Personally I am appalled by the Greens use of the Leaders fund to the tune of $76,000 to employ full time staff to collect signatures for an anti-asset sales, CIR Citizens Initiated Referendum.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10814355
From the Guide; Petitioning the House of Representatives available online at the New Zealand Parliament website:
A petition is a document addressed exclusively to the House of Representatives, signed by one person or many people, requesting the House to take a clearly defined action on a matter of public policy or law, or to redress a local or private grievance.
Who can petition?
Anyone of any age may petition the House of Representatives, including corporations and unincorporated bodies having sufficient identity as organisations.
Should you petition?
Petitioning the House should be your last course of action. You may petition the House when no other remedies are available, or where other statutory remedies have been exhausted.
Quite clearly the petition process is obviously intended to give citizens, collectives and corporations recourse to Parliament on controversial issues not otherwise addressed by parliamentary process. A good example of this is the Hands Up For Learning Campaign against National Standards. It was driven by the NZEI union. Labour had it’s paws all over it but the petition was sufficiently removed from Parliament to be democratic.The chief spokesperson and person named as the petitioner Bill Courtney believed in the petition sentiment and spoke well to the issues behind the petition.Â
Legally the Leader’s Office is entitled to spend the funds however it likes – staff are generally employed to act as advisors or surrogate whips. They keep communication lines open with electorates and travel with the leader. Effectively here the Greens have employed citizens to pursue a democratic process intended for citizens to have an avenue of recourse to the House.
The public should be looking at the Green agenda closer. I am not a hater; I think they do some good work particularly around technology and ACTA.
However, they appear to be whipping up hysteria by abusing democratic process. They are promoting the Tall Poopy Syndrome in Nz – All ‘rich’ people are arseholes and if you don’t want to be an arsehole – vote for us because we caaare.
Who can petition?
Anyone of any age may petition the House of Representatives, including corporations and unincorporated bodies having sufficient identity as organisations.
Should you petition?
Petitioning the House should be your last course of action. You may petition the House when no other remedies are available, or where other statutory remedies have been exhausted.
Quite clearly the petition process is obviously intended to give citizens, collectives and corporations recourse to Parliament on controversial issues not otherwise addressed by parliamentary process. A good example of this is the Hands Up For Learning Campaign against National Standards. It was driven by the NZEI union. Labour had it’s paws all over it but the petition was sufficiently removed from Parliament to be democratic.The chief spokesperson and person named as the petitioner Bill Courtney believed in the petition sentiment and spoke well to the issues behind the petition.Â
Legally the Leader’s Office is entitled to spend the funds however it likes – staff are generally employed to act as advisors or surrogate whips. They keep communication lines open with electorates and travel with the leader. Effectively here the Greens have employed citizens to pursue a democratic process intended for citizens to have an avenue of recourse to the House.
The public should be looking at the Green agenda closer. I am not a hater; I think they do some good work particularly around technology and ACTA.
However, they appear to be whipping up hysteria by abusing democratic process. They are promoting the Tall Poopy Syndrome in Nz – All ‘rich’ people are arseholes and if you don’t want to be an arsehole – vote for us because we caaare.
