“The vote of the people is essential in any modern democracy. It is used to elect representatives to Parliament and to choose and reject Governments. New Zealand’s Governments have extensive powers, yet our political system contains few of the safeguards against the abuse of the power of the executive that exists in other countries. The ability to force a referendum against the wishes of Government would help provide that security.”
— Source: The Royal Commission on the Electoral System.
Democracy would be better served if as many voters as possible were represented in parliament. We will remove the party vote threshold so that every party with enough votes for a seat will be represented in parliament.
New Conservative upholds and defends the current definition for free speech in New Zealand that:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.”
We will uphold the spirit of true democracy and ensure that free speech in New Zealand remains free. We will uphold people’s right to deliver, hear and engage in robust ideological debate, in order to make properly informed decisions.
The New Zealand curriculum states that one of the goals of education is to produce critical thinkers. This can only happen when children are given all the arguments on any issue so that they can form their own opinions. We want our children taught how to think not what to think.
Controls and restrictions on communication must be carefully considered. The role of government is not to dictate to individuals on what is subjectively viewed as acceptable or not.
We would make the Bill of Rights Act 1990 the Supreme Law to protect all our rights. This would prevent any government from overriding them and allow the Court to render any laws breaching our rights as invalid or void.