Talk:Referendums in New Zealand

Useful sources
I hope that helps people out. --Midnighttonight 07:38, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Atkinson, Neill. Adventures in Democracy: A History of the Vote in New Zealand. Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2003.
 * Baron, Steve. 2004. It's a Civil Decision! In,   http://www.betterdemocracy.co.nz/articleAA.php. (accessed 12 April, 2006).
 * Better Democracy. Endorcements of BCIR. In,   http://www.betterdemocracy.co.nz/endorsements.php. (accessed 12 April, 2006).
 * ———. Statement of Intention. In,   http://www.betterdemocracy.co.nz/objectives.php. (accessed 12 April, 2006).
 * Catt, Helena. "The Other Democratic Experiment: New Zealand’s Experience with Citizens’ Initiated Referendum." Political Science 48, no. 1 (1996): 29-47.
 * Church, Stephen. "Crime and Punishment: The Referenda to Reform the Criminal Justice System and Reduce the Size of Parliament." In Left Turn: The New Zealand General Election of 1999, edited by Jonathan Boston, Stephen Church, Stephen Levine, Elizabeth McLeay and Nigel S. Roberts. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2000.
 * Referendums: Constitutional and Political Perspectives, edited by Alan Simpson, Wellington: Occasional Publication No.5, Department of Politics, Victoria University of Wellington, 1992.
 * James, Colin. "Riding into Battle over Socially and Morally Divisive Bills." New Zealand Herald, July 29 2003.
 * New Zealand Press Association. "Referendum Call on Maori Seats " The Dominion, 5 MAY 1999, 2.
 * Palmer, Geoffrey, and Matthew Palmer. Bridled Power: New Zealand's Constitution and Government. fourth ed. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2004.
 * Parkinson, John. "Who Knows Best? The Creation of the Citizen-Initiated Referendum in New Zealand." Government and Opposition 36, no. 3 ( 2001): 403 - 21.
 * Prince, John D. "Look Back in Amber: The General Licensing Poll in New Zealand, 1919-87." Political Science 48, no. 1 (1996): 48-72.

city council
does anyone have info on city council usage of referendum. I will begin to look on Thursday if no one else has info, after this essay is due. --Midnighttonight 03:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
 * My local council, just closed down a council owned camp ground, and a petition of some 5000 people asking for a referenda on the issue, the council response was ‘we don’t govern by referendum” and something about there been no law that govern weather councils have referendum. The $15000 cost for holding it was going to be paid for by a local businessman! if it was made binding.


 * As you can guess there have been calles to "replace the lot" next year, in the local paper :)


 * Not sure about other council’s through.


 * Luck with the essay, Brian | (Talk) 07:02, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


 * About what I'd expect from a local council really. I was talking more about the changing electoral system stuff (which was done by postal ballot here in Wellington City) or the Fluridation stuff in Hamilton.  But, I'll work on it in a few days time. --Midnighttonight 07:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

National licensing refereda
The majority of referenda (which is the plural of referendum incidently, not referendums) in New Zealand have been on liquor licensing. I don't think anyone is likely to ever create a seperate page on each of these, so it would make more sense to have one page on all of them, and have this included as such in the little box at the bottom. I wouldn't have a clue how to alter this (I don't even know what the little box is even called) so if someone else thinks this is a good idea, could they make the change? --Helenalex 21:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The discussion on the plural of referendum was held before this article was created, at New_Zealand_Collaboration_of_the_Fortnight/History. The evidence supplied from Talk:Referendums_in_Australia and the common practice at Referendums led to this page being called "referendums".


 * I agree that the articles linked in the template will probably never be written, and I've suggested we delete the referendum part of the template entirely. See Template talk:New Zealand elections. I suggest you comment there, and if there is no opposition, I'll remove the referendum part in a week or so (feel free to prod me if I forget, or do so yourself).- gadfium 01:23, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Mmp-poster.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 20:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't see it qualifying here, so I'll remove it from this article. (I've added a rationale for its retention in Electoral reform in New Zealand.) -- Avenue (talk) 11:42, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Referenda vs referendums
The standard plural is referenda. Evidence for this abounds:
 * a Google search in site:nz yields 8,630 for referenda and 2,740 for referendums, so referenda is over three times more common in New Zealand
 * a Google search over all sites yields 2,040,000 for referenda and 1,150,000 for referendums, so referenda is clearly the popular preference over the entire Google corpus
 * the official term in New Zealand is referenda as evidenced by its use in the title of the act, the election site, the cabinet manual and many others

This whole article grates to read because referendums is such an awkward construction. Can't we just move to the standard spelling?

Ben Arnold (talk) 23:24, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The article was titled to be consistent with other such articles on Wikipedia. See Referendum, and see Talk:Referendums_in_Australia for a discussion on what the terms actually mean.- gadfium 02:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Unique?
The first citizens initiated referendum was held in 1995. The question "Should the number of professional fire-fighters employed full-time in the New Zealand Fire Service be reduced below the number employed in 1 January 1995?" is unique in that it aimed to elicit a "no" response. Turnout was low and the measure was voted down easily, with just over 12% voting "Yes" and almost 88% voting "No."

Is it unique? Doesn't the new referendum also aim to ellicit a NO response? 203.97.51.149 (talk) 22:47, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I've changed the statement to say that it was unusual rather than unique.- gadfium 02:16, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Referencing the petitions
Hello. I don't have time to do it right this moment (maybe later if I remember), but if anyone feels the motivation then I wonder if the table of petitions and referendums would benefit from the listed proposals and question determinations being referenced back to the NZ Gazette. The official notifications by the Clerk of the House are all online. Here's a Gazette search which lists them all. https://gazette.govt.nz/home/NoticeSearch?act=Citizens+Initiated+Referenda+Act&soloRedirect=false Izogi (talk) 20:25, 22 November 2018 (UTC)