Rowan on democracy

Jenny Rowan, Mayor of Kapiti Coast on one hand said this of the smacking referendum:

"The decision on smacking had already been made, and revisiting it is a waste of money. The Prime Minister is not going to change anything."

and on the same page of the Kapiti Observer [pg 4, July 13, 2009] said this of the government decision to cut the Community Adult Education budget:

"I'm very pleased to see the community fight back to stop night class cuts around the country and I want to lend my support to this campaign.

Well Jenny, you are just wasting people's time and money by fighting back. If I can quote you, the decision on community education has already been made. The Prime Minister is not going to change anything. Maybe.

Or consider this another way Jenny. You are exercising your democratic right and a whole lot of tax payer funds (in your time, your salary and your position) to fight for something you believe in. So extend the same courtesy to the people that signed to initiate a referendum on smacking.

The threshold to trigger a referendum is high. This hardly ever happens, and it is disappointing to see people like Rowan and Key, who rely on a public referendum to put them in their jobs to dismiss the process when it doesn't suit them.

What was also disappointing is the amount of factual errors and misconceptions in a near full page article that "explained" the referendum. I'll cover that another time.

For now, I'll leave you with the point that elected officials who advocate to shut down democratic process are merely demonstrating that they don't really want to listen to constituents unless it suits. In many respects, the exact wording of the question is irrelevant. The fact that it made it to the referendum stage is something elected "representatives" could treat with more respect.