The thin edge of a very dangerous wedge

Via Stageleft, the New Zealand parliament has voted in a bill which is the slippery slope into government control of that country's news media:

New Zealand politicians, upset at being seen as lazy and offensive, have banned journalistic satire as well as coverage that ridicules or denigrates them, according to new rules passed on Thursday. Members of New Zealand's parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the new rules. Just six members of the 121-seat parliament were opposed. The new provision makes it a contempt of parliament if television footage is used for "satire, ridicule or denigration." Photographers are no longer able to take still shots during sessions but television cameras can. Leader of the House Michael Cullen suggested it was too easy for photographers to take shots that were out of context.

Like perhaps, sleeping or flipping a finger at an opponent.

Several newspapers and television stations reacted angrily to the upcoming ban, which was revealed on Monday. They showed images from the next day's parliamentary debate of politicians asleep, gesturing offensively, reading fashion magazines and using their cellphones. Media said they would no longer be able to show these images under the new rules, and would face jail if found guilty of contempt. Cameras have been banned for periods of several days to a week on occasions that parliament finds those media organisations to have brought the House into disrepute. Last year, New Zealand television station TV3 was banned for three days after it showed a picture of a politician repeatedly making an obscene gesture.

Sounds all too familiar, doesn't it?

New Zealand has had its problems in the past. In the late 1980s it was literally bankrupt. Drastic measures had to be taken just to be able to make monthly interest payments on their national debt. In 1992, New Zealand's net debt stood at almost 50% of that country's gross domestic product.

There was unhappiness everywhere.

The NZ dollar has been on the same roller coaster-ride as many world currencies but at one point it fell to $0.39 US. Anyone buying New Zealand beef would have noticed a good quality product for about 1/2 the price of the same product from North American producers. It also meant New Zealanders took a national pay cut.

New Zealand used to have a bicameral parliament. Similar to many Commonwealth governments using the Westminster system New Zealand's upper house of parliament was known as the Legislative Council. Members of the Legislative Council were initially appointed for life modeled on the British House of Lords. Due to stacking by successive prime ministers however, that was changed in 1891 and MLCs served for seven years. What is little known among many Commonwealth countries is that since 1914 New Zealand had legislation in place to elect, by proportional representation, the Legislative Council for a fixed period of six years. And they never followed through. Instead, in 1951, the NZ government abolished the upper house. To cause the Legislative Council to vote FOR the idea of upper house abolition, then prime minister Sidney Holland appointed twenty members to the Legislative Council to vote for their own abolition. They were known as the "suicide squad".

The abolition of the upper house of the New Zealand parliament was intended to be an interim measure until new legislation to create a second chamber of parliament could be passed. Nothing has happened and New Zealand, for better or for worse, remains unicameral.

Anyway, back to the legislation in question.

The New Zealand parliament has decided that, in order to ameliorate a situation which can clearly be held out as censorship, it would provide a continuous, unedited, streamed broadcast of parliament, available on the internet, whenever the House is sitting.

That's fair enough, but the rules associated with that streaming broadcast are somewhat draconian. You can watch parliament, and you can go to the pub and discuss what you saw, but don't take a portion of that taxpayer-funded broadcast and make anything but a favourable public comment. It's now against the law.

There is some comfort to be taken from this event, however. It's nice to know that New Zealand's politicians aren't terribly different from ours: Self-serving, feckless, egotistical, thin-skinned wanks.