Support Constitutional Reform

Unfortunately you/we (the public) are unlikely to convince Parliamentarians to limit their own power. As an indication even our Bill Of Rights is subordinate to other legislation. We probably need to concentrate on electing a more principled parliament – which, in some ways, MMP does provide.

Graeme: For me, a constitution is one of those things that you don’t realise you need until it is too late. I was not in favour of one for a long time, but I can now see the value. In particular, I don’t think we should be too complacent about corruption. We are on the slide with Transparency International and not without reason. I also don’t think we should use US as a point of comparison for anything.

Strangely enough, I like our unwritten constitution. From my observations of what happens in the U.S. (admittedly a single sample) it seems that a constitution becomes some sort of minimum threshold that things are held to. NZ is a tolerant, liberal and low corruption society as we are. What’s the specific problem that a constitution is trying to solve?

I was just going to suggest this myself. I think a Royal Commission into an entrenched constitution and a subsequent referendum on its recommendations would be a very good thing.