Parliament’s Collective Failure To Defend The Constitution.

Unbitten: It is one of the oddest and most worrying aspects of the events surrounding Green MP Eugenie Sage’s late-night attempt to re-write the constitutional convention on entrenched legislation while a weary House of Representatives was sitting under Urgency. Sherlock Holmes’ famous observation concerning the dog that did not bark, might be applied with equal justification to the Opposition that did not bite.

WHILE WE MAY be reasonably confident that the attack on New Zealand’s constitution will be repelled, it should never have happened. That it was legal scholars who sounded the alarm over the entrenchment of a section of the Three Waters legislation, should cause all 120 of our parliamentarians to hang their heads in shame. Their collective failure to grasp what Green MP Eugenie Sage was doing points to a woeful lack of political and constitutional awareness among those whose first and most important duty is to protect the integrity of our democratic system.

Had a similar effort to screw the constitutional scrum been attempted even ten years ago, the perpetrator would have been red-carded immediately. Not even Rob Muldoon, who was not above the odd instance of constitutional skulduggery, would ever have contemplated a stunt like Ms Sage’s. He would have known that his National Party colleagues would have intervened decisively to prevent him bringing their party into such disrepute.

It is one of the oddest and most worrying aspects of the events surrounding Ms Sage’s late-night introduction of her controversial SOP (Supplementary Order Paper) while a weary House of Representatives was sitting under Urgency. Sherlock Holmes’ famous observation concerning the dog that did not bark, might be applied with equal justification to the Opposition that did not bite.

Tired though National’s and Act’s MPs may have been, and eager to get home to their beds, Ms Sage’s SOP should have had the same effect upon them as a bucket of cold water. Members of the Opposition parties should have risen instantly to their feet, baying like bloodhounds for the Speaker to rule upon the constitutional propriety of the Green MP’s SOP. Expressions of anger and disgust should have been ringing off the Chamber’s walls like the echoes of heavy artillery.

Those Cabinet Ministers present in the House, and their colleagues listening to the proceedings with one ear back in their offices, would have known immediately that something was wrong. Leader of the House, Chris Hipkins, would have hurried to the side of the Minister in charge of the Three Waters legislation, Nanaia Mahuta, seeking urgent clarification as to what the hell Eugenie Sage was playing at.

A fair question – even at this stage of the proceedings. What was Ms Sage playing at? More to the point, was Ms Mahuta aware of her game? Did the Green MP’s SOP come out of nowhere, or was the entrenchment of the section prohibiting the privatisation of any or all of the four water “entities” part of a long-planned attempt to distract the public from the co-governance provisions of the legislation, by making it practically impossible for the Opposition parties to sell off the people’s water to private interests? (That the Opposition parties had categorically ruled out the privatisation of water was deemed an insufficient barrier to its introduction.)

Journalistic inquiries have established that the entrenchment of prohibitions against privatisation was being recommended by supporters of Three Waters months ago. It has also emerged that the Crown’s legal advisers had warned those responsible for the legislation (Ms Mahuta presumably) that such a course of action would be constitutionally abhorrent. It is further suggested that Cabinet received the same advice.

All to no avail. Neither Crown Law, nor the Attorney-General, were able to dissuade the Prime Minister from writing to the Opposition leaders, seeking their support for adding anti-privatisation to the list of core democratic rights and freedoms entrenched in our electoral legislation.

That privatisation is so very clearly “one of these things [that] is not like the others” in no way dissuaded the three women of Three Waters from undermining the integrity of New Zealand’s sixty-six-year-old, unanimously enacted, entrenchment provisions – along with the parliamentary consensus that had rendered them sacrosanct for so long.

The beauty of this country’s unwritten constitution is its simplicity and flexibility. It is not beholden to unelected judges, and vouchsafes to all citizens the right to overturn with their votes what arrogant politicians have set up with their own. The only right our constitution sets in stone, is the right of citizens to participate in the government of their country. Those who seek to remove the power of the people’s representatives to amend and/or repeal the laws, are not their friends – they are their enemies.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 2 December 2022.

Has Labour Become A Co-Governed Party?

The Power Of Two: It is possible that, formally or informally, the Labour caucus arrived at its own version of co-governance. What the Māori caucus decide upon as its priorities are not to be overridden or gainsaid by the broader Labour caucus’s Pakeha majority. An arrangement of this sort would certainly explain how Three Waters became such immoveable items on Labour’s legislative agenda.

THE MORE THE VOTERS DISCOVER about Labour’s Three Waters, the less they like it. No matter, this Government has clearly decided that, if it is to be destroyed, then Three Waters is the hill upon which it will die. That being the case – and the still-unfolding Entrenchment Crisis leaves little room for doubt – then the only real question to be answered is: Why? What is it about the Three Waters project that renders it impervious to rational reconsideration?

When a group of people refuse to accept they have made a poor choice – even as it threatens to destroy them – then it is a reasonably safe bet that they are in the grip of dangerously delusional thinking. Cult-like thinking, some might even suggest. But is it credible to suggest that a mainstream political party could fall victim to delusional thinking on such a scale? Is Labour really crazy enough to put its long-term survival at risk?

It is certainly possible. And those in need of convincing have only to consider the destructive impact of Brexit upon the British Conservative Party, and Donald Trump’s malign influence over the United States’ Republican Party. If a majority of Tory MPs could be persuaded that leaving the EU was a good idea; and House Republicans that the 2020 Presidential Election was actually won by the incumbent; then the idea that Labour is hellbent on trashing New Zealand’s unwritten constitution suddenly doesn’t sound crazy at all.

The British Tories were tortured by the fear that remaining in the EU was tantamount to conceding that the days of global hegemony and imperial splendour were finally beyond recall. For the Americans, the fear was remarkably similar: that their fate would be the same as the Brits’; being edged off the world stage by larger emerging powers. Brexit offered the opportunity to “Take Back Control”. Trump promised to “Make America Great Again”. Big ideas. Crazy lies.

What idea is big enough to derange the Labour Party into courting electoral suicide? The answer would appear to involve a radical revision of New Zealand history. Something along the lines of the colonisation of Aotearoa being a heinous historical crime. In this narrative, the colonial state is identified as the institution most responsible for the criminal dispossession of Aotearoa’s indigenous Māori population. Labour’s big idea is to facilitate a revolutionary reconstitution of the New Zealand state.

Now, where would Labour get an idea like that? Putting to one side Labour’s Māori caucus, whose interest in such an historical project is entirely understandable, how could Labour’s Pakeha MPs have picked up such a self-destructive notion? Well, the university graduates in Labour’s caucus (which is to say nearly all of them) are highly likely to have come across arguments for “decolonisation” at some point in their studies. The lawyers among them would certainly have encountered and absorbed “the principles of the Treaty”. So, too, would those coming to the Labour Party from the state sector.

It would be interesting to know exactly how many members of Labour’s caucus have, at some point in their past, attended a “Treaty Workshop”. Over the course of the past 40 years these have become virtually compulsory for members of the professional and managerial middle-class. The version of New Zealand history conveyed to those attending these workshops is remarkably consistent: colonisers = baddies; the heroic Māori who resisted the colonisers’ ruthless predations = goodies. Only by giving full effect to te Tiriti o Waitangi can the wrongs of the past be righted: only then will equity and justice prevail.

Many of those attending Treaty workshops will have been invited to “check their privilege” and “confront their racism”. This can be a harrowing experience for many Pakeha, leaving them with a strong inclination to keep silent and step aside whenever those on the receiving end of “white privilege” are encouraged to step forward and speak out. In the most extreme cases, Pakeha are actively discouraged from sharing their opinions, lest their higher education and superior facility with the English language overawe and “silence” those denied such privileges.

When Labour’s Māori caucus (the largest ever after the 2020 general election) sought to take full advantage of the party’s absolute parliamentary majority to advance their Treaty-centric agenda, it is entirely possible they found themselves pushing on an open door.

It is even possible that, formally or informally, the Labour caucus arrived at its own version of co-governance.* What the Māori caucus decided upon as its priorities were not to be overridden or gainsaid by the broader Labour caucus’s Pakeha majority. An arrangement of this sort would certainly explain how the Māori Health Authority and Three Waters became such immoveable items on Labour’s legislative agenda, and why the rising unpopularity of Nanaia Mahuta’s Three Waters project has, so far, proved unable to shift the Prime Minister and her Cabinet from their position of unwavering support.

Labour’s been here before. In the 1980s, the “big idea” that seized the imagination of most of the Labour caucus was what was then called “free-market economics”. By the end of the Fourth Labour Government’s second term it was clear that the consequences of the Rogernomics “revolution” were going to be electorally fatal. Desperate to negotiate an economic policy U-turn, the Labour Party discovered that the Labour Government was, like Margaret Thatcher, “not for turning”. Indeed, many MPs proudly declared that they would rather lose their seats than repudiate the economic reforms they had helped to introduce.

In 1990, Rogernomics was the hill Labour decided to die on. And die it did – at least as a recognisably social-democratic party. The party’s left-wing departed with Jim Anderton to form NewLabour and the Alliance, leaving behind a curious mixture of neo- and social-liberals. It is, perhaps, unsurprising that Labour’s Māori caucus has found the party’s Pakeha majority so easy to cajole into backing what, from its perspective, is an entirely legitimate constitutional agenda. Led by Nanaia Mahuta and Willie Jackson, the Māori caucus has taken full advantage of the fact that their Pakeha colleagues’ lack of constitutional conviction has never been a match for their own passionate intensity.

Three Waters may be the hill Labour dies on, but when the victors survey the field of battle, the only corpses they’ll find will be Pakeha. Each one clutching the “Big Idea” for which their party has paid the ultimate price.

* Acknowledgement is due, here, to NZ Herald journalist Fran O'Sullivan, who first raised the possibility of Labour having become a co-governed party. - C.T.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 29 November 2022.

Labour Must Uphold The Rule Of Law

The Equal Application Of The Laws: There is only so much a judicial system, or any other important part of the state apparatus, will stand before it moves to defend itself. Judges and lawyers cannot be expected to turn a blind eye to egregious breaches of legal norms. As Officers of the Court, it is their sworn duty to uphold the law. They cannot be asked to treat one category of citizen better or worse than another, nor are they permitted to stand back and see injustice done without taking steps to prevent it.

WHEN DAILY BLOG Editor, Martyn Bradbury, says Labour’s lucky the country’s currently distracted by the Covid-19 Delta Variant, he’s right. Were New Zealand safe and out of Lockdown, it would be in the midst of a dangerously divisive row about Oranga Tamariki, the Judiciary, Race, and the Rule of Law.

Given that the matters at the heart of this controversy are sub judice (i.e. under the authority of the court) I shall forbear from discussing the particular case in question. What must be discussed, however, is the direction in which Māori-Pakeha relations are travelling, and exactly what it would take for this government to intervene.

There is only so much a judicial system, or any other important part of the state apparatus, will stand before it moves to defend itself. Judges and lawyers cannot be expected to turn a blind eye to egregious breaches of legal norms. As Officers of the Court, it is their sworn duty to uphold the law. They cannot be asked to treat one category of citizen better or worse than another, nor are they permitted to stand back and see injustice done without taking steps to prevent it.

Attempts to racialise New Zealand’s courts are bound to provoke significant public disquiet. So, too, will any attempt by the Crown to influence the outcome of trials, or civil cases, by exerting unwarranted pressure on judicial officers. Any government made aware of such behaviour has a duty to act decisively to uphold the Rule of Law. Those responsible must be held to account for their actions.

Though the mere mention of the He Puapua Report will elicit the usual protests from the usual suspects, the events highlighted by The Daily Blog’s editor raise vital issues about what inferences the Crown is allowing and/or encouraging Māori to draw from its recommendations.

Any failure to uphold the equal application of the laws, on the grounds that a separate Māori justice system will soon replace the long-established principle of “one law for all”, will be taken as proof that this government intends to change profoundly the constitutional and judicial arrangements of the New Zealand state.

Such a fundamental change to the manner in which justice is administered in New Zealand, especially one predicated on ethnic and cultural considerations, could have no legitimacy without having first secured the endorsement, by way of referendum, of a majority of New Zealand citizens.

To suggest that the articles of the Treaty of Waitangi in some way obviate the Crown’s need to obtain the consent of the New Zealand electorate before changing the way justice is administered, and by whom, is tantamount to suggesting that the Treaty legally entitles the Crown to extinguish democracy in the Realm of New Zealand without reference to its citizens and in defiance of its laws.

Such action would constitute a declaration of war upon the people of this country. Any government participating in such an open attack on the civil and political rights of its citizens would immediately identify itself as their enemy, and forfeit all claims to their continuing loyalty. It would be responsible for unleashing civil war upon New Zealand.

The Labour Government’s silence on these matters is indefensible. A clear statement of its determination to uphold the Rule of Law and protect the democratic rights of all New Zealanders is long overdue.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 24 August 2021.

Safeguarding Maori Wards: A Significant Treaty Victory.

Nothing New Here: At the level of national affairs, ethnicity has been recognised as a significant aspect of political representation since 1867. That was the year New Zealand’s 13-year-old parliament deemed it expedient to create four “Maori Seats”, for the purposes of giving a voice to, and representing the interests of, New Zealand’s “native” population. Extending the principle to local government does not seem unreasonable.

MAORI HAVE A SIGNIFICANT victory to celebrate this Waitangi Day. Monday’s announcement by Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta heralds a significant shift in the representative breadth of local government in New Zealand. Maori wards are about to become a common feature of this country’s democratic architecture. Mahuta’s reforms will be remembered as an important historical step towards realising fully the bi-cultural constitutional assumptions implicit in the treaty signed at Waitangi on 6 February 1840.

Not all New Zealanders will celebrate Mahuta’s legal changes. Many will decry the Government’s decision to retrospectively eliminate the legal rights of New Zealand citizens. They will further lament the damage Mahuta’s reforms will inflict upon the unitary character of the New Zealand state.

The world does not look kindly upon states that openly proclaim the existence of two (or more) categories of citizenship. It condemned the United States of America’s “Jim Crow” South (1878-1954). Likewise South Africa’s apartheid regime (1948-1994). The Israeli state’s legal elevation of Jewish over non-Jewish citizens raises similar misgivings. The liberal-democratic tradition – out of which the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights was born - proclaims the equality of all human-beings, and looks askance at any state which bestows legal rights upon one group of its citizens while statutorily withholding them from another.

In the case of Maori wards, the arguments in opposition are generally represented by the phrase “single standard of citizenship”. Local government representation is based upon the number of New Zealanders living within the democratically determined geographical boundaries of regions, districts and cities. Constitutionally, the ethnicity of those New Zealand citizens (or permanent residents) is not supposed to signify.

Except that, at the level of national affairs, ethnicity has been recognised as a significant aspect of political representation since 1867. That was the year New Zealand’s 13-year-old parliament deemed it expedient to create four “Maori Seats”, for the purposes of giving a voice to, and representing the interests of, New Zealand’s “native” population.

Conceptually, it is but a short step from “Maori seats” to “Maori wards”.

If New Zealand’s constitution has survived its deviation from strict liberal-democratic theory at the national level for 154 years, without serious mishap, then what possible objection can their be to replicating that deviation at the local level? Anomalous though New Zealand’s special “indigenous” provisions may be in terms of liberal-democratic theory, they have proved remarkably successful in practice. Proof to many New Zealanders of their country’s improvisational genius.

Ours may be a No. 8 Wire constitution – but it works.

Why, then, was legal provision made for citizens to challenge councils’ decisions to create single, or multiple, Maori wards? After all, no such provision exists allowing citizens-initiated referenda to overturn the creation/composition of general council wards. What was it that made it acceptable for plans to provide effective local representation for New Zealand’s indigenous minority to be vetoed by its local ethnic majority?

It is very difficult to escape the conclusion that the referenda provision vis-à-vis Maori wards was nothing more than a sop to a deeply racist colonial Cerberus. The well-meaning framers of the legislation understood that it would be impossible for them to deliver Maori wards with their progressive left hand, without at the same time giving Pakeha electors an opportunity to snatch them back again with their reactionary right.

The framers’ understanding of Pakeha prejudice was validated repeatedly when nearly all attempts to establish Maori wards were voted down by huge majorities. The descendants of the Pakeha settlers who made the country called “New Zealand” clearly possessed a strong intuition that the colonial state erected on the tribal lands of its conquered “natives” would not long survive any concerted effort to take the bi-cultural implications of the Treaty of Waitangi seriously.

The results of those referenda make it clear that, were the democratic anomaly of New Zealand’s Maori seats put to the vote, their retention would, almost certainly, be rejected decisively. The Pakeha majority’s disdain for the principle of local Maori representation is likely exceeded only by its antipathy for special Maori representation in the New Zealand parliament.

This is the obverse side to the constitutional coin Mahuta and her Labour, Green and Maori Party colleagues have just tossed.

To the Pakeha majority, the principles of liberal-democracy are morally and constitutionally unassailable. To the Maori minority, they’re simply unbeatable.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 5 February 2021.

Whoever The Greens Have Sold Their Soul To – It Isn’t Winston.

"Have I Got A Deal For You!" If, in the course of debating the Waka-Jumping Bill, the Greens really have forfeited their soul, then it is to a considerably more daunting entity than Winston Peters!

TO HEAR THE National Party and other assorted right-wing beasts tell the story, the Greens have just sold their soul to the Devil. By whom they mean, presumably, that double-breasted Lucifer, Winston Peters, and his attendant pandemonium – NZ First. The Devil’s price, allegedly, is Green Party support for Winston’s “Waka-Jumping Bill”.

The constitutional devilry of a piece of legislation intended to preserve the proportionality of our MMP Parliament is, if our top constitutional lawyers are to be believed, huge. The will of the people, as expressed at the ballot-box, we are told, is a second-order issue. What really matters, say the academics, is the right of individual Members of Parliament to spit in the faces of their party comrades and traduce the solemn personal undertakings given on the day they joined themselves to a political collectivity.

Now, this tells us a great deal about New Zealand’s constitutional lawyers. The most important piece of information vouchsafed being just how much they hate the whole idea of collectivism. The idea of entering, voluntarily, into a compact with like-minded people to contest (and hopefully win) seats in Parliament in order to implement a mutually agreed programme of reform – i.e. of becoming a member of a political party – clearly strikes them as an insufferable limitation of their freedom. The claim that they are morally obligated to abide by the decisions and policies of their party is reckoned to be totalitarian in inspiration and politically oppressive in effect.

The rights of the poor old voters are, of course, almost entirely disregarded by these upright constitutional guardians. The electorate’s assumption that the undertakings given to it by political parties immediately prior to the general election will remain viable for the full three years of the parliamentary term is dismissed as quaintly naïve. Much more important is the right of an individual MP to decide, unilaterally, that their party and their caucus colleagues have in some way departed from the straight and narrow path of political rectitude, and that he or she is, therefore, morally obligated to abrogate all former undertakings and, should their conscience require it, violate the proportionality of Parliament.

That the citizens of New Zealand are represented in Parliament in proportion to the size of their preferred party’s Party Vote, and that this constitutes the underlying principle of our MMP electoral system, is not deemed worthy of the explicit legal protection which Winston Peters’ bill provides. Democracy is expected to take second place to the tenderness of MPs’ individual consciences.

Would that this country had constitutional “experts” willing to uphold the notion that, if an individual MP no longer feels comfortable with his or her party’s political direction, then he or she should, first of all, attempt to change that direction by utilising the organisation’s internal democratic machinery. Or, if this proves impossible, by making one of only two morally acceptable choices. Either, submitting to the will of the majority; or, if that is felt to be unconscionable, resigning from Parliament.

In the case of an Electorate MP, that could mean seeking a renewed mandate from local electors by standing in the subsequent by-election as either an independent or as the representative of a new political party. For a List MP, it could mean re-joining the party rank-and-file and organising for a change of direction. Or, in the absence of meaningful rank-and-file support, leaving the party altogether.

That this has not been the position of New Zealand’s constitutional experts bears testimony to the rampant individualism and narcissism of this country’s professionally “gifted” elites. The whole idea that an individual, having voluntarily conceded the right of the majority to determine their party’s direction, cannot subsequently repudiate that concession without resigning, clearly horrifies them. They simply will not concede that it is immoral for an MP to continue to occupy a party’s seat in Parliament in defiance of the wishes of its duly-elected leader and with complete disregard for the collective judgement of its caucus. Nor will they concede that the renegade MP’s immorality is compounded ten-fold if he or she goes on to vote in a way that consistently weakens the party’s voting strength in Parliament.

Sadly, the Greens themselves are no better than the so-called “experts” on these issues. Though they have agreed to vote for the Waka-Jumping Bill, they have made it very clear that they would rather not. In other words, they have exactly the same contempt for the electoral judgement of Green Party voters as the academics!

Those same voters should probably recall that contempt when next they step into a polling booth. Clearly, there is no guarantee that what they see promised to them on the Green Party’s website offers any reliable indication as to what they will get once its MPs are comfortably ensconced in the big leather chairs.

If the Greens really have forfeited their soul, then it is to a considerably more daunting entity than Winston Peters.

A version of this essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 31 July 2018.

A Working Majority

Constitutional Guardian: Only the person who can assure the Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae, that he or she commands a majority on the floor of the House of Representatives has the right to assume the office of Prime Minister. If John Key cannot give the Governor-General such an assurance then David Cunliffe must be given the opportunity to do so.

PUTTING A GOVERNMENT TOGETHER after Saturday may prove to be a more than usually difficult task. Minor – actually very minor – shifts in voter support could open up multiple configurations capable of delivering the statement which, constitutionally, the Governor-General needs to hear: that a solid, working majority exists for either John Key or David Cunliffe on the floor of the House of Representatives.

 

It is this, and this alone, which confers upon a political leader the right (and the ability) to govern New Zealand.

 

We need to be very clear about this. The right to govern is NOT about which political party wins the most votes. National could be 15 percentage points ahead of its nearest rival in the Party Vote, but if it cannot assemble a clear, working majority in the House of Representatives it will not be entitled to form a government.

 

Let’s make that even clearer. Let’s suppose that on Saturday night National receives 45 percent of the Party Vote, and that the combined vote of the Labour and Green parties comes to 40 percent. The remaining 15 percent is divided up between NZ First, Internet-Mana, the Maori Party, Act and United Future. Crucially, Colin Craig’s Conservative Party fails – but only just – to clear the 5 percent threshold. In these circumstances, it will be the smaller parties which determine the identity of New Zealand’s next Prime Minister.

 

Ideally, this process of coalition-building should not extend beyond a few days – at the most. At that point, their negotiations complete, the victorious combination of parties will announce themselves to the public. Upon hearing the news, the Governor-General, Sir Jerry Mateparae, can then pick up the phone and invite the new majority leader to Government House where, upon declaring to the Queen’s representative that he does indeed command a working majority on the floor of the House, he will be sworn in as Prime Minister.

 

But what happens if the period of negotiation is extended? What if the outcome of the 2014 General Election hinges on the choice of just one minor party – NZ First, for example?

 

This question was put to the Prime Minister over the weekend and John Key’s response was – not to put too fine a point upon it – just a little bit worrying.

 

The Prime Minister clearly believes that, following the counting of Saturday’s ballots, his own party, National, will end up controlling the largest number of seats. He is also clearly of the view that any “Kingmaker” must give him the first opportunity to negotiate the formation of a new government.

 

All well and good – although, constitutionally speaking, the party with the largest number of votes does NOT have first dibs on coalition discussions. That’s just the way it has played out in New Zealand since the first MMP election back in 1996. Even so, the NZ First leader, Winston Peters, has signalled his intention to talk to the largest party “in the first instance”.

 

Fine.

 

But this is where things could get a little hairy. Mr Key told TV3’s The Nation on Saturday morning that if he felt that Mr Peters was mucking him around, he’d advise the Governor-general to summon the new Parliament. He also signalled his intention to continue governing as a sort of pro tempore Prime Minister until defeated by a motion of No-Confidence – at which point he would advise the Governor-General to dissolve the House and call a new General Election. Faced with the prospect of being punished by the voters for forcing them into an unnecessary and unwanted snap election, Mr Key clearly believes that Mr Peters would blink first and get in behind a National-led Government.

 

Such an outcome would, however, constitute a clear breach of New Zealand’s constitutional conventions and come very close to being a coup d’état. If Mr Key cannot negotiate an agreement with Mr Peters, then the proper course for the Governor-General is to invite the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Cunliffe, to have a go at assembling the requisite majority in the House of Representatives.

 

Only in the event of both Mr Key and Mr Cunliffe being unable to assemble a majority would the Governor-General be entitled to convene the House and test its members’ willingness to do so. Should that prove unattainable, then – and only then – would the Governor-General be obliged to dissolve the Parliament and ask us – the voters – to elect a new one.

 

Mr Key’s reference to the Canadian constitutional crisis of 2008 is deeply worrying. The Canadian PM’s claim to possess a “moral mandate” to continue governing without a parliamentary majority was accepted only because the Canadian Governor-General unconstitutionally allowed herself to be guided by a Prime Minister whose right to govern she refused to put to the test.

 

We must hope that Sir Jerry is made of sterner stuff.

 

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 16 September 2014.