Student ID: 300322820
GOVERNMENT ESSAY
Recently, the impact of government on social-cultural, environmental and economic situation has been increasingly important and, as a result, there has been a heated controversy whether or not citizens should intervene in the government decision. Once solution that we can limit the influence of our House of Representative Members is to introduce a referendum, which is a practice of democracy in which a group of chosen electorates answer the political matter in the form of yes-no questions. Should we utilize referendum as our decision-making tool, we will face another dilemma of whether we should choose a binding or a non-binding referendum. Since these political instruments …show more content…
With respect to the advantages of binding referendum, evidence shows that should people have the opportunities to involve in public decision; it will significantly enhance the democratic feature of government. Likewise, since there is a chance for citizens to engage in public activities as well as contribute their influence on society, as a consequence, people will be better educated about the political issues and be able to make a reasonable judgement. Though, according to Professor Gallagher (2009, cited in the Stationery Office Limited, 2009, p.17) binding referendum can negatively damage the minority group since the result is greatly affected by elite groups. Moreover, the abuse of binding referendum can incline the political system to a conservative tendency should the conflict of interest cannot be resolved. More extremely, as the result can only be determined through the votes of citizens, binding referendum tends to be too costly while its benefit is insignificant. Especially, when dealing with the intricate issue, referendum fails to achieve the desired result since the citizens do not expertise in the field that require a complex analysis which can be done through government intervention. Indicative referendum, in this respect, tends to ascertain that the resultant outcome will …show more content…
Though, in certain contexts the benefit of non-binding will be tremendous, the issue of choosing flag in New Zealand, in my opinion, should be handled by the exercise of binding referendum since it enhances the democratic nature of New Zealand, promotes public engagement and knowledge about political issue as well as settle the problem which has been of great debate. Since binding referendum, on the other hand, can pose some limitations, the government has to take into consideration about the influence of binding referendum, so that the resultant outcome will be desirable. On the other hand, for this practice of democracy can be achieved, the New Zealand’s citizens have to enthusiastically participate in the referendum so that the result can truly reflect what New Zealand people