He was the one who introduced this bill - but he's now pulled ACT's support. Every other party in parliament appears to still back it, but he's pulled support because the safeguards that he wanted are gone.
His idea was that we increase the terms from three to four years. So you vote the Government and you get three years - and now he wants to make it four years, which basically means giving the Government more power.
But he was only okay with that if we balanced it out by taking away some power. And his idea was to allow the opposition parties to control every single select committee, giving them the power.
But that part of the plan, the select committee part, has been removed.
So David Seymour doesn't support his own idea anymore, which frankly, I think is a good idea, because he has ended up exactly where I have been this entire time.
No to four-year terms unless there are new limits, because as it is, Governments in this country do not have much in the way of limits.
If they want to pass a law, they can - they can do it under urgency if they want to. They can announce and pass it in literally the same day. That is what happened with the pay equity law. Did you like that? You want some more of that? Because that would happen with four years.
This is why Jeffrey Palmer said that we have the fastest law in the West. Other countries have ways to limit or control or check the power of the executive. They have upper houses, they have senates, whatever. We've got nothing.
Given that everyone else in parliament seems to support this, it seems to me there's a fair chance this is going to go to referendum for us to decide, perhaps at the next election.
And people who want four years will tell you that you must say yes because Governments don't have enough time to do what they want, which is utter bollocks, because they do have enough time.
I've realized in the last couple of years, it's not because of lack of time they don't get things done, it's because of a lack of will. This Government had enough time to make changes to the supermarkets and make changes to the banks and make changes to the energy sector.
They've talked about it enough - but they haven't done it because they don't want to do it, because it takes balls.
I don't want four years because two blocks of three years of Jacinda Ardern's lunatic Labour administration was enough. Can you imagine how broke the country would be after two blocks of four years?
Unless there are new safeguards brought in - and there are no safeguards proposed. So it's a hard no.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.
9 comments:
If all MP’s attended Parliament regularly, acted as mature adults and debated issues logically, instead of acting like spoilt kids, 3 years would be sufficient to progress NZ rather than take us backwards as Te Pati Māori and the Greens seem intent on.
Wise David - the nutters will destroy NZ.
David Seymour is right to pull back on this because the safeguards he wanted have been dropped. If this or any government dealt swiftly with the Sir Humphreys in the Public Service that want to run interference with the elected coalition's policies, three years would be plenty long enough to do what is necessary. As it is this Government is moving with all the speed that being weighed down in molasses can muster. That and the unwillingness of Luxon to do what we elected the coalition to get on and fix. - he and his MPs give new meaning to hysteresis.
Like life itself, all systems eventually deteriorate into senility and corruption. We see this in spades in our NZ parliamentary structure, and the political parties that make it up. No sane person would willingly support what we now see if we were starting from scratch. We have an option to return it to satisfactory form, but I suspect we are too late to arrest the deliberate and malevolent destruction of a unique national identity. Buckle up. It’s all downhill from here.
Three years is fine - look at the UK with 5 year terms - already descending into disaster and continuing until 2029 without respite. Heaven only knows what my homeland will look like by then
If David Seymour ' has walked backwards on a Bill ...' ? - there has to be more to this, than 'things not going his way'.
I recall {subject to correction} that this concept of a 4 year Parliamentary term is not new. Been floated before.
Sadly, each time, our ' dearly beloved, lame duck Pollies ' develop a Wellington City chill, with chesty cough, that forces them to negate "debate" due to the intake of cough mixture.
Also, anyone, today who listens to Geof Palmer, need to to "visit Specsavers and have a hearing test".
We need change - 4 is better that 3, allows for more effort to deliver (whatever) with General Elections in October of the 4th Year - allows incoming Govt, to sort horse stalls, desks & computers. Minister to sworn in/ briefed - then we can relax for Xmas.
Oh and "passing Law under urgency" yup - joke of the week.
Three years has worked for a long time, even before MMP. As has been mentioned earlier, if MPs attended Parliament more often and worked on getting things done, things would improve. If you gave them ten years they would still say it's not long enough (on reflection that is a very scary thought!)
3 years becomes 6 years as most halfway decent governments get 2 consecutive terms. It also takes that long to forget the mess made by the last lot. 4 years also raises the average age of a new voter from 19.5 years to 20 years. A 4 year term combined with dropping the voting age to 16 would have made the average new voting age 18 years. But the Government have already rejected that proposal.
Leave it at 3 years for goodness sake.The political IQ of both voters and candidates is still too low to risk otherwise.
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