lardyl

mmm.... national's manifesto turned into blue slug-shit, how apt. Are you sure that Mr Key wasn't pooping directly on you like his party are inclined to do?

Got a manifesto addressed to me today from the Conservative Party, many of their policies make more sense than the Nats - let's hope they do well in Rodney, and split to old codger/Tory vote.

I'd volunteer to deliver the bumpf if they did.

simonmarkellis

Greens co-leader Russel Norman has admitted that a Green party member was responsible for coordinating the defacing of hundreds of National Party billboards...

wasn't he just recycling crap?

luvwelly

I am amazed so many people are in favour of FPP as an alternative.....the one thing that is so much better in NZ than the UK is their Electoral System.

I do wonder if its just because it's the system people are familiar with and it is hard work trying to get one's head round the other options (I agree it is and I am more than averagely interested in politics).

luvwelly

Lardyl your views really confuse me - FGS decide whether you are on the left or the right. Are you saying split the vote to let Labour in or what (no idea about Rodney)?

luvwelly

I know its an unfair thing to do but it gave me a good laugh when I saw the photo in the press of Mr Smug with 'The rich deserve more'.

My family has benefitted from the tax cuts but that doesn't mean I think it is the right policy. I believe in progressive taxation not regressive.

luvwelly

Quelle surprise as it's 3/4 FPP. Keeps National in power forever.

luvwelly

I agree this is totally wrong but this is Key abusing the system. There is no need to abandon the whole system for something worse just because he has done this. It is done I think, as he actually wants a more rightwing agenda out there.

BEVS

Exactamonte

simonmarkellis

Isn't this just what all empowered parties do when they are in power? Tories and Labour have been doing it for years in the UK restructuring electorate boundaries to increase the number of seats for themselves...

luvwelly

No, it's totally different. Under FPP Electoral boundaries are supposed to change to reflect population shifts, the Boundaries Commission is supposedly independent for precisely this reason.

The Labour Party in the UK never told its supporters to vote LibDem to keep a Tory out. The Guardian newspaper did the research to advise the options on voting tactically effectively.
MMP is a system where there should be no need to vote tactically for your vote to count, the party vote is the most important one in terms of its influence.

If Key wants his supporters to back a different party in Epsom and Ohariu and only give him the party vote, he should not be standing any National candidate there. To stand one and not support them just looks ridiculous.

In the UK FPP is broken - ever decreasing turnout percentages and it produced a hung Parliament because voters had worked out how to do it. When FPP does deliver big majorities you get a 4/5 year dictatorship with very little compromise ever shown. Consensus is a healthy thing in politics as often there is more cause for agreement than disagreement.

lardyl

Big majorities and stable terms are bad then?
So Italy has it right then?

I'd rather have Maggie Thatcher than 15 years of Italian government by coallition with power held by unaccountable splinter parties. And I was a card carrying Labour member in the UK who lived in an area torn apart by Tory monitarism.

Marginals do have influence everywhere but changing that from groups of people in marginals (who by definition could chose Labour or Con/whatever) to some party with 1% of the total national vote is worse in my view as there are usually 10 or 20 really key marginals, as opposed to a handful of people weilding power in an MMP super-marginal, which is already JerryMandered, like Epson.

I think..............
What we need is fewer MPs, fewer lists or some form of public accountability for list MPs. And less power exerted by the Party machines over the list MPs.
Direct relationships between the local MP and their constituents.
People need to be able to vote an MP out - you can't do that with a list.
So MMP either needs to be totally overhauled and as Winston said last night we get 100 MPs - Gawd I agree with Winston Peters?????
In fact seeing last night's debate I remembered why I voted United Future last time around and I may do again as having Peter Dunne in government is better than one more Labour list MP outside it. Perhaps MMP is a little more worthwhile in those cases??

lardyl

I want the right's vote split in Rodney so we don't get a National or ACT MP. Sorry to confuse you.

I'm mainly on the left but have some ideas that are considered right wing.
Was a member of Tony Blairs CLP when he was leader of the opposition and PM - also I was a member of a Liberal WMC when I was 12, so we could play snooker.....does that count as being right wing? Jeremy Thorpe probably thought so.

luvwelly

No and that is why I support MMP and not pure PR. You are overlooking the fact that voters choose who to vote for under PR systems knowing that their votes actually count equally with other votes, so the public is just deciding it doesn't want to hand the major parties big majorities. If they wanted to they still could.

Living through the Thatcher years is exactly what makes me support MMP - I never said Italy was a good model. Italy is the bad example of a bad PR system but they could improve it by raising the threshold required to get seats.
Many of the UK's problems today can be traced back to those 'uncaring years' when industry was closed down and the social fabric destroyed.

If I pay my taxes, surely I should have the same right as anyone else for my vote to count, it shouldn't matter what my postcode is.

You are so keen to throw MPs out - yes it is fun but the reason you feel the need to give them the heave-ho is because they have wielded such a large amount of power owing to the big FPP the majority and didn't listen, even when a majority was against them eg Poll tax.
Even the Poll tax was only abandoned when people rioted in Tunbridge Wells.
Show me a single Government Minister who was booted out on Election Night who hasn't gone on to bigger and better and more lucrative things as a direct result?

Same the world over, Kerry Prendergast former Mayor of Wellington, gets booted out. John Key offers her a top job.
It is not a reason for most people's votes to not even count. There is no logic or fairness in votes not counting just because of postcode. How can you be content with the low turnouts inherent in FPP systems?

We constantly vote on trivial issues by text and on the internet thesedays and yet people can't be ars...d to go down to the Polling Station once every 3/4/5/ years.
I>M>H>O if you don't bother to vote, then you shouldn't complain afterwards.

lardyl

Still I have the problem that the person I am voting for is my representative, not the party I choose to vote for's representative.
In local politics I almost always voted against my party as the idiots that the CLP put up were just that, not worth voting for. I only joined Labour a couple of local elections down the line from that so had no influence until then. At that point I knew the people and respected them - was living in another part of the UK by then.

Being left-leaning and living in Kensington & Chelsea is frustrating I know all about that. And all while Nigel Lawson was wiping his bottom on the poor.

Also I don't care if someone I voted against - directly or tactically gets offered a plum directorship or seat on a quango, I helped to get another person into the job, someone I think is a better representative.

I don't have any control over what happens later. That is life but nothing to do with me. Some people do the hard yards in politics for that pot of gold, others to serve.

How do I know that some list MP or candidate is either and how do I have any idea whether my party vote is "wasted" or not, I have no idea who will be elected in one place or another and where they are on the list. So there is not any real connection between me and an MP if my person does not get in in the FPP constituency vote. None at all. To me that is far worse than having some form of proportionality where I choose who to vote for/against. STV, SM and PV all fit that bill to one degree or another. MMP for me does not. That's why I'll vote against it. Tactically probably. But it won't get me anywhere as those who don't like lists and the disproportionate power of small parties will go for FPP. And I can't bring myself to go for that.

Anyway if a mayor no-one (but a certain party) likes, fails to be returned, then in a MMP-like system the party apparatus could put them as our representative somewhere else. That's the analogy that galls me. How can that be fair?

simonmarkellis

I'm still undecided... thought i'd vote to get rid of MMP, but not sure if anything else is any better...