A constitutional shitshow

Last month, we learned that the government was half-arsing its anti-gang legislation, adding a significant, pre-planned, BORA-abusing amendment at the committee stage, avoiding all the usual scrutiny processes. But it gets worse. Because having done it once, they're now planning to recall the bill in order to add another such amendment:

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith's office confirmed on Tuesday night the government would be sending the bill back to Parliament to ensure it includes gang patches and symbols being displayed in cars, as whether the bill as it stood would in fact cover them was in dispute.

"There was some debate around whether gang insignia being displayed from inside a car would be covered by the ban. We decided to clarify, and make sure it was covered completely. We make no apologies for getting tough on gangs."

The bill had only been waiting for the final, third-reading, stage before getting the Governor-General's signoff - but now will be sent for a second Committee of the Whole House stage. The amendment will ensure the ban does affect insignia displayed from vehicles.

Regardless of what you think of the merits of the amendment, this is a fucking shitshow. It is not how laws should be made. It is a constitutional abuse. And the blame for it can be laid squarely at the feet of the National government, and their preference for rushing legislation through to meet arbitrary deadlines, leaving no time for the required policy advice and drafting (and their "back office" cuts, which mean there's no-one left to formulate that advice and draft the law anyway). So we get messes like this, where law is being written literally on the floor of the House, so National can tick the box on its latest quarterly plan.

This is not a style of government we have seen in a long time - not really since the Douglas / Richardson Revolution of the 1980's and 1990's. Back then the executive treated the legislature as a rubberstamp, to be mushroomed and bullshat and jerked about to ram through its agenda as quickly as possible, before the public could catch on and oppose it. MMP was supposed to put an end to that. But we have a coalition apparently composed entirely of crazies high on their own power, and lacking a single party or Cabinet Minister with a commitment to good policy or proper lawmaking to keep the radical weirdos in check. And the result is half-arsed law, rammed through without proper scrutiny. The sooner it blows up in their faces with an embarrassing hole or a messy court-case, the better.