ANANISH CHAUDHURI: Is New Zealand in danger of lurching towards constitutional impropriety?
- Administrator
- Aug 25, 2024
- 3 min read
Lately, I am seeing a lot of articles that accuse the current government of imperiling New Zealand’s democracy. One of the more recent entries is by former Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer arguing in Newsroom that “New Zealand is in danger of lurching towards constitutional impropriety.” He also writes that he is “concerned that our democracy is being weakened by the methods this Government is using to achieve its goals.”
Other liberal luminaries like Helen Clark and Anne Salmond have also been
delivering such salvoes frequently.
I agree with some of these criticisms. Governments should not be rushing bills through Parliament under urgency as far as practicable. It is important that members of parliament have time to debate the provisions of bills.
But my question is: Were people like Palmer, Clark or Salmond living in New
Zealand circa 2020-2021?
Shall we take a quick look at what our government did around that time?
The first nine days of our April 2020 lockdown was declared “unlawful” by the High Court.
Two legal experts wrote at the time that the lockdown:
“…imposes the most extensive restrictions on New Zealanders’ lives seen for at least 70 years; perhaps ever. No matter how ‘necessary’ these may be, we should expect such restrictions to have a clear, certain basis in law and be imposed through a transparent and accountable process.”
We passed the Public Health Response Bill that allowed police warrantless entry into homes to see if isolation protocols were broken. The requirement that police obtain a judicial warrant prior to entering a home is a fundamental requirement of civil society to prevent citizens from illegal search and seizure.
This bill was passed under urgency within two days.
Parliament was suspended from meeting.
In fact, the standing orders of Parliament were amended to allow the Prime Minister to unilaterally prorogue Parliament upon the recommendation of the Director General of Health, who actually reports to the Prime Minister.
The need to seek approval from the Governor General represents an important check on the powers of the Executive and is yet another cornerstone of democratic society.
Citizens were denied the right to return to their own countries and even if they did, were charged hefty amounts of money for that privilege.
Even though New Zealand does not mandate any other vaccines (such as one for measles, mumps, rubella, polio or whooping cough) a vaccine mandate was imposed for Covid.
Later the courts ruled that parts of the vaccine mandate were unlawful as were aspects of the managed isolation and quarantine system.
Auckland went through a lockdown between August and December 2021 despite advice from the Director General of Health in September of that year that this was unnecessary.
I can provide detailed citations to every point made above and have done so elsewhere.
Maybe I missed something, but I did not hear the likes of Palmer, Clark or Salmond screaming about how our “democracy is being weakened by the methods this Government is using to achieve its goals.”
From what I can make out, the current government is doing the things that they campaigned on.
And a majority of New Zealand citizens voted them into power ostensibly because they agree with the current government’s priorities.
Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much. It is very difficult to ignore the partisan rancour in these fulminations.
The anger it seems is not so much about what the government is doing wrong but that they are doing things that the critics don’t like.
To people like Palmer, my only advice is this: if you want to be taken seriously then it is important to call out government impropriety regardless of the party in power.
Otherwise, take a deep breath, sit back and wait till the next election. Sell your vision to the people and see if there are enough buyers.
Till then I suggest letting the government get on with what they promised to do since they have a mandate to do so.
Ananish Chaudhuri is Professor of Economics at the University of Auckland.
wix test
The sad thing is this could have all been avoided if the Health Ministry had a pandemic plan that was significantly robust, and had been tested. After all we were warned 10 years earlier with the Bird Flu epidemic which was a close run thing to a world wide pandemic.
I look forward to the Pandemic review report (which has now been widened in its scope) as it is very important that we learn from the mistakes made as Mr Chaudhuri indirectly points out were many.
I suspect there was no testing of the plan and no real overview of who and what industry and other leaders should be engaged at this critical time.
The Government and Health Ministry made…
Couldn't be said better! Those that protest the loudest are always in the wrong
The damage to democracy that those three would have us believe, was actually and truly done by the previous crooks. The present coalition is merely fighting to restore our honourable laws. The last regime (like all elected socialist dictatorships) became a total abuse of parliamentary power to the point of corruption at times. Professor Chaudhuri is a bastion in the restoration process but like others say, watch your back at Auckland University sir.
Yes, fully agree with the descriptions given by posters below;
Palmer: Pompous Pontificating Prick
Clark: Supercilious, Superior, Snide
Salmond: Raver, Ranter, Revisionist