Tim Bale: There's many a drawback to ruling by referendums

COMMENT

Winston Peters' typically populist call for binding citizen-initiated referendums is difficult to criticise without coming over as a sniffy liberal afraid of real democracy.

Much of the opposition, it is true, will be led by well-meaning people whose objection to the idea disguises, or is at least mixed up with, their very real fear that it will produce laws which enshrine things they themselves don't like but which they predict the public will - dangerously low taxes, ridiculously harsh penalties and embarrassingly xenophobic restrictions on immigration.

But this doesn't necessarily mean that the critics are wrong. Referendums and representative democracy need not be contradictory and can be complementary, especially if referendums are used (as they are in many liberal democracies) sparingly.

But there are good, practical reasons why what Mr Peters is suggesting is at best seriously problematic and at worst utterly bonkers, certainly as a bottom line.

For one thing, we need to subject his overseas examples to a little more thorough examination. He points to Switzerland, but New Zealand is a very different country. The Swiss divide themselves into cantons, mini-states that enjoy a great deal of independence from the federal Government at the centre.

To pass at the national level, a referendum proposal has to win not just a majority of all those voting but also has to pass in a majority of cantons. Living in a country where local government is a joke, Kiwis would not have this extra protection.

Nor should we forget that most Swiss referendums are abrogative - they don't so much encourage citizens to pass the laws that politicians won't give them as to repeal those they don't like. This can create a pretty negative, can't do political culture.

Direct democracy has had other impacts there, too. For one thing, research suggests that politicians are quite good at buying off potential proposers by co-opting their ideas in watered-down form. So, even though referendums (or threatened referendums) send some useful signals to politicians, there'll be no end to backroom deals. For another, Swiss general elections have the lowest turnouts outside of the United States, the other home of direct democracy.

Research on California by American academics Shaun Bowler and Todd Donovan refuses to pander to the liberal prejudices of knee-jerk opponents of initiative-style politics. But even it throws up some problems that Mr Peters needs to explain how he intends to get around.

One problem is that the amount of money spent on campaigning runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Special interests rather than ordinary battlers at the grassroots are often behind proposals and, while they can't simply buy success (only a third of proposals that even make it on to the ballot fail), they can waste an awful lot of money (and forests) trying.

Secondly, if an initiative passes in California it means an immediate change in the law. This would be fine if everyone could rely on the fact that proposals voted on the same day would be non-contradictory. But they can't because, believe it or not, there is absolutely nothing to stop this happening.

Nor can ordinary people rely on legislators being able to tidy up any poor draftsmanship that creates loopholes and implementation headaches. The only way bad law can be rendered marginally better or simply struck down is through the courts. Mr Peters, being a lawyer, might like the sound of this.

But do we really want judges involved in the making as well as the adjudication of law. And do we really want even more public and private money going into the pockets of the big public law firms in downtown Auckland and Wellington?

In any case, these technical problems arguably beg the question. What Kiwis really have to make up their minds about is whether they want to throw over a century and more of representative democracy, the kind where elected individuals in Parliament make decisions based on their best judgment about the need for, and impact of, a proposal, not just on its own merits but (and this is crucial) in the light of other proposals and laws - past, present and future.

The problem with direct democracy is that each proposal is passed in isolation, leading for instance to demands for more services at the same time as a demand to, say, cut taxes. This is exactly what happened in California, which might well be why the state has been a financial basket-case in recent years, a fact that goes some way to explaining why Arnie was elected to clean up the mess.

So referendums can often create an even worse mess than the politics they're supposed to clean up. Just as often they fail to provide final answers to the questions their proposers are keen to settle. Ireland is one of the places that has lately taken to referendums to sort out hot-potato issues such as abortion, divorce, Europe and (in the north) the peace process.

But the record shows, just as it does it Quebec, that whichever side loses a referendum will simply press for another until it gets the answer it wants. Another plebiscite on Mr Peters' pension plan, anyone?

Not surprisingly, all this participation leads to voter fatigue. The other place that went crazy for them a few years ago is Italy. But not any more. Very reasonably, the Italians put in a proviso that for any proposal to pass, at least 50 per cent of the country had to turn up to vote, irrespective of which way they voted. In recent years referendums have failed to attract sufficient people to turn out and vote, making them an expensive waste of time.

Perhaps Mr Peters wouldn't include such a pernickety proviso. But would people really be willing to obey laws passed without that kind of protection? He might not like the fact that Labour seems to be permanently ensconced as a minority Government. But at least it can claim that its legislative majority bolstered by the Greens and United Future represents over half of the three-quarters of New Zealanders who voted at the last general election.

If he doesn't like it, he should work to win over more voters to the centre-right cause - with or without the help of National. New Zealand moved to MMP in a referendum because people (even if they regret it now) wanted to change the rules. Those same people should be sceptical when politicians start trying to do the same.

* Dr Tim Bale lectures in international relations and politics at the University of Sussex.