Censoring referendums

Well, it's only taken them 8 months, but our new National-led government have already been infected with political madness. The unlikely combination of John Key and Sue Bradford are talking about introducing a highly ambiguous legislative amendment to give parliament the power to veto what they consider to be ambiguous referendums. On the basis that this referendum to argue that smacking per se should not be a criminal offence will costs $9 million. And that's too much money.

Actually, the funny thing is somehow Federated Farmers have also caught the bug and have spoken against the referendum. Again, because of the $9 million pricetag.

Which is fair enough, on one hand.

But the answer isn't to therefore clamp down on the few referenda we actually ever get to have. It's to ask the question, why does a referendum cost $9 million, in the days of internet and number-crunching computer programmes. I note it is a ballot by mail, with no doubt a bunch of plebians waiting at the beehive to run their fingers through the votes.

Ahy not simply have a computer programme on a hard-drive somewhere, which is online to Kiwis across the country who can simply vote from home, or from their nearest library. 1 computer programme, a couple of technicians creating IDs and passwords, a couple more posting those log-in details to everyone in the country. The computer programme would crunch the numbers - hey presto. I don't see why such an exercise should cost any more than $100 000 - $200 000 - and I'm sure we'd have that sort of money in the "Democracy" budget.

Just a thought.