(LAUGHTER) - Oh, boys, I love this place. The ale here is perfectly unfiltered. - Yeah, I love all the little bits in it. - Love a chunk. - Chunky. (CHUCKLES) - Absolutely, I agree. And if I could just add one thing, as group leader, I also love how it's` - W-W-Wait. Sorry, sorry. As what? - Uh, group leader. You know, it's like the leader of the group. - Yeah, yeah, I know what it means. When did you become group leader? - Yeah. I didn't even know we were even looking for a group leader. - What on earth are you talking about? Every group needs a leader. You know, it's like beer ` the leader of drinks; hats ` the leader of the head; toes ` the leader of the foot. - OK, let's say we did need a leader. Why would it be you? - (STUTTERS) Uh, I guess, to me, it just instinctually feels right, don't you think? - But if we had to push you, you know, for why you thought that you have this entitlement... - Mm, cos I feel like both of us would know why, but... - You know what? Here's what we'll do. You do you some little jibber-jabber, and you tell us why you think you should be leader, and we'll write down why we think you think you should be leader. - OK. Well, look, I guess, for me, when I've just considered this group of three, I've always seen me as kind of the main dude. You know, I'm the one who should do the talking, the one who should make most of the decisions. I think the hierarchy is sort of like ` God, the Queen, me, you guys. - Oh, yeah. That's what I've got. - Yep, and this is what I've got. Let's just compare. - What have you got? Oh, yeah. - Racism. - White supremacy. - That's the same. - That's the exact same shit. - Same shit, man. Same shit. - Well, my golly gosh. I didn't realise I was sharing ales with the PC brigade. - OK. Well, do you have any non-racist reasons why you should be leader of the group? - Oh, you've just gone and made it a lot harder. Non-racist reasons why I should be the leader. Uh, I guess because I've got natural leadership qualities, and things go better when I'm in charge. - Not at all! You didn't even help us when we built the fire yesterday. You just stood there all like, 'Oh, that's a poor person's job,' and then threw some coins at us. - That's a bang-on impression of you. - Yeah, I'd like those coins back, please. But think about it from a wider perspective. - Whose idea was it to light the fire? - Me! It was my idea. I said it. 'Let's light a fire.' - Really? - Yes. - Oh, that was a good idea. - Yeah, it was a real good idea. - I thought it was so good. We were cold. - OK, look. To clarify, right, your idea of why you should be leader is a made-up one and a made-up racist one? - And just to clarify his clarification, you don't have any other reasons? - Well, there is one other tiny little reason... - BOTH YELL: Oh, shit! - ...why I should be in charge. - (BOTH SCREAM) - Who brings a gun to a pub?! - Stop pointing it! - Get it away! Stop! Stop! - Why do you keep pointing it at us? - (SCREAMS) Chill out! - Where'd you even get that from? - The Queen! She was just handing them out. She's a nice lady. - But why do you have it? - Well, I guess I kind of had an inkling that, maybe, my first few reasons wouldn't be enough, and the thing is I really want to be the leader, you guys. So... how about we take a little vote, eh? - (SCHLING!) - I've just got to prepare this. This goes... in here. - (RAMROD CLANGS) - Yeah. Where are you going? Well, now I'm the only one here, so I guess I am the group leader. - In the 1800s, a bunch of British settlers decided, after little to no consultation, that there should be a government ` and they should be the ones to run it. Here's how that happened. - # The Citizen's Handbook. - # The Citizen's Handbook. # Mm, # mm, # mm. # - Britain is ages away,... so why is the Queen on our money? It all started back in 1840, after the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, when Britain decided that we should be an official British colony, even though there weren't many British people here. Then they gave New Zealand a governor, William Hobson, whose two jobs were ` one, making sure that the Brits who were here were being well behaved and following British laws, and two, convincing Maori that they should start following British laws,... - Eh? - ...because Britain thought that would be very nice. Then, in 1852, British Parliament passed the New Zealand Constitution Act, which said that settlers could make up their own laws. There was even a bit that said Maori could make up their own laws too, but the settlers all agreed that bit was just impossible to read. So the settlers set up a settler state and soon began to legislate. (RECORD SCRATCHES) (SHUDDERS) What I meant to say was that the settlers started passing lots of new laws to give themselves more power and the Maori people less. After a few years of this, Maori put their foot down, and in the second half of the 1800s, a few different kotahitanga movements brought iwi together to try to restore the balance of power Maori and Pakeha had agreed to in Te Tiriti. For example, Waikato iwi noticed that the Brits seemed to bloody love their kings and queens. So they said, 'Fine, will you pay attention to us if we do things the British way?' and picked a Maori King of their own to hold their mana and stand up to the British. The Kingitanga movement focused on stopping the flow of land and power from Maori to Pakeha, and they were pretty successful, which made them a big enemy of this guy. That's right ` it's George Grey. He's back, and he's ready to start an illegal war against the Kingitanga. So he did. And after that, he kept fighting pretty much anyone who stood in the way of the colonising. After the settler government got tired of these expensive wars, they focused on more boring, bureaucratic ways of squashing Maori political power and taking Maori land, which is a horrible sentence that's unfortunately true. One of the laws they passed came to be known as the Validation of Invalid Land Sales Act, and it said that every time the British had taken land in dodgy ways, well,... now that was fine, and we weren't going to talk about it anymore. They also passed the Maori Councils Act to take the wind out of the sails of Maori Parliament. That's right! Yes, there was a Maori parliament. Because, again, Maori were like, 'Please, just listen to us. 'We don't like the colonising. 'Would it help if we formed one of your parliament things? 'Because we'll do it.' But it didn't help. The settler government refused to acknowledge the Maori parliament, and instead they insisted that the Maori seats in the settler parliament were the way to go. The main problem with the Maori seats in the settler parliament was that there was only four of them ` which would have been more understandable if there were only eight seats altogether, but unfortunately, it was more like 80. And some Maori said, 'OK, fine. 'We'll participate in your settler government because we don't seem to have a lot of options right now.' But then, when one Maori MP, Hone Heke Ngapua, put forward a bill called the Native Rights Act, the Pakeha MPs didn't even let it get to a vote. They literally just stood up and walked out. I know! The way settlers were running things, Te Tiriti o Waitangi already seemed like a distant relic. New Zealand was becoming an outpost of Mother England, ruled over by the Queen. - Get in. - And it felt like there wasn't a lot tangata whenua could do. It's at this point the settler government started turning their attention to the people who weren't in New Zealand yet, and if you pay very close attention, there's a chance you might be able to spot a pattern in who they wanted to come to New Zealand and who they didn't. Settlers from Britain were encouraged to move here, settlers from other parts of Northern Europe were tolerated, and for almost everyone else, it was either very hard or impossible. For example, Chinese settlers, who had been here since the 1860s, all of a sudden got singled out to pay a poll tax that no one else had to pay. Also, only Chinese men were allowed in, so you had to leave your whole family behind if you wanted to come here. In fact, Chinese people couldn't become New Zealand citizens until the 1950s. The nineteen fifties. The nineteen fifties! Which meant that even if you were born here and had paid taxes your entire life, you weren't allowed to vote in New Zealand if you were Chinese, let alone get pensions or welfare. And in case you're having trouble spotting the incredibly subtle pattern of who they wanted to come to New Zealand and who they didn't, here's a memo from the Department of External Affairs in 1953. They wrote that down. A Government official wrote that and was like, 'Yup, don't see a problem there. Let's send that off.' I mean, in the scheme of things, British settlers had arrived pretty recently, and now they were like, 'Oh, sorry, no one else, please. You look a little bit different.' Even when the settler government opened the door to our Pacific Island neighbours to help in the booming post-war economy, they completely turned against them as soon as the economy started to slow. In the 1970s, police started the Dawn Raids, bursting into the homes of Pacific Islanders first thing in the morning if they were even suspected of overstaying their visas. And at the time, the majority of overstayers didn't even come from the Pacific Islands. They came from Europe and America. It almost seems like there's another pattern there too (!) In the 1980s, the settler government brought in a point system which stopped discriminating against immigrants based on race and started discriminating against them based on how rich and good at English they were. And as for the settler government? Well, after a while, we just started calling it the Government. And next up, I'm going to tell you how that government works. - # The Citizen's Handbook. - I'll see you then. Goodbye. - # Mm, - Chunky. (CHUCKLES) - Absolutely, I agree. - # The Citizen's Handbook. # (OMINOUS MUSIC) - (CHEERFUL WHISTLING) - N-Nope, nope. Nope. - Huh. Hi there! Um, I'm from the Freedom Party, and we're just going door to door, making sure that people are enrolled to vote. Uh, are you enrolled to vote? - You don't want me to vote for you. It's probably not a good look, your party being associated with people like me. - Well, that's just it. We at the Freedom Party have a policy of not turning away any voters for any reason, no matter what. (CHUCKLES) It's easy. All you need to do is just fill out a form and we're good to go. - Oh. All right, then. - Great. - (LOUD GROANING) (WHIMPERING) - (CHUCKLES AWKWARDLY) - MAN: Help! Please! Scary movie, huh? - Eh? - Are you watching a scary movie? - Oh, the moaning? No. No, it's not a movie. - Please! I've been here for days! - You shut up, do you understand me? You shut up! Sorry, I've got a prisoner back there. I'm going to eat him later. I'm a cannibal. - SOBS: Oh no! Did he just say... he was gonna eat me? - Yes! I'm gonna eat you, and there's nothing you can do about it, so just shut up already! (TENSE MUSIC) Can I put my work phone, or do you want my home phone? - Work phone's fine. - Hey! Person at the door ` if you could maybe call the cops or something, that would be really great. - Sorry, this must be really awkward for you. - Hey, what you do in the privacy of your own home is none of my business. (GIGGLES) You just got to make sure you vote. - Seriously?! You're cool with that? - Stay out of it! - Oh, boy. I'd like to live to Election Day. Doesn't look like I'll last, though. Definitely wouldn't vote for you anyway, if your actions today are anything to go by! - That's just rude, isn't it? Can't have that. Just give me one second. - Oh, no, no, you don't` - No. Just give me one second. (OMINOUS MUSIC) - Hello? Are you still here? Can you come and save me, please? I think he's gone to get a knife, so there's still time. You might lose a vote, but you could save a life. It'd be pretty easy for you. Oh! Oh, you came. You've come to save me. Oh, no, that's not you. - (LAUGHS MANIACALLY) Time to die! - (SCREAMS) - Wait! - (SUDDEN SILENCE) - Can I just get him to fill in a form too? (CHILL GUITAR MUSIC) Hi. - Why are politicians so desperate to get into government? What is government? What rules do they have to follow? Do they actually have to follow them? Do they really? Do they? Really? - # The Citizen's Handbook. # The Citizen's Handbook. # # Mm, # mm, # mm. # - How do you get nearly five million New Zealanders to cooperate? You could try a talking stick, but I don't think we'd have time for everyone to have a turn. Luckily, someone figured out another way ` a government. And as it turns out, our government works pretty similarly to a lot of other countries around the world, mostly because the British really loved colonising. So, your basic Western society has got three bits. The first bit is made up of the Members of Parliament, or MPs, who write down bills and then vote on whether or not those bills should become laws. They write the rules that everyone is supposed to follow, including how much tax you have to pay, what to spend those tax dollars on and whether or not you're allowed to do murders. This rule-writing bit is called the legislative. The second bit is all the people who put the rules into action. That's the ministries and departments and public servants. It's all the social workers and the cops and the shiny orange man with the weird punctuation face who tells you to vote. This getting-stuff-done bit is called the executive, and at the top of the executive is the Prime Minister and her best friends, the Cabinet. How fun. The third bit is the referees, who make sure everyone's following all the rules, OK? So that's the judges and courts and tribunals. They determine whether or not you've broken any rules and how much trouble you're in. The referee bit is called the judiciary. So those are the three main bits of Government. They've all got complicated names because the whole thing was made up in the past, when people had way more time on their hands. The point is the three bits of Government are all supposed to keep tabs on each other. And if any one bit of the government starts doing something dodgy, the other two are supposed to slap it into place. The whole idea is that no one has too much power, and that's important, because people can't be trusted. So that's the system we've got. Three totally separate bits of Government ` totally separate so nobody has too much power. Com-Completely and utterly separate. Except not at all! You see, in New Zealand, if you're a minister, you get to write the laws and vote on them over in the legislative bit with your legislator hat on, and then you get to walk over to the executive bit and put your executive hat on and tell your ministry how you think they should put those laws into practice. So you're part of both bits. They're not separate at all! PANTS: So hopefully no minister ever finds out about that. And if you're... If you're a minister and you've... just found out about that, I was kidding, and that` that's not true. It's not true. It was a joke. It's just a funny joke. - # The Citizen's Handbook. # - Chunky. (CHUCKLES) - Absolutely, I agree. - # The Citizen's Handbook. # - Reigning over all three branches of Government is the Queen ` hi, Queenie ` because of all the colonising. We don't get to choose the Queen, but every three years, we do get to replace all the legislators we don't like. How we do that ` with a form of democracy called MMP. I'll tell you what it stands for, but I'm warning you now it's just not gonna be helpful. Ready? MMP stands for Mixed Member Proportional. See, I told you that didn't help at all. Anyway, with MMP, you get two votes. You get one vote to choose the politician you'd like to represent your little part of New Zealand, and you also get a party vote. The party vote determines how many seats each party gets in Parliament, and then after the election, those parties all try to team up with each other until one group of parties has more than half the seats. At which point, they get to say... - Suck on that, everyone else! We're the government now! (WARBLES) - And then they spend the next three years trying to figure out what they actually agree on. So three bits, with only one bit that you vote for, and the whole thing reigned over by an old lady on the opposite side of the world. Those are the basic rules and conventions for how New Zealand's government works. And we have a word for the basic rules and conventions for how a government works, because 'all the basic rules and conventions for how a government works' takes too long to say. And that word is 'constitution'. New Zealand doesn't have a written-down constitution. We just haven't gotten around to putting all the rules into one big list. Instead, our constitution is made up of a bunch of conventions, important laws our parliament has passed, including big ones like the Bill of Rights Act; and also some other laws we inherited from England, like the Magna Carta, which I think has something to do with barons, maybe. One of the most important parts of our constitution is Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the agreement between two peoples to share governance over the land and taonga of the country. And even though it's part of the rules of how our government is supposed to operate, our government hasn't really paid as much attention to the shared governance part as it should have. The bad thing about New Zealand not having a written constitution is that the government could change the rules at any time. But the good thing about not having a written constitution is that the government can change the rules at any time. And we're not tied down to stupid rules written by people who thought it was OK for humans to be slaves. America. Ultimately, people are gonna do what they're gonna do. You know, it's nice to feel like our government has to follow the rules, but they might not. And because all the usual ruling forces are a part of the government, it's your job to keep an eye on them. And when something goes wrong or you have an idea for how the rules could be better, you have to speak up. You got this. Well, I hope you do, because it's your job. You're a citizen. Good luck. - # The Citizen's Handbook. # Mm, # mm, # mm. # Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air.