By the people for the people – campaigns call for referenda

Two Mt Albert by-election candidates from parties claiming to representi “the people” are demanding citizen-initiated referenda.

The People’s Choice Party candidate Rusty Kane is pushing for a citizen-initiated referendum on the controversial Waterview motorway.

Meamnwhile, People Before Profit candidate Malcolm France is promoting a citizen-initiated referendum calling for the minimum wage to be raised to $15 per hour.

Kane, a resident of New Plymouth, says his party is using the by-election not only to pursue a referendum on the Waterview issue but to promote the need to make citizen-initiated referendums binding on the Government.

“If the communities and the citizens of New Zealand don’t have the power of a majority say against a Government decision, we are no better than a dictatorship,” says Mr Kane.

He sees binding referenda “stopping nonsense” like the anti-smacking law and making the Government and politicians more accountable to the majority’s wishes.

France, who worked in the corporate world for 12 years, will be going door to door during the campaign seeking signatures for a minimum wage referendum.

“These are issues that the community should care about and get involved with,” he says.

“Thousands of people who live in my area are on low wages, many on the basic minimum wage.”

Promoting his campaign as “a punk rock campaign to get up the noses of the politrickers”,  France is also demanding action on the motorway issue but not via referendum.

He is calling for civil disobedience and human blockades against the planned motorway.

“I’ll be standing on a platform of direct action and civil disobedience against this motorway, and arguing that the billions spent on it would be better spent on free and frequent public transport,” he writes on his campaign blog.

While Kane is not demanding civil disobedience just yet, his party is blocking media from its in-house meetings with residents of the Mt Albert electorate.

He says it is to stay clear of the dirty campaigning and grandstanding by the major parties, an environment which the smaller parties would never get heard in.