Caleb Anderson: Binding Citizens Referenda - could this work?

Increasingly Western voters are losing confidence in the governments they elect, not in New Zealand alone.

Commitments made before elections are frequently ignored or traded, influencers seem to exert disproportionate leverage in shaping policy, while bureaucrats delay and obstruct, and politicians obfuscate.

MMP seems, in the minds of many, to have made things worse.

If democracy is to work, it is critical for citizens to believe they have an influence on the direction of government, and the ability to call time out when governments go rogue, or are acting unconstitutionally.

Again and again, and with barely a bat of an eyelid, systemic problems are being ignored, or disguised, promises are traded away in coalition discussions (often to the relief of both sides), concessions are made in pursuit of immediate gains, and irrespective of the longer term consequences of these concessions.

There are few problems we have as a country today, which could not have been foreseen by previous governments, left and right. Had these governments taken their electorates seriously, seen themselves as genuinely accountable, acted democratically, applied principle over short term gain, valued common sense over issues of the moment, or over the counsel of the "not so wise", things might have panned differently.

Binding referenda are often considered to favour loud voices over quieter ones, power over principle, and the short over the long term, but it is hard to see how eschewing them has not done a very fine job at producing exactly this.

While voters can be fickle, some issues garner unwarranted attention, and people are inherently (but not always) self-interested, there can be a certain wisdom in the collective will, or at least a brake on excess.

In Switzerland, for an initiative to reach a binding public vote, organizers must collect 100,000 valid signatures from eligible voters within an 18-month period.

In Switzerland binding referenda work as follows ...

1. Constitutional Focus: At the federal level, these initiatives are strictly for modifying the Federal Constitution. They cannot be used to pass ordinary laws. 
2. Signature Gathering: A committee of at least seven citizens registers the initiative and begins collecting 100,000 certified signatures over 18 months. 
3. Parliament’s Role: Once qualified, the Federal Parliament reviews the text. They can recommend voting "yes" or "no" and frequently draft a counter-proposal—a compromise alternative to the citizens’ text. 
4. Double Majority Vote: The proposal is put to a nationwide vote (held four times a year). For an initiative to pass, it requires a double majority: the approval of both a majority of the national popular vote and a majority of the 26 cantons (states). 

Most Swiss citizens seem to agree that the system works well, as it fosters public engagement, and naturally disciplines, and orients, the parliament by keeping it accountable to the electorate.

While the Swiss situation is not entirely replicable to the New Zealand situation, much of it is, where there is a will, and there are clear safeguards including its ...

... limitations to constitutional matters only,

... a high level of public support for a referendum at the outset,

... the opportunity for parliament to recommend an action or propose an alternative,

... and the possibility of a double majority (some alternative to the 26 cantons would need to be found here - and this could be tricky).

Admittedly voter fatigue can undermine engagement (which can sometimes be somewhat below 50% in Switzerland) but this does not seem to me to be an insurmountable problem.

No solution will be perfect. Trade-offs are part of any large decision anyway. This is maybe an idea worth throwing around.

It is a very serious thing when democratically elected governments become so profoundly distrusted, when public policy seems indifferent to the public will, when serious problems become even more serious, without any will to deal with these problems, and when maybe ten percent of the country calls the shots ... while the rest are deliberately distracted with short term diversions, sugar hit rhetoric, and glib promises.

Democracy is the exception historically, it runs counter to human nature, which is fundamantelly tribal, and its bottom line assumption of one person one vote, each of equal value, is core.

In spite of its imperfections, democracy is perhaps the cleverest and most benevolent of all inventions, and it needs to be safeguarded. And perhaps it needs to adapt now in its own defence, and for its very survival.

If democracy is not seen to be working, if it is seen by the population at large to be a plaything of the elites, as is becoming the case across the West today, that bodes ill for the future, and it (and we) will inevitably become captive to the very thing it is not.

Citizens need some mechanism to change the direction of government when it violates whatever it determines to be its bottom line. If not this, then what?

Caleb Anderson, a graduate history, economics, psychotherapy and theology, has been an educator for over thirty years, twenty as a school principal.