The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - New Zealand Politics 101

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

New Zealand has an election coming up. How do New Zealand politics work? What is the New Zealand political system? Does New Zealand have a constitution? And more!Reserve your spot at the ART AUCTION TWO, coming October 13 at praxis in Adelaide: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1061839get onto the patreon: www.patreon.com/jdfmccann Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan. If you'd like to listen to bonus episodes, go sign up to the Patreon. That's patreon.clom. Clom? Ah, we f***ed it. Anyway, look, you'll find a way. Catamaran Home! If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered.

Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push.

Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know.

CBC News. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. I'm Jessie Cruikshank, and on my podcast, Phone a Friend, I break down the biggest stories in pop culture. But when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy. You will not die hosting the Hills after show.

I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines and i get schooled by a tween facebook is like a no that's what my grandma's on thank god phone a friend with jesse crookshank is not available on facebook it's out now wherever you get your podcasts a cast helps creators launch grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere a cast.com Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Hello everybody, this is James Donald Forbes McCann.

I'm very hard at work at the moment on the art auction. I went out and I got all these lanyards that I'm going to give to people around town. I've got a big list. Did I back my Volvo into the fence of the man whose lanyards they were? Yes. Is the back of my car being held together by duct tape? It absolutely is. Am I being held together by duct tape? No, I'm just falling right apart. A couple nights ago, I got, well, I got on the drinkies and I recorded an introduction to New Zealand politics. I'd just been reading a lot about New Zealand politics on Wikipedia,

and I thought, wouldn't that be good? Wouldn't that be nice if, having read all those things about New Zealand politics, I just had a big, long, drunken vent about it? Because we are, of course, trying to build a New Zealand audience, so I can have their money, so I can have a boat. So, on today's episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann catamaran plan, you'll just hear me, a little inebriated in a moment talking about New Zealand and their politics. And that'll be it. I recorded it a couple of days ago. I'm not in that place anymore. I'm in a hard, sober, aggressive

state of mind trying to make this art auction work. But here for you now is me getting on the piss and talking about New Zealand politics and all the problems that I have with I hope to do more in New Zealand politics they have an election coming up very soon so depending on how this one goes could be the first part in many episodes about New Zealand politics or if it doesn't go well and heck if it makes me even less popular in New Zealand maybe it's something we'll never talk about again here is episode one of James Donald Forbes McCann's introduction to New Zealand politics. But for the catamaran plan, I think it's episode like 95 or something. I don't know. Here it is.

I've held my tongue for long enough. It is time for me to speak my peace. Speak your peace, sir. A gentleman means to speak his peace. I wish to speak today about the political system in New Zealand, which I've been reading about on Wikipedia, which is roughly as deep as I've managed to go with my research nowadays. Nevertheless, I believe myself to be well informed. Informed well.

Should we say informed well instead of well informed? Well informed. Informed well. Should we say informed well instead of well informed? I think I've got the facts of the case straight. And I am shocked and disturbed by what I've read about the political system of New Zealand. I'm coming to New Zealand in December. My wife is a Kiwi.

I have some Kiwi fans, a small number. We're hoping to grow that. And I hope to do a show, at least one show, in New Zealand. So to get more fans in New Zealand, I thought, well, they've got an election coming up. I saw that they have an election coming up in New Zealand with two men named Chris. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

They're both called Chris. Many of the news stories, it's about as deep as the coverage goes. Jacinda's gone now, but have you seen the Chris's? Ha ha, ha ha ha. Really shallow level deconstruction by the Australian press of the New Zealand coming election. I apologise, Kiwis, on behalf of my nation, that that's about as deep as we're willing to go,

is that they're both called Chris. A perfectly agreeable name. I happen to think. Now, what I deem less agreeable are some things that I've discovered about the New Zealand political system that I wish to discuss with you here today. And if anyone can say that I'm wrong about these things, let them so say. Let them get into contact with me and we may discuss it. If there are any experts on New Zealand legal political matters, I would like to speak to you

as well because what I have seen thus far about the New Zealand political system is harsh and disturbing. Never, never have I seen a country with fewer checks and balances. Even actual dictatorships tend to have things that look like checks and balances to keep people under the illusion that there are some restraints on the people in power. So, say, you'll have some tin-pot dictatorship in Latin America, but they'll have a constitution. No one's paying attention to the constitution, but they'll have one. Did you know the country of New Zealand, this is the first point I wish to raise, does not have a constitution?

No constitution. Now, they have a constitution act, which has been come up with by the parliament, but that can be overturned by Parliament. They have another law that says, well, Parliament can only overturn this by a greater than, I think it's a two-thirds majority. But the law that says they can only overturn it with a two-thirds majority can be overturned with a simple 50% plus one majority. simple 50% plus one majority.

So parliamentary supremacy is something that exists as a principle in New Zealand, as it does in many non-despotted countries with checks and balances, like, dare I, the United Kingdom, where they have Parliament reigning supreme. Well, of course, they have the monarch supreme, but then in terms of advice given to that monarch, parliament. So in Australia and in America, you have a constitution, and parliament is subject to that written constitution.

It can't do what it wants. Even if it has a majority, it can't overrule it. We have a judicial supremacy where the so-called, but some kind of independence is arbited by the arbiters on the High Court, or the Supreme Court, or whatever court you want to call it. But the tippity-top court of the land gets to say, no, you can't do whatever you want in Parliament. We have a constitution. There's a rulebook here. In New Zealand, no rulebook. This in and of itself, not enough for me to get knickers in a twist over the New Zealand political system that I've been reading about on Wikipedia. But an important place to begin.

In the United Kingdom, they have what we call a bicameral parliament. What do we call a parliament? They have two parliaments they have two bodies of representatives with the house of lords not especially representative but they have two rooms where legislation is discussed they have the house of lords and the house of commons now the house of commons is the more powerful of those two institutions yes and for a long time the house of lords could veto acts of the house of commons now that power has been reduced that they can prevent it from coming into law for the period of one year. So it's not a hugely powerful check. But I think even having a one-year deferral time with a second House of Decision-Making Processes is a check, right?

We've got a balance on power. New Zealand, not only, like the UK, do they not have a written constitution? Additionally, it is a unicameral parliament, which is to say there is but one sitting room in which decisions are made. And you might say, well, that's all right. There are the states.

Some laws will be given to the federal New Zealand system, and I'm sure that some laws sit with the states. There's at least a check between the federal and the state level. Except, of course, there are no states in New Zealand. It's all federal. And the federal parliament can divvy things out at a local level to the regions. There's no states. It's all federal. And the federal parliament can divvy things out at a local level to the regions. There's no states. It's all federal.

It's all federal parliament. All the way up and all the way down. So let's find out a little more about this federal parliament. How does it work? Does it have electorates? To this, the answer is sort of. It's not exclusively made up of electorates. They have something called the MMP system.

I'm just going to check that I got that right. I've just checked that. And yes, it's called the MMP. It's called the Mixed Member Proportional Representation. So I think it's roughly half the seats have electorates that vote for them. And there are Maori electorates, which are an interesting historical, socio-cultural phenomenon. electorates, which are an interesting historical socio-cultural phenomenon, but suffice to say that some of the electorates are just made up of by Maori people, and they are superimposed over other

electorates, and it's not like you get two electorates, you either get your Maori electorate or your, I guess, non-Maori electorate, but then Maoris are not forced to be in the Maori, I think they get a choice. Anyway, the other seats are party seats. So you get two votes as a New Zealand citizen, subject, whatever you want to call it, as a person of New Zealandality, you get two votes. One is for your electorate and one is for the party list. And the party list is a proportional representation and those seats are added to the electorates to make it so that at the end of the day, when the election has come to an end, as close as is practicable, the percentage of votes that your party received, that's the percentage of seats that you end up with in the parliament. parliament so if your party were to get 51 of the votes which no party in this system has ever been successful enough to secure 51 but jacinda adern in the 2020 election did pick up 50.01 she got

the smallest possible absolute majority okay not the smallest possible but very small indeed and i'll have some more to say about that. Don't you worry. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations.

What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Can we make a battery so powerful it can run the next generation of renewable energy? At the University of British Columbia, we believe that we can. Dr. Jian Liu and his team are developing safer, more powerful batteries for electric cars, solar panels, and more, building a Western Canadian supply chain to bring them to the world. At UBC, our researchers are answering today's most pressing questions.

To learn how we're moving the world forward, visit ubc.ca forward happens here. Which is to say that once you get to 50%, your party is in power. You don't have to rule in coalition with anybody. It's a system invented so that coalition government will happen. I don't know that they ever thought that anyone would get to a majority, but they managed to do it under Jacinda Ardern, under extraordinary circumstances with her Labor Party. After that point, and correct me if I'm wrong, dear sweet

New Zealand listeners, but once your party achieves over 50% of the party vote in a New Zealand election, as has happened one time, there's no division of power and there's no real check on their power. Here's another weird thing I noticed about the New Zealand electoral system. If someone hops out of your party, if they leave, if they disagree with you, this is another check on the power of the executive, is that the executive is put in place by the parliament. This would be by the parliament this would be the american equivalent would be if the uh what do you call you have the house of representatives the congressman if the top congressman guy was your president that's basically the system here the uh the

executive is not voted for separately it's chosen from within the legislature but you can't leave your party. There's a law in New Zealand passed by the government that says you can't leave your party. If you do, you're kicked out of Parliament and they have to hold another election, which is obviously a stick being held to enforce party discipline. They have the whip in the Commons, but they've got this mighty rod for the back in the New Zealand Parliament. So just very quickly, and this is weird as an Australian, and I don't want to, I'm just, it's a different culture, it's a different people. But in Australia, just to recap, we have the following checks on the Prime Minister. There are state premiers who have certain rights and powers allocated to them under the constitution.

I think that's actually incorrect to say. I think that it might be that they have all the powers and then some of the powers are taken away in the constitution. Either way. Number one, should start there. Number one, we have a constitution that outlines what the government can and can't do. Number two, there's an independent judiciary that has the power to interpret that constitution over the head of government. New Zealand does not have either the constitution

or a judiciary that is able to do that. Number three, we've got the states in the constitution backed by the judiciary that have certain powers. New Zealand does not have states. Number four, we have a second house that is selected in a different way. We call it the Senate, and the Senate can block legislation,

Malcolm Fraser style, if they need to get rid of the government of the day. New Zealand does not have a second house. It's a unicameral parliament. Number five, in Australia, you can leave your party. So if someone becomes despotic at the top of the party, people can break away, keeping their seat and holding the executive to account. This is not a serious option, as I understand it, in New Zealand. What the hell is going on in New Zealand, everybody? When COVID was happening and we saw the rules and regulations being placed through COVID in New

Zealand, it makes a little more sense now because Jacinda Ardern seems to, correct me if I'm wrong, but from a constitutional legal perspective as best I understand it, just reading Wikipedia. No one's told me to believe this. I've never read an article about this. I'm just putting two and two together and possibly coming up with 156. Tell me if I'm wrong. But it seems to me that if ever there is a majority government in New Zealand, the Prime Minister just gets to do whatever they want. They run the party. They can kick people out of the party if they don't want them there. And no one has the power unless, I guess, the King wants to get involved.

There's a governor general, but the governor general is chosen by the prime minister, which almost all the time means that the governor general will just do what the prime minister wants. And if the prime minister reckons that the governor general is fixing to do something that the prime minister doesn't want, you can just dismiss them. Unless it goes spectacularly wrong, like in Australia, 1975, which almost never happens. It did happen that one time. It's never happened again, and frankly, it only happened because we had a second house of, we had the Senate, man. We had the Senate, and so that led to the crisis where the dismissal could occur. New Zealand doesn't have a second house, so how would they ever get to the point of a crisis where that could be allowed to occur?

Tell me, New Zealand listeners, are there any checks or balances at all, in a meaningful sense, on the Prime Minister of New Zealand? I can't find one. If they get a majority. If they are in a coalition, then obviously they're held to account by the other parties that exist as discrete things. And they can't marshal a majority in the parliament but if you do get to a majority like jacinda adern did over covid is there a single reason that she wasn't able just to you know do whatever she wanted was new zealand's covid response just summed up by how scared jacinda Ardern happened to feel on any particular day or what she personally felt was the right thing to do there are definitely things we wanted to

do in Australia that you couldn't do right and this will be the case if there's a war if there's another if there's a famine if there's some sort of pestilence there are just things you can't do because people have rights it's not a mob rule and maybe i'm i'm willing to concede if i'm wrong here but thus far in my reading i don't think i'm wrong i mean here's another thing new zealand's not a despotic country it doesn't feel like a despotic country it feels like a good normal democracy and even though jacinda ardern did have a weird amount of power by having a majority and even though she did respond to the COVID crisis in a way that I don't reckon she should personally.

Basically said this is going to be like it's almost like you probably don't see it like this the two different classes of people if you're vaccinated or if you're unvaccinated you have all these rights if you are vaccinated. That is what it is so yep. Hey but she gave up power they They're going to another election. It didn't descend into a tyrannical, forever one-party state. They seem to have free and fair elections in New Zealand. Which would mean that maybe, all right, so here's the overall other point that I want to make.

Maybe checks and balances aren't all that important. Hold on. If New Zealand can basically thrive without them. You'd have to say a pretty big COVID-sized exception to that. And maybe even have a better political system than Australia. And I can see that's a low bar. And, you know, all those other first world English-speaking democracies. Well, then maybe you don't need checks and balances.

Maybe you don't need institutions that weigh against one another so that nothing can ever happen. And maybe absolute monarchy is the right choice after all. I mean, I will say, if New Zealand had sunk into despotism, it would be quite hard to notice. Because their accents are so lovely. Cheap. Yeah, I'm going to do the thing that everybody does about Australia. Cheap. But I'm going to do it about New Zealand instead.

Oh, no. Oh, no. We've sunk into despotism. We've got to take up arms against our oppressive government. We don't have any arms. Oh, sh**. We've just got legs. We've got to take up legs against the government.

I don't want to have to take up leagues against the government. They'll see up our skirts. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you,

whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Can we make a battery so powerful it can run the next generation of renewable energy? At the University of British Columbia, we believe that we can.

Dr. Jian Liu and his team are developing safer, more powerful batteries for electric cars, solar panels and more. Building a Western Canadian supply chain to bring them to the world. At UBC, our researchers are answering today's most pressing questions. To learn how we're moving the world forward, visit ubc.ca forward happens here. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. I'm Jessie Kirkshank, and on my podcast, Phone a Friend, I break down the biggest stories in pop culture.

But when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy. You will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like, and now that's what my grandma's on. Thank God Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts.

Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.