The opposition today started a push to get 10 per cent of voters to sign a petition calling for a referendum on replacing the Privy Council with a New Zealand Supreme Court.
The Clerk of Parliament has approved the wording of the petition, which begins: "Should all rights of appeal tothe Privy Council be abolished?"
The ACT, National and New Zealand First parties welcomed the approval and said they expected people to support the petition as a matter of principle.
"We want to firmly establish a convention that substantial constitutional changes should not be made by a bare majority vote of a coalition of minorities in Parliament," they said.
The parties need to collect about 310,000 signatures by next July 2 to force a referendum.
Parliament's justice and electoral committee is considering the Supreme Court Bill, which would replace the Privy Council with a new New Zealand-based court as the country's highest appeals court.
The bill could become law before the petition deadline passes and ACT MP Stephen Franks said if that happened, it would have to be repealed.
