RDRR (Rotorua District Residents and Ratepayers) is delighted to invite Samantha White (Letters, 15 Dec) to join our campaign to restore democracy. Although a case of "You don't know what you have got until its gone", it's never too late in a democracy to campaign for democracy.
Samantha was rightly critical when the mayor and the chief executive put the council building into "lock down". They forgot that democracy is literally "rule by the people" for the protection and promotion of their rights, interests, and welfare.
The first principle of democracy is that the right to rule is embedded equally in each citizen. It gets aggregated into elected representation that proceeds only with the consent of the governed. When I chatted with protesters before the hikoi they were clearly decent and peaceful people wanting to petition for justice.
The second principle is that government is limited by law to prevent oppression and abuse. It is wrong in law for a council to deny its responsibility to be a good employer by claiming to have out-sourced human resource management. Council had to be directed to discharge its responsibilities under the agreement it signed with its employees and to conduct direct negotiations in good faith.
The third principle is that governments must recognise the freedom, equality and dignity of individual citizens. It was needlessly rude for the mayor and the CEO to snub the protesters and hold a press conference. Slick PR was bad HR.
