Friday, May 10, 2019



"Pure sophistic bollocks"

That's how normally mild-mannered ex-MP Peter Dunne describes the government's excuses on its "binding" cannabis referendum:

The Minister tries to justify his position by saying that no Parliament can bind its successor Parliaments.

This is, to put it politely, pure sophistic bollocks.

Every piece of legislation passed and regulation promulgated by every New Zealand Parliament since our first Parliament met in May 1854 has to some extent or another bound successor Parliaments. Indeed, if those successor Parliaments have not liked laws passed by their predecessors, they have either repealed or amended them.

That is the stuff of politics and political discourse is all about, and governments have always reserved the right to upend the legislation of an earlier government if they have not liked it, and to replace it with something more akin to their own way of thinking. The notion that responsible governments have demurred from doing things on the grounds they might bind their successors is as nonsensical as it is fanciful. Indeed, only a few months ago, before it was snookered by New Zealand First, the present Government was proposing to legislate during this Parliament for a capital gains tax, to be implemented in the next Parliament should the Government be re-elected. There were no scruples about binding future Parliaments then!


As Dunne points out, this will be the first government-initiated referendum in New Zealand history not to have an immediate, binding result. Which turns it into a fluffy PR exercise, a fraud on the New Zealand people. And we should not tolerate it.