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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zardnaar" data-source="post: 8379220" data-attributes="member: 6716779">Yep but a lot of that is based on trust.  What if a PM appointed a compliant cabinet and abused the emergency powers.  They could ram through anything they liked. What if they rewrote the emergency powers or the bill of rights act? There's nothing stopping them if they have a compliant parliament.  Public protest hasn't mattered since 1981.  NZ always scores high in things like corruption and trust in government. That's cultural though not from a legal PoV. Parliament can pass any law they like if they have the numbers or rewrite/repeal any law they don't like.  Look at the protests already about Jacinda abusing her powers. I'm not worried about her or even a theoretical abuse of power but by USA terms we elect a dictator.  USA has emergency powers but they can and will be challenged in the supreme court.  There's no real constitutional restraints on parliament here and the courts and police tend to look to parliament on clarification on intent and the spirit of the law is often used vs the letter. It would be very easy from a legal PoV to turn NZ into an outright authortarian state. The only checks and balances on parliament is parliament itself.</blockquote>