New Zealand has consistently been a world leader in the development of democracy. Based around Labour’s long-held principles of fairness and decency for all New Zealanders.
We are committed to a culture of openness and transparency which strengthens our democracy. A culture of participation, open dialogue, active engagement. That’s what OpenLabourNZ is all about.
If you want to participate in helping develop Labour first attempt to open up its policy development process up to the general public then register to attend.
Laurence Millar to facilitate OpenLabourNZ event
Laurence Millar is an independent advisor in the use of ICT by governments, and Editor at Large for FutureGov magazine (www.futuregov.asia). During his ICT career of more than 35 years, he has worked in the public and private sector, in the UK, USA, Asia and New Zealand. He is currently leading the development of the e-government strategy and action plan for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
He is a well-known supporter of Open Government, and has chaired and participated Open Government events in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines and Thailand. He was on the international expert advisory panel for the Gov2.0 Task Force in Australia. He writes about open government on his blog – www.gvg.net.nz.
Event details
The public event will be held at the Lion Harbourview Lounge on the second floor of the Michael Fowler Centre on Saturday 28 August from 10am – 3pm.
The event will also be streamed live over the Internet, so people who can’t be there in person can still participate. People participating from home will be able to do so using Twitter, Facebook and an online forum. Details about how to participate online will be announced soon.
If you are able to attend in person, please register as places are limited. You are asked to participate in good faith. This is a Labour Party focussed event but it is intended to attract a wide range of participants interested in the goal of open and transparent government and how to achieve that.
Registration is free, and you can register by emailing open@labour.org.nz
For more details about the OpenLabourNZ event see here and here
Hear Labour ROAR!
!
“New Zealand has consistently been a world leader in the development of democracy. Based around Labour’s long-held principles of fairness and decency for all New Zealanders.”
Ha ha, yeah right..! My sides are hurting…
If NZ is a leader in Democracy then why do we have so little of it:
Why has governments over the last 20 years ignored four referendums that overwhelmingly called for changes to legislation..?
Why are referendums so hard to trigger (300,000 signatures required)..?
Why are referendums not binding..?
Why do we not have a formal constitution protecting us from politicians..?
Why do we not have an elected head of state..?
Why are we not a Republic..?
Why is so much power concentrated in the Parliament instead of devolved to local communities..?
Why does the PM have almost unlimited power..?
Why are MPs whipped to vote for things they don’t believe in..?
Why is it so easy for Parliament to pass laws without any oversight from an upper house or the public..? The fastest lawmaker in the West…
NZ isn’t a leader in democracy, try looking at Greece, the US or Switzerland and start fixing our lack of it…
What are the policy areas that are going to be discussed on Saturday? Is there an agenda? Some topics are far more likely to attract my interest than others.
Greece and the US are amongst the best examples of successful democracies?
Given the level of pork barreling, (bi)partisan self destructiveness and commercial/corporate power broking in those countries its not much to aspire to. I would have thought that NZ’s practice of democracy was superior on a number of counts.
Maybe we are now used to it on Red Alert, but being able to get a response from an actual MP on an actual issue often within an hour or two, and without having to navigate through layers of staff and officious road blocks is nothing short of a democratic, participative miracle.
No to say that many of your points are not worth examining closely JMH, they certainly are.
“Not to say”
I was refering to Ancient Greece actually, and the American system is far superior to ours, the problem is the influence money is having over their system, they are not following their constitution which is the greatest political document ever written, this is correctable by the people choosing to vote for 3rd party candidates which is what I hope eventually will happen… Apart from that they have a devolved system of Federal, State and Muncipal legislatures with a Presdient checked and balanced by Congress and the Senate who check and balance each other, the founding fathers didn’t want anyone trusting anyone or any one person having too much control – genius…
You will never be `openlabour’ until you are prepared to:
1. Accept constructive criticism.
2. Debate issues in an open forum.
Allowing contrary views and debate on Red Alert would be a good start. You only alienate people when you delete true statements and place contributors in moderation or ban them for true staements.
Jeremy, I lived in the US for the first 36 years of my life and participated in the political process there, and I can promise you that it is much less democratic than New Zealand. I think some of the reason you feel differently is that you’ve been misinformed about the US system.
It’s impossible for a third party candidate to be elected president precisely because of the US Constitution which sets out an election structure guaranteeing the winner will be either a Republican or a Democrat. There are no third parties in the US Congress, in either the House or the Senate.
The US Supreme Court recently ruled (in the Citizens United case) that corporations are “people” and can spend as much company money on elections as they want to, and they’re not required to declare that donation publicly. The Court ruled that preventing corporations from spending money was unconstitutional, so the reality is the opposite of what you said: The US Constitution does nothing to prevent the influence of money.
The system of checks and balance is the US President, US Congress and the federal Judiciary all acting as a brake on each other. But from 2000-2006 both houses of the US Congress were controlled by Republicans who flat out refused to offer any checks or balances on Bush/Cheney, and American democracy barely survived the unfettered assault.
From my perspective as an American-born New Zealander, one of the greatest strengths of New Zealand’s system is also the greatest weakness of the American system: Change in the US often takes one or more generations where in NZ it can happen quickly. If people don’t like the change, in NZ it can be fixed quickly, in the US it will take many more years.
NZ’s system isn’t perfect—no one’s is—but the US system, while a practical solution for such a large country, would mean undemocratic over-government for a small country like New Zealand.
Jeremy M Harris
Is the American constitution the greatest political document ever written? Hardly… didn’t stop slavery. It just a scrap of paper at the end of the day. Not many people IN the US “actually” what was written in the document.
Their system right now is worse than NZ. Check and balances hardly. Sometimes those “check and balances” are used against their original intention, stall and cause confusion. Also the Congress and the Senate have the same parties.
Your right about the third party bit thou. it would make the system work better. Maybe
American is a “weak” democracy and for “Ancient Greece”! you seriously don’t know what your talking about. It what you would call an Oligarchy and it was corrupted as hell.
New Zealand has a strong and proud democracy. But nothing is static and we must be responsive and innovative. Which is what OpenLabourNZ is about.
We can learn from what other countries are doing around openness and transparency, but we must also find our own way of expressing the things that strengthen our democratic way.
@pdm hope you got out of the right side of bed this morning. You get a fair hearing and a platform for your views.
@Arthur, I think you display my point rather well actually, the Amercian Constitution allows for change via amendment and I’d bet a poll of average Americans would overwhelmingly support an amendment to it to take away the “person” status of corporations and ban their contributions, the government there does belong to the people (if they organise) and it is a change they should demand…
America has gone the wrong way since 1913 but it is not unrecoverable, I think of it this way – Usain Bolt is injured at the moment so all the other sprinters are winning the events, it doesn’t mean he is the superior athlete and when he recovers he will once again be number one…
@rutb, originally Ancient Greece was incredibly democratic, your right it decended into dictatorship but that was not the model…
@Clare, we have a democracy and thank God for that but put simply you politicians do not fear us enough…
*it doesn’t mean he isn’t the superior athlete
Yeah it can so easily happen in a democracy
We’re getting a boozetatorship 
I’m in moderation but I do have a question for openlabour
Not a post for trolling questions Trevor