Frontier Politics

For all the mace & ceremonial robes, the many portraits of ‘Her Majesty’, New Zealand parliament is  one rickety step above a kangaroo court (no pun at the expense of our preternaturally large hind-legged neighbours intended). If the ornate wooden interior of the House of Commons closely resembles the set of the TV show Deadwood, it may be more than mere coincidence.

In fact it’s a wonder John Key doesn’t just don a Sheriff’s badge, and trot about Wellington on his lucky steed. You can tell from his boyish grin he’d be into it.

Because government in New Zealand is government-lite. The population isn’t even enough to staff a knock-off handbag factory in China. We talk up terrorist threats, but we have no real enemies (Dennis Connor doesn’t count). Other nations regard us as ‘cute’, even if they can only place us on a map of Middle Earth.

Consequently, New Zealand parliament operates more like a large city council, quibbling endlessly over parks, cycle ways, milk solids, leaky houses, and novel ways to throw money at international sports fixtures and Hollywood movie projects, in the hope of finally being recognised by the United Nations as more than just an extension of Tasmania.

Of course, in every country there is always something of the schoolyard bickering in national politics. It’s just that in New Zealand, the shool is one of those creepy, backwater rural schools with 25 kids, aged 5 to 18, all dumped together in one class.

In the absence of any hard issues to tackle, the real business of New Zealand government, is government itself. If the Guinness Book of Records had a record for the world’s fastest lawmaking, Kiwis could at last claim their place as world number one at something (even without first having to bend the statistics). With only one tier of Government, no Presidential veto, and limited checks & balances, New Zealand government speeds through more laws than Jason Gunn gets TV show offers from TVNZ.

Added to the very ‘Spaghetti Western’ claim of Fastest Lawmakers in the West, is New Zealand’s relentless, determined egalitarianism. Every man (or women) and his (or her) dog actually has a very realistic shot at a seat in parliament. As a nation we like to ridicule the elitist political processes of bigger players, like the USA and the UK, where the corridors of power are strictly reserved by birthright, breeding, or insane amounts of money.

An early adopter of proportional representation, New Zealand has voted in suburban single mum MPs, dreadlocked marijuana reform MPs, and career beneficiary MPs. Not to mention the unusually high percentage of Prime Ministers over the years who have been proud to call themselves ‘simple farmers’.

In 1893, New Zealand was also the first country in the world to give women the vote – although there is an argument to suggest that this was less about noble ideals of equality, and more about simply not being able to tell the early female Kiwi settlers apart from the men.

Perhaps it is our high sense of entitlement to the democratic process that explains the popularity in New Zealand for a good old referendum. With a minimum signature requirement of just 10% of the population (approx 100 signatures), it is a great way for niche interest groups to throw around a little public money by testing the mood of the nation on ambiguously worded questions which are inevitably ignored by those in power anyway.

Maybe there is, after all, something to be said for those ‘Elitist’ political systems.  Is it so wrong to leave the running of the country to people who, deep down, you secretly think are just that little bit ‘better than you’?