What happened to democracy in our country?

Today marks the third day of hearings on the Regulatory Standards Bill at the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee. I know - that’s an incredibly boring sentence. But we also know that’s is by design. This bill is deeply worrying - for so many reasons. And yet, we’re seeing near-total disregard from the coalition when it comes to listening to New Zealanders’ concerns.

I know the headline of this newsletter sounds far-fetched - but it’s a question that keeps circling in my head. For the second consecutive day, no committee members from NZ First showed up to hear oral submissions on the Regulatory Standards Bill. NZ First is the party we need to encourage to break away from the strange grip Seymour has on this coalition.

At this point, Christopher Luxon is barely functioning as prime minister. The hierarchy of our government increasingly looks like this: Prime Minister David Seymour, Deputy Winston Peters, and some guy fetching their coffee - Luxon.

New Zealand First MPs not even showing up to work for their most important bill of the year? I honestly don’t know what to say.

It’s worth noting that it looks like nobody on the committee showed up in person on the first day. Every MP zoomed in. This is despite the government constantly telling us we need to be turning up to work. Apparently they don’t.

This all feels like part of a commitment by this government to turn away from the public they’re meant to serve. We are seeing our (deputy) prime minister waging a campaign of harassment against anyone who publicly disagrees with him. When he’s not doing that he’s calling the majority of New Zealanders idiots who are just misinformed and don’t understand his aims.

He has only briefly taken a break from this to claim that 150,000 New Zealanders are bots and are fake voices that should be considered invalid and dismissed because they don’t agree with him.

When New Zealanders in their thousands take part in a democratic process and one of the most powerful leaders in government encourages the public to attack them and then says they shouldn’t be able to have their say - that’s an attack on democracy. When a lawyer from the Waitangi Tribunal who has simply explained what is in the bill has to get a security guard - that’s an attack on democracy. I don’t know how anyone can see it any other way.

This campaign to undermine our right to be involved in political process and actually be heard by the people meant to serve us didn’t start with this bill. Similar claims of bots and ‘fake’ submissions were made during the submissions process on the Treaty Principles Bill in January. More than 300,000 submissions were made and no evidence was ever found to support any of Seymour’s claims.

But at this point, it hardly matters. The damage is already done.

Politicians aren’t even showing up for work to their incredible well paid jobs. We pay them to act and they’re not even doing the very first step toward action.

Some are simply quitting when they are challenged in any way to do the work they’re paid to do. Other politicians spend almost all of their time attacking the opposition and getting them banned for literally doing their job as opposition or the speaker or trying to start culture wars instead of actually doing what they’ve been elected to do.

We forget that democracy is literally ‘for the people, by the people’. Yet somehow, this coalition of corporates has turned it into for the profit not the people. For big business not New Zealanders. For the few, paid for by the many.

The Finance and Expenditure Committee made the decision to allocated a maximum of 30 hours for public submissions on the Regulatory Standards Bill. There is absolutely no way to hear a range of views in that time and have those views questioned, which is the purpose of a hearing like this. To give an example of recent bills, 100 hours was assigned for the Fast Track Bill and 80 hours for the Treaty Principles Bill.

The RSB bill had so far been rejected every single time it has come up - it has come up four times. For this reason, David Seymour does not want the bill to go through a full process. And yet - New Zealand First don’t even show up and National as always are invisible.

Committees and submissions are boring. But they matter. And they make change. They’re a core part of democratic process.

Years ago I supported my son to speak at the health select committee under a different government. He was so nervous. Everyone in our whānau knew his speech by heart by committee day.

He was just a kid and his hands were shaking as he spoke clearly and with conviction. He was calling - along with many others - for an increase to the Pharmac budget and access to insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors for everyone in Aotearoa.

Due to his speech and the tireless mahi of so many New Zealanders - we now have an increase to the Pharmac budget and increased access to continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps.

Without people speaking at these committees - and politicians actually listening - we as people wouldn’t have any of the gains we have.

No politician delivers change without pressure.

If they shut the doors on us, if they refuse to listen, then yes—we’re screwed.
And if we don’t push back now, we’ll stay that way.

And that’s where we are at now. A precedent is being set by this coalition.

So—I can’t stop thinking about how everyday New Zealanders would be fired (or made redundant by a gloating government) if we pulled half the crap this coalition is pulling.

Swearing at colleagues and customers. Insulting them online. Slapping our company logo on petty memes and personal attacks. Skipping mahi. Calling the people we’re meant to serve and listen to ‘bots’ and ‘fakes.’

Any of us would lose our jobs.

But here, in this government?

They get rewarded for it. I don’t think we should ever stand for that, do you?

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