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Oh my God
By Steven | September 15, 2010
Let me add my voice to the flabbergasted reactions of some constitutional experts to the Earthquake Response and Recovery Act. It reads like a far-fetched doom-laden Public Law exam problem. And now it’s law. We’ve just appointed three Ministers as Kings.
“Trust us”, they insist. No thanks. I’d rather trust the checks and balances in our Parliamentary law-making system, imperfect though it is.
Geoffrey Palmer, come back, we need you!
Topics: General | 5 Comments »
5 Responses to “Oh my God”
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September 15th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
And our supine opposition just let this happen. I may just invest in a banana plantation.
September 16th, 2010 at 9:49 am
What has made me sick has been the pathetic coverage by our media over this. It seems rather fortuitous all this came out on Act at the same time.
Hats off to the greens for being the only ones to say anything substantive about it, even though they voted for it.
September 16th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
What has made me sick has been the pathetic coverage by our media over this.
1) They didn’t see the bill until it was released, just like everyone else.
2) They didn’t have anyone they could quote from about how awful it was until well after their press deadline (unless they wanted to go with random bloggers and twitter)
3) What, you expect them to read bills? Their poor heads would explode.
September 16th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
*sigh* yes you are probably right. However…
1) True, although by today you’d expect more than the brief comment in the herald… What about the evening news? I’ve seen reports on much smaller issues rushed out in quicker time…
2) Yes, it would have been nigh on impossible to pick up the phone and get hold of anyone a little credible like Dean Knight or Andrew Geddis…
3) I know, I know… not fair on anyone really… And to be fair no one reads bills but lawyers, not even politicians.
I guess my ‘upset-ness’ is that something so significant gets barely a passing mention with no effort to actually look into it. I understand why, but it doesn’t make me any happier about it.
September 16th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
It doesn’t make me happy either. The media dropped the ball on this one, partly because of their publishing model, and partly out of pure laziness. They have websites, which are updated during the day outside of the normal deadline cycle, and I would have at least expected to see something on that. But instead we had a minor footnote about what has actually been one of the more important Acts in recent NZ constitutional history.