You thought "Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand" was bad....

It appears that the question which we are asked to answer this month isn't so bad. In 1999 this question was the subject of a petition. The question wording was carefully considered - all it needed was the required signatures to go to the country for a referendum.

Should New Zealand adopt direct democracy by binding referendum whereby ideas for laws would be submitted and voted upon as of right by the public, and, according to the result, submissions collected from the public and then assessed by opinion poll, resulting in draft law alternatives being prepared by independent groups, from which one opinion would be chosen by majority vote by the public; the resulting legislation to be binding?

Needless to say, this 70-word question didn't get the required signatures. But how on earth did the wording get approved for a petition? Imagine putting it on Twitter - it`ll take four tweets just to get the question out.

Would you have answered yes, or no had that been the question?