New Zealand needs government with incentives to think beyond the next election.
This is the case for building those incentives.
The Problem
New Zealand's Parliament, like many other countries, has three problems that no change of government fixes:
Policy zigzag — big policy decisions get reversed every few years when the government changes. We end up paying twice: once to start, stop then change direction, once more to start again.
Short-term blinkers — nobody in the system has the job of watching the long-range risks. The risks show up in the news (or in your backyard) after they already have become a crisis.
Cooperation gap — no formal way for rival parties to work together on the problems that are bigger than any one election. They end up fighting over things they could mostly agree on.
These 3 problems are not failures of political will or bad character, on the whole. They are actual design features of a system built for a different era.
We love to complain about politicians, but most of the annoying things they do are because of the way Parliament rewards them for the wrong things.
The Fix
The fixes we are proposing are fully compatible with democratic government:
better for New Zealanders,
better for voters, and
surprisingly better for politicians too.
Get the rules right, and most politicians will do the right thing. Most of them were trying to all along.
Click here to see what changes we are suggesting.
Have changes like this been made before?
Yes, many times. Democracy is a work in progress. Click below to go to the Precedents page: