Qualified Support

From the BBC, an interesting story out of New Zealand:

New Zealanders have been given the chance to write their own laws, with a new online tool launched by police.

The "wiki" will allow the public to suggest the wording of a new police act, as part of a government review of the current law, written in 1958.

Police say they hope to gain a range of views from the public on the new law before presenting it to parliament.

I have two opposing sentiments about this - hence the post's title.

Sentiment #1: This is a good thing; it's open, it's collaborative, it allows people to respond without fear (mostly), and did I mention it's collaborative? In terms of public policy, this is a great move.

Sentiment #2: The idea of public policy is predicated on a small number of folks making rules for the whole - and that there is a mechanism for enforcement of said rules (which is almost always violence). In this case, I'm sure the results of the wiki project will be vetted and edited by some official committee somewhere. So the idea of public policy depends on an assumption of a hierarchy at least of power, if not one of knowledge or expertise.

All that said, I offer - to no surprise - qualified support for this move. It's better than the status quo of making up policy behind closed doors and then asking for input, but not as good as deciding that having fewer policies on the books is a good policy.