Posts by Idiot Savant
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Interestingly, I asked Phil on the panel at Locally Left tonight whether he'd be happy with something like a council supermajority requirement (eg: 75%) to achieve the same goal -- making asset sales hard -- and he said that he would.
Sounds reasonable; we use that sort of supermajority as a proxy for widespread assent in the Electoral Act. Guess a select committee will have something to talk about if it makes it there then.
[Parliamentary procedure nerd alert]
I bow to your superior nerd-dom.
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I'll second "The Thick of It". Both quality and quantity.
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Well, couldn't Twyford take a call in the general debate and do that?
Doing it this way is more fun, and gets an hour devoted solely to the topic, rather than a 10-minute call. And at the end of it, you get a Hansard record of exactly where everyone stood - which is quite useful on an issue like this.
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Um, the State of California is pretty much bankrupt. They're going to have to start paying employees in IOUs.
Given that that's what money is anyway, that's not too much difference.
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Switzerland.
Of course, that's not what is being proposed here, and it is dishonest to suggest it.
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Also, the people who vote on these things aren't `the people' exactly; they're a subset of the people that tends towards older & better off, and this isn't exactly equitable.
Well, you can always try and convince people to vote. And if the issue is important enough to them, they will.
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Prop 8 might have been the will of the people, but I think that it is a constitutional error that minority rights can be overrode by the will of the people.
Indeed. But we're not talking about removing or confirming people's oppression here - we're talking about stopping politicians from selling our stuff.
On the more general issue, I would like to see a BORA check on referenda (because there's none at the moment). But at the end of the day, you can't get into forbidding votes on certain issues, because that road rapidly leads to Honduras.
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Isn't it about choosing people to make our decisions?
Only if you focus on the particular representative model we use, rather than the broad idea itself.
As for representative democracy, there's no need for it to be absolute, and ours isn't. For example, we don't trust our politicians to make decisions about who gets to vote and how often. They have no delegation from the people on that issue, and unless there's a supermajority (which can generally be taken as a proxy for wide agreement) they have to ask us before dicking around with it. I like that model, and want to see it expanded.
Such expansion can be taken too far - Hide's ideas about a referendum for councils to increase rates is ridiculous. But I have no problem with cautiously expanding the sphere of things we don't trust politicians on. And I think privatisation - something where public opinion seems to differ widely from that held by politicians - is a perfect candidate. Another obvious one is the BORA - politicians shouldn't be able to muck around with that or even impliedly repeal portions without our permission.
(ohhh... now there's a good one. Make an s7 report mean a referendum or supermajority for third reading. But that would mean the A-G would twist the law even further than they do at present to avoid making such a report...)
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Meanwhile, Idiot/Savant, if you're happy to respect the outcome if people turn out to be quite keen on "flogging everything off" -- and Rodney is happy to abide by those who think tax-and-spend local government is A-OK -- then fair enough. I just have my doubts that referenda-fetishists operate with that much good faith.
If people vote for it, then while I can dispute its wisdom, I can't dispute the fact that it would be the will of the people. And that's what's important here. Remember, democracy isn't about making good decisions, its about making our decisions.
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Oh, I should also note that I'd like to see a version applying to SOEs as well. Its not just our local body politicians I don't trust on this issue.