Written By: - Date published: 5:02 pm, September 28th, 2008 - 52 comments
Categories: election 2008, maori party, national -
Tags: electoral law
National have quietly released their policy on electoral law and have promised to abolish the Maori seats once treaty claims are finished, repeal the Electoral Finance Act and run a referendum on MMP.
These all represent substantial changes to the way our democracy operates.
I’ll be very interested to see what the Maori Party make of the abolition of seats. I’d also like to know what kind of electoral law they envisage replacing the EFA because I have a bad feeling it won’t involve transparency and the removal of anonymous donations. I sincerely hope our media push for details about the Nat’s plans for electoral law because it’s too important to see it taken back to the days of the shadowy backrooms.
Regarding the plan to run a referendum on MMP, I can only repeat what I said when the Nat’s intentions for MMP first came to light:
I would imagine we’ll hear a lot about how National just support the democratic right to choose an electoral system while their backers run big money campaigns to push first past the post.
Just in case you missed it the first time around here’s a video showing exactly what that meant
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Draco T Bastard: I kinda like your idea, but then again I don’t, because as you’ve said there’d be no way for anyone to ever get elected unless they were in some party or other. And I personally believe that 120 (or whatever number) independents would produce better law and better outcomes than any mix of parties ever could.
But under your proposed system I guess those people willing to take each decision on an “as it comes” basis, consulting with those who elected them and not simply sticking to spport or opposition to a proposal because “their” party says they should, could form a party – the No Preconceived Ideas Party maybe. It’d still be imperfect though, because I think voters deserve to have someindication of the way their politicians think before making their choice.
But if we started from opposite ends of the spectrum but with the same end in mind – better democracy – I think we’d devise something infinitely better than a system that’s seen Alamein Koopu, Ron Mark, Gordon Copeland and other shining examples of itelligent accountable leadership get themselves “elected” via the back door.
Very good points made by Burt.
Labour just doesn’t want to lose control.
And yet, Brett, it’s National that are proposing an electoral system that would make it far more likely that they would be able to govern alone.
DS
“That “softening of the edges’ represents the difference between the the Employment Relations Act and the Employment Contracts Act”
As I’ve said before, the ERA left the balance of power ridiculously tilted in favour of the employer. Industrial action is severely prescribed…(or is that proscribed?)and the whole employer/employee relationship has been bureaucratised which is an environment foreign to almost all workers, but one in which lawyers and bosses operate well. Bottom line, the ERA is not a remarkable improvement on the ECA.
“between minimum wage increases and no minimum wage increases”
But the min wage increased only when it appeared that low paid workers might be getting uppity…it’s a containment strategy, nothing more.,
“between the rebuilding of economic infrastructure and letting it rot”
I don’t know what you mean by ‘economic infrastructure’…but water and electricity infrastructure have deteriorated.,
“and between interest-free student loans and charging interest on students while they are studying.”
Which challenges the ‘user-pays’ ethos how?
Anyone who thinks that Nat and Lab hold meaningfully disparate political beliefs has a head full of broken bottles.
Everybody here thinks that somehow we have sovereignty and direction of our own affairs. get real. New Zealand is still an “area of recent settlement” and coupon clippers in the first world are still fleecing us. Everything in New Zealand is done on the cheap…for a quick example think Auckland Harbour Bridge. Our academics are low paid and everything else is supplied by the lowest bidder. Meanwhile we are like little tin gods in our antipodean paradise. National are involved in stripping capital and Labour in creating it. You have to decide who you stand with and then do your bit and stop bleating on blogs!
Randal:
Couldn’t agree more especially since the Rogernomics financial revolution of the 1980s. Everything since then has been about cutting costs and boosting profit. This has resulted in needed work not being done as well as they it be (power, telecoms) and the overall deterioration of our society due to increasing poverty levels.
MMP is just a bad system.
I dont see how a party with only 5% of the vote, can dictate who becomes government.
It goes against the wishes of 95% of the population.
Brett Dale,
In what sense do they determine who becomes government?
If 11 people have to decide between a picnic and a movie, and 5 say “movie” and 5 say “picnic” and the remaining one say “um… picnic” so it’s 6-to-5 and the have a picnic, who determined how the group would spend the afternoon?
I can see three options
1) The final person, cos they tipped the scale
2) The six people who chose a picnic
3) All eleven people, because they chose the process
SOK ANITA… when bd read the bible he never got passed the chapter on Moses!
Brett Dale:
They can’t dictate it – they can only negotiate it. Something that you’re obviously unfamiliar with.
Really Brett, all you seem to be complaining about is democracy and your complaint seems to be that it’s not a dictatorship.
Anita,
If 11 people have to decide between a picnic and a movie, and 5 say “movie’ and 5 say “picnic’ and the remaining one say “um picnic’ so it’s 6-to-5 and the have a picnic, who determined how the group would spend the afternoon?
If Winston is involved, he’d say he wanted the picnic and the movie. Then, when asked by a mutual friend how he spent the afternoon, he’d deny ever being involved in the activites or the decision making process. When one of the other 10 offer a contradictory story for Winstons whereabouts, he would then claim that the others were conspiring against him and that he wasn’t ever actually their friend in the first place.
Phil- Yes, but that’s where the analogy breaks down slightly as you have to remember that hundreds of thousands of people voted for the man who said “umm… picnic”, then said he wanted both, then was never involved in the decision and claimed conspiracy when confronted with truth.
Remember, when we ultimately have to ask who’s responsible for a politician who gets elected despite being dodgy in a previous term, the answer needs to be “The stupid buggers who elected that sly little fox, not to mention said fox themselves.”, not “anyone who ever even slightly facilitated their involve in decision-making, even in the name of democracy, fairness, and the process of fair and non-partisan trials.”
And that’s coming from someone who thinks Winston is one of the worst politicians ever to disgrace the current Parliament by lying in it, AND thinks Helen Clark is being uncharacteristically stupid in defending the blighter.
Just for the fun of it, how’s this for an attack on democracy.
Thanks Eve,
After reading the comments section in the link you posted I can only conclude that most there are some extremely odd people in the US.
hs,
I hate what is about to happen to the US and if you just read the mainstream media you can find out about what’s to happen here and I do so because I like people and I have a lot of American friends who are in peril but honestly, when the shit comes down it will be my pleasure to say to you,”I told you so” you sad wanker.
Just google “martial law US” for the rest of you and find out.
Eve dear I would hardly say the sites that you link to are mainstream media.
Actually it is these days HS,
More than 80% of all Americans believe their government did not tell them the truth about 911 and over 50% want a new investigation.
This site and its show is read and listened to daily by millions and millions of Americans and people around the globe while “Mainstream” media is tanking left right and centre.
Alex Jones has people like Willy Nelson, Jesse Ventura, Col. Bob Bowman, Martin Sheen, Chuck Norris, Ron Paul, Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Cynthia McCinny, Ex-assistent treasurer Paul Craig Roberts under Reagan, frequently call in.
In fact if he says he wants to speak to someone on his show they call him not the other way around. If senators want to get a word out to the people they call him because the mainstream media is censored and that includes the left and the right.
He is what you might call the voice of the underground and that HS, is about the entire US under and middle class against the super rich 1% upper class.
In fact if Alex Jones were to call for a revolution (which he doesn’t, god bless) it could get very ugly in the US. Especially after the power and money grab of those 1% super rich this week.
Actually the financial inequality in the US resembles very much the state France was in in the days preceding the French revolution especially when the pending financial collapse will continue to unravel the “American” way of live.