In Search of Consensus: New Zealand’s Electoral Act 1956 and its Constitutional Legacy.

New Zealand’s Electoral Act 1956, and in particular the entrenched (or “reserved”) provisions it introduced into the country’s legal framework, has long represented something of a constitutional oddity. In reserving certain key aspects of our electoral process, the 1956 Act purported to stop future Parliaments from altering these except by following a particular, and more demanding, process of enactment

Funding New Zealand’s Election Campaigns: recent stress points and potential responses

The nexus between money and politics creates particular problems for liberal democracies like New Zealand. Events during the last parliamentary term put our present system of regulating this issue under some stress. With two cases relating to political fundraising now before the courts and other matters still under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, this is the right time to consider whether reform of the law is needed and what such reform ought to look like

The Impact of Coal and Biomass Co-Firing on the Economy of Power Plant Carbon Capture

A detailed economic evaluation was carried out to determine the impact of biomass and coal co-firing on power plant carbon capture by methods of plants equipment designing factors and performance, and the sum up of the associated breakdowns of CAPEX and OPEX. Based on the assumptions of the CO2 neutrality of biomass and likely governmental incentives to reduce CO2 emissions, the study results show that biomass and coal co-firing would result in both lower cost of carbon avoided (carbon capture) and lower incremental cost of electricity generation when MEA solvent carbon capture is applied. Two scenarios for co-firing with carbon capture, 30% biomass blending and 90% or 60% CO2 capture from stack, indicate different preference depending on lower or higher incentives

'Declarations of Inconsistency' Under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990

This article considers the constitutional question of whether prisoners should be permitted to vote. The author discusses the case of Attorney General v Taylor and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, to conclude that the final say on this issue remains with the New Zealand Government

The State of Freedom of Expression in New Zealand: An Admittedly Eclectic Overview

This article is a survey of freedom of expression issues in New Zealand. The author begins by briefly recapping the developments in the common law of defamation and privacy following the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (NZBORA), before considering the role NZBORA has played in the realm of censorship. The article concludes with a look at four recent developments in the core expressive context of political speech: the abolition of sedition offences; expanding the scope for protest activity; restraining third party election expenses; and regulating the broadcast coverage of Parliament

Parliament, the Courts and the NZBORA: The Cases of Aid in Dying and Prisoner Voting

The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (NZBORA) retains Parliament’s sovereign power to make law. However, beyond that important point, much of the debate around the NZBORA’s meaning for the legislature and judiciary’s intertwined roles was left unresolved.This paper considers the judiciary’s power to register concern, by making a declaration of inconsistency, over law that may contradict the NZBORA. The paper first briefly sets out the background history to the issue of declarations of inconsistency with the NZBORA in New Zealand. It then critically examines the courts’ rulings in the two cases, Seales v Attorney-General and Taylor v Attorney-General. The concluding section advances some thoughts on why the cases resulted in different outcomes, primarily focusing on the nature of the issue involved and the judiciary’s assessment of how well Parliament has dealt, and may yet deal, with it

Foreword

This article is the foreword to Volume 39, Issue 1 of the UNSW Law Journal. The article begins by considering the role of elections in liberal representative democracies, particularly with regard to answering deeply contested arguments about who should be in charge of the nation’s lawmaking and governing institutions. The author continues on to discuss each of the submissions to the Journal and how they relate to the field of electoral law