Last month, the government announced that it would be building a National War Memorial Park in Wellington for the centenary of Gallipoli. Militaristic wank triggers my mental spam-filter, so I missed the interesting bit: authorising legislation, passed in a very short timeframe with limited public input, granting the government all the consents and property rights required, with no appeal rights. Plus a blanket power to grant more (with a similar restriction on appeals) if required.
There is a name for this sort of assault on the democratic process and rule of law: Muldoonism. And the fact that its being done for a war memorial rather than a dam doesn't make it any less objectionable. In this case, though, its not even being done because the courts have said no - but because the Ministry of Culture and Heritage has pissed around on a project it has had a hundred years prior warning of, and now "doesn't have time" to follow due process. So, we're pissing all over our constitution, because a bunch of public servants were lazy and/or incompetent. That's a piss-poor reason, and heads should roll for it.
