An attack on democracy

John Key and the attack on democracy

Seemorerocks

The stories of the last few days and weeks have involved some pretty major revelations of illegal spying, major government cutbacks and breaches of computer systems allowing for the sharing of personal information of the most vulnerable citizens of the country.

Despite, in the case of Kim Dotcom being illegally spied on by police and intelligence agencies we have seen the prime minister of the country lying about his involvement in the affair.

Despite the whole country knowing that John Key was intimately involved and is lying through his nose there seems to be little possibility of him being brought to account. This allows him to taunt the leader of the Opposition with “put up or shut up!”

We have never had in this country a government that has had such contempt for long-established norms for conducting the affairs of state, and for democracy in general. So much of what the government does goes right to the limits of legality – so that they are acting within the limits of the law, but getting around the limitations that are placed on executive power by the law.

It has got me thinking about really how far this could go in the days ahead.

Other countries have constitutions and federal rights of cities and states that are not that easy to get around. If I am right about the NZ constitution (and I am no legal expert – I will make this clear from the outset) it seems that there are no such safeguards here.

So much of the Westminster system is based on legal precedent. We have legislation such as the Human Rights Act, but all it takes is a majority of a unicameral parliament to cancel that and bring in repressive legislation.

Already the government is able to operate 'under the radar' by introducing legislation 'under urgency', avoiding scrutiny of Select Committee and (in the case of the sacking of the Christchurch regional council, by Order of Council).

This begs the question of what could theoretically happen if, for example the government found its right -wing agenda under threat or there was the threat of civil unrest as the result of economic and social collapse.

What would happen, for instance if the government lost the case taken against it by Maori over water rights and this jeopardised their plans to privatise assets at a time when there was a fiscal or economic crisis and other crises came to a head at the same time?

It would take a simple majority vote in its unicameral parliament (New Zealand does not have an upper house) to cancel elections and to allow for the trampling on human rights.

For those who think that this is impossible I ask you to take a look at the history of Germany. Hitler did not come to power through a coup d'etat but through the ballot box. He used legal means (as well as his own thugs, the Brown Shirts) until, when the time was right he carried out a false flag operation (the burning of the Reichstag blamed on the communists) to cancel human rights and take on dictatorial powers.

For now the government can get what they want by paying lip service to democracy, relying on a compliant public and a corporate media.

However unlikely it seems in this fair country it might behove us to look at what COULD happen.

---Seemorerocks