The Debate
A Rational Exchange of Contending Ideas
The New Zealand Initiative is a policy think tank. It has been described as “right wing” and an inheritor of the Business Round Table.
I don’t hold with those labels. I am more interested in and value the quality and expression of its ideas and propositions.
Last year in the Law Association publication Law News Roger Partridge, the Chair of the NZ Initiative, wrote an article entitled “Who Makes the Law? Reining in the Supreme Court”. It was a thoughtful and well-reasoned article, as one might expect from Mr. Partridge. The Law News link is here.
In my view there were certain deficiencies in Mr. Partridge’s argument. I thought them worthy of comment and I wrote a response which I had published in Law News and on this Substack. That was back in October 2024. The Substack post garnered 1550 views.
Mr. Partridge has now written a response which was published in Law News on 14 January 2025. It is a considered and very well-reasoned response.
What this exchange exemplifies is how it is possible to engage in a difference of opinion and points of view in a rational well-reasoned manner, without resorting to in personam attacks or invective or insulting language.
It exemplifies debate as it should be – a rational and respectful exchange if ideas - a debate that is available to a wider audience than may be present in a University Common Room or Lecture Theatre or a Conference Room at the Law Society. And the availability of the debate is solely as a result of online platforms and the Internet.
And that technology enables me to share the debate and the elements of it.
The Agora of Athens has become the world wide digital marketplace of ideas.
I am enjoying the debate. I was initially apprehensive to engage. Mr. Partridge and the NZ Initiative are quite formidable. But then I have not shrunk from intellectual engagement where I have been able to marshall my ideas and reasons into a coherent form and engage with matters of principle using sweet reason.
Another reason for my enjoyment is that my entire professional life has involved the cut and thrust of contending ideas. Those who came before me in my judicial role soon learned that my Court was more of an Agora where ideas and alternatives flowed freely rather than a sterile formalised space.
And it is a joy to engage with Mr. Partridge and to delve into the issues that he raises.
And in case you are asking – yes, there will be an answer to Mr. Partridge’s latest commentary.
David, I look forward with eager anticipation to your rejoinder. I suspect that a hard hill to climb (though I can think of one easier way up) may be to counter Partridge’s contention that:
“Second, and more fundamentally, Harvey’s concept of parliamentary “failure” misunderstands the nature of parliamentary sovereignty. When Parliament chooses not to legislate on an issue or to legislate in a particular way, that is itself a political decision that deserves respect under our constitutional arrangements.
To suggest courts should step in when they perceive Parliament has “failed to act” would effectively give courts the power to override Parliament’s choices – an approach difficult to reconcile with basic constitutional principles.”
But then that observation may be one that, upon further consideration, you may accept as edging on irrefutable.
Either way, it is indeed refreshing to have the opportunity to follow reasoned debate rather than to be confronted by the partisan commentary that passes for reasoned opinion or argument in the MSM.
Cleaning out our Nelson garage yesterday I came across a 1975 edition of the Christchurch Press. A paper filled to the gunwales with intelligent, grammatical reporting and commentary. The contrast with the ill-edited rag - a mere vehicle for advertising and recycled “news”
- that is the Press today was painful to absorb.
Thanks David. It came as no surprise to me that two grownups such as you and Roger Partridge are capable of having a sensible, unemotional debate/discussion. And both of you are highly informed on the subject. I thoroughly endorse Roger Partridges taking our current judiciary to task for adopting judicial activism.