Page 4741 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 7 December 1994
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That is what we do at the in-principle stage of Bills. The EIR allows for optional voting. That is not a problem under the EIR Bill. The report then says:
governments tend to protect minorities from discrimination - because CIR is purely driven by majorities, minorities could be threatened.
That is not true. CIR is not purely driven by majorities; CIR is driven by minorities. It is accepted or rejected by majorities.
Then there are a number of arguments listed under disadvantages that basically go along the lines that the voters are idiots. It talks about "politicians who have expertise behind them and a certain amount of objectivity". What a joke that is! It continues:
... an argument put directly to the public may appeal more to emotion than intellect, and self-interest to the wider good.
The poor old public! They are biased idiots, one would imagine, if you believe these disadvantages. Then it says:
frustrated political parties ... could turn to CIR to try and get their policies up ... which goes directly against the philosophy of voter power.
Once again, the voters are idiots. Someone gets something put on the referendum list, and the voters have a say; and we are stupid because we did not realise that it was just an initiative of a frustrated political party trying to get their policies up. Dumb again! Then it says:
there is the possibility of a signature-gathering industry being established ...
There is, if you make the trigger too high. I brought that point up. There is no concern if the trigger is available to socially disadvantaged groups who do not have the power to pay money for it. These disadvantages are raised again and again, but the majority of them are not relevant to the EIR Bill. EIR was basically dismissed out of hand because they had too many problems. I know the major problem that they had: It works very well and would give true democracy. Then it says:
a referendum held on election day may overshadow the election both on the day and during the campaign.
Once again, the voters are idiots. They do not know where their attention should be. It is up to us to make sure that they do not get their attention diverted on election day; that they understand only that they should vote for politicians; and that they have a clear-headed view of what is going on. They should not be distracted by anything like a referendum where they can have a binding say. Actually, the reverse is the truth.
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