of the people are just spectators of the game that they do not understand and have no influence in but still PAY FOR it to be played.
Democracy is better than other forms of government that have been tried but it is still of the majority of the people by and for the minority that are politically active and influential in the GAME OF THRONES.
Ah Justice Will B Dunn, you end asking “Why bother, if we are being routinely ignored?”
Plato in Ancient Greece had the answer:- “The price of apathy is to be ruled by evil men.”
It’s been said before such as Robert M Hutchins who said:- “The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.”
What don’t MPs understand?
They are elected by a democratic system by the people to serve the people.
Surely that’s so clear?
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
― George Orwell, 1984
Orwell also said:
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.
Remind anyone of a certain Tribunal????
Then again, Orwell wrote many books, but sadly modern neo-liberals seem to regard them as instruction manuals rather than works of fiction!
Perhaps best known:
All Animals Are Equal. But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.
Indifference or apathy undermines democracy too.The eventual death of democracy will not be sudden but a slow but steady juggernaut rolling on. It began in 1980s with the 4th Labour government and sped up with the Key National government and then the Labour/Greens/ Te Pati Maori coalition and now Messrs Jones and Bishop are carrying on the decline. It will be a slow death due to apathy and indifference by the people but we’re already well towards the extinction because too many selfishly don’t care for the future and the adult lives of their children and grandchildren.
As a people we are failing to hold politicians to account.