David Farrar: People power

In Nepal, young social media users highlighted displays of wealth by families of government officials. The Govt tried to ban social media, and protests occurred resulting in the fall of their communist Prime Minister.

In Bulgaria, the Government announced tax hikes to fund the pay of high-ranking officials, government administration and security institutions, and protests brought that Government down within weeks.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Maybe NZ's Minister of Justice is Right......

Maybe NZ's Minister of Justice is Right. When Parliament Can't Make Laws, the people have no choice but to take the Law into their Own Hands.

Not so long ago, the Labour Party's Deputy PM Sir Michael Cullen stated in no uncertain terms in Parliament that sovereignty was ceded in the Treaty of Waitangi. According to his Labour Party, "The power of the NZ Parliament to change the law is central to the exercise of sovereignty and therefore the contemporary exercise of Article One of the Treaty". That was in 2004. He did so in the context of the Foreshore & Seabed Act. Now current Labour Leader Chris Hipkins has formally contradicted him and stated the opposite in Parliament, saying “Māori didn’t cede sovereignty in signing the Treaty”.