Liam your understand of this issue is excellent. But let's take a view from Te Ao Maori. Compare parliament to a Marae. Each has its own contingent tiknga. It happens that Parliament's tilanga matters enormously for our democracy. Parliament has the right and indeed obligation to enforce its tikanga.. like any marae
If parliament chooses to enforce its own tikanga then it rightly becomes just "like any marae", going about its own business in its own way.
But when marae-based hapu come together as a whakaminenga they must work to a common tikanga. Parliament also has that choice. It can be just one marae among many, serving the particular needs and interests of colonialists, and following its own tikanga. Or it can radically alter its tikanga to accommodate the custom of the nation at large.
Well put. No one is disputing the need for and importance of the Parliamentary Rules Committee. The controversy here is the Trump like bizarre abuse of sentencing power by the Coalition majority. Hopefully the PM will get his caucus to agree to modify it.
Take the bridge analogy a step further and it is obvious that the purposes for which a bridge was built determine the uses to which it can be put. Form and function go together. As a rule, a foot bridge will not support motor vehicles, and can never be used to carry a railway train.
Despite that, your point is taken. It is valid to ask whether the parliamentary system "inherited from Britain" (or "imposed by the British" from the other point of view) can serve us well in the present times.
One group (to be frank, those who comprise the political class in colonialist society) will say it can. Others, comprising the mass of the population of Aotearoa, will at least have doubts. They have lost confidence in the system for good reasons, and their loss of confidence is reflected in steadily declining rates of participation in the colonialist political system. Ironically, Te Pati Maori is doing more than any other political party to keep alive hope in parliament as the answer to the problems besetting our nation. At the same time many hundreds of thousands are not voting, and millions are choosing not even to follow the processes of the political system through establishment news media. That is the reality.
It is easy to say that "Parliament is the institution that best embodies the democratic will of the people" if there are no alternatives on offer, but we do have alternatives, and as it becomes more and more obvious that parliament is being used to frustrate the will of the people rather than to express it, those alternatives will rise to greater prominence.
You have a bridge to sell us. We have cast an eye over it and decided that it would not be a wise investment. It is possible that you could do some major structural work on that bridge which would make it more fit for purpose, but until that happens we will be looking at other ways to cross our river.
Making it fit for purpose by including tikanga would be extremely difficult. As I understand it from my studies tikanga varies enormously between different iwi. One of our close friends says of her two ancestral maraes, one on the NI east coast and one on the west coast the customs pertaining to women are very different. So whose tikanga would you choose?
It is not for me personally to choose. Tikanga does vary between iwi and marae as you say. Whether that variation is "enormous" is a matter of judgement and I would classify the differences as, on the whole, minor. Tikanga also evolves over time, and there is no reason why the institutions of government cannot change with it. The fact is that different iwi who use different dialects and have different tikanga can meet and work together effectively using a common tikanga. Common sense also suggests that the tikanga applying to an institution of government in these times would have to be free of gender discrimination. In practice, I don't see a problem.
However when I referred to "major structural work" I was not thinking of marae tikanga. An effective democracy that provides better representation for all peoples would be based on self-determined non-uniform constituencies (to allow hapu of varying size to register as constituencies), continuous election (so that renegade representatives or governments that break their promises can be swiftly recalled by the people who elected them) and the open ballot (to make the system transparent and prevent electoral fraud or false allegations of fraud). Geographic constituencies of uniform population size do not fit with iwi and hapu demographics or with the realities of modern life. There is no longer any good reason to retain them. Similarly, elections at three or four year intervals are no longer an effective, responsive or necessary way of giving voice to the popular will. Such major reforms of the electoral system would make it congruent with the principles of rangatiratanga while giving the ordinary citizen real influence and ultimately control over the politicians - something that is sorely lacking at present.
Liam your understand of this issue is excellent. But let's take a view from Te Ao Maori. Compare parliament to a Marae. Each has its own contingent tiknga. It happens that Parliament's tilanga matters enormously for our democracy. Parliament has the right and indeed obligation to enforce its tikanga.. like any marae
If parliament chooses to enforce its own tikanga then it rightly becomes just "like any marae", going about its own business in its own way.
But when marae-based hapu come together as a whakaminenga they must work to a common tikanga. Parliament also has that choice. It can be just one marae among many, serving the particular needs and interests of colonialists, and following its own tikanga. Or it can radically alter its tikanga to accommodate the custom of the nation at large.
Well put. No one is disputing the need for and importance of the Parliamentary Rules Committee. The controversy here is the Trump like bizarre abuse of sentencing power by the Coalition majority. Hopefully the PM will get his caucus to agree to modify it.
Take the bridge analogy a step further and it is obvious that the purposes for which a bridge was built determine the uses to which it can be put. Form and function go together. As a rule, a foot bridge will not support motor vehicles, and can never be used to carry a railway train.
Despite that, your point is taken. It is valid to ask whether the parliamentary system "inherited from Britain" (or "imposed by the British" from the other point of view) can serve us well in the present times.
One group (to be frank, those who comprise the political class in colonialist society) will say it can. Others, comprising the mass of the population of Aotearoa, will at least have doubts. They have lost confidence in the system for good reasons, and their loss of confidence is reflected in steadily declining rates of participation in the colonialist political system. Ironically, Te Pati Maori is doing more than any other political party to keep alive hope in parliament as the answer to the problems besetting our nation. At the same time many hundreds of thousands are not voting, and millions are choosing not even to follow the processes of the political system through establishment news media. That is the reality.
It is easy to say that "Parliament is the institution that best embodies the democratic will of the people" if there are no alternatives on offer, but we do have alternatives, and as it becomes more and more obvious that parliament is being used to frustrate the will of the people rather than to express it, those alternatives will rise to greater prominence.
You have a bridge to sell us. We have cast an eye over it and decided that it would not be a wise investment. It is possible that you could do some major structural work on that bridge which would make it more fit for purpose, but until that happens we will be looking at other ways to cross our river.
Making it fit for purpose by including tikanga would be extremely difficult. As I understand it from my studies tikanga varies enormously between different iwi. One of our close friends says of her two ancestral maraes, one on the NI east coast and one on the west coast the customs pertaining to women are very different. So whose tikanga would you choose?
It is not for me personally to choose. Tikanga does vary between iwi and marae as you say. Whether that variation is "enormous" is a matter of judgement and I would classify the differences as, on the whole, minor. Tikanga also evolves over time, and there is no reason why the institutions of government cannot change with it. The fact is that different iwi who use different dialects and have different tikanga can meet and work together effectively using a common tikanga. Common sense also suggests that the tikanga applying to an institution of government in these times would have to be free of gender discrimination. In practice, I don't see a problem.
However when I referred to "major structural work" I was not thinking of marae tikanga. An effective democracy that provides better representation for all peoples would be based on self-determined non-uniform constituencies (to allow hapu of varying size to register as constituencies), continuous election (so that renegade representatives or governments that break their promises can be swiftly recalled by the people who elected them) and the open ballot (to make the system transparent and prevent electoral fraud or false allegations of fraud). Geographic constituencies of uniform population size do not fit with iwi and hapu demographics or with the realities of modern life. There is no longer any good reason to retain them. Similarly, elections at three or four year intervals are no longer an effective, responsive or necessary way of giving voice to the popular will. Such major reforms of the electoral system would make it congruent with the principles of rangatiratanga while giving the ordinary citizen real influence and ultimately control over the politicians - something that is sorely lacking at present.