I read it through and left a comment which I'll post here, too:
MMP gave me a vote that actually lets me elect people I want. Under FPP I managed to reach the age of 30 without *ever* electing someone I had voted for. I always seemed to end up living in a safe seat for the OTHER party. I have no wish to return to any of that.
Interesting you see MMP as dominated by the small parties. This must be a “Princess and the pea” sort of thing. I know the Greens ONLY have Metiria Turai on the South Island – based in Dunedin. How you think one MP can “dominate” the South Island is an interesting perspective. I’d say she was there to represent the people of the South who vote for the Green Party. I’m sure they are happy she’s there for them.
One of the interesting things I notice in discussions about MMP is how concerned some people are about MPs for parties they don’t even vote for. For me, I’m most concerned with the MPs from the party I voted for…and any other MPs can be the “problem” of whoever voted for that party. It’s their business. But there does seem to be this tendency to denigrate MPs from parties people don’t agree with any anyway. I don’t get that.
Then there is the accountability meme you raise….about people not elected locally getting on the list. I don’t see that as a problem either. In my local electorate, pretty much any of the candidates standing from a significant party would be good MPs. Unfortunately FPP only lets one person win…and that’s a shame and a loss to the districts concerned. MMP often allows more than one person from an electorate be elected via the party vote – which is, in effect, used to elect multiple members from a single national electorate. But the benefit to places like Dunedin or Horowhenua or Nelson is that MMP lets these places have Mps from more than one party. I love that. It means if the local MP is a complete drongo who I KNOW won’t listen to a word I have to say, I can go to someone else locally based. First Past the Post *never* let me do that.
On the acountability front, MMP beats FPP by miles. Back in the old days, my one little vote only had any effect at all in just ONE electorate. It had no effect at all in any of the others. The *best* I could hope for – and only once *ever* achieved – was to elect the person I wanted locally. If the MP in the neighbouring electorate was a complete twat….there was nothing at all I could do about it. But with MMP, my party vote has *national* effect. It can help to elect multiple MPs from all over New Zealand. Plus I also get my local vote….just like I always did.
Two ticks is definitely better than one. Especially when the MMP tick is the one that lets me vote nationally…..and not just in my one little electorate.
The funniest thing I can think of is a National Party voter in a safe Labour seat in Dunedin, or a Labour Party voter on Auckland’s North Shore, voting to get rid of MMP ….and thus ensuring their local vote never again is in any way relevant to the future fortunes of the party they support as their local seat will always go the other way.
That’s just silly…yet there appear to be people that muddled. Life is strange.
Thanks for the link.
ReplyDeleteI understand the rationale for MMP and proportionality. My main concern is that we end up with weak govt.
As Shipley said "The main skill a PM needs now is how to count". Neither the left or right want to be beholden to Harawira, Kopu, Peters or Dunne (who has managed ministerial baubles continuously since MMP started).
FWIW, I do not have mainstream political views and vote neither National nor Labour. And my local MP is an incompetent troll.
Chris: I don't think we have had "weak government". It would helpful if you could define what you mean by that.
ReplyDeleteGenerally, in a democracy, the things that get done are the things a majority supports being done. A perception problem arises when one minority thinks it should be able to push its agenda on the majority without bothering to gain their support...and that minority risks not accepting that they have not won the argument if the majority reject their agenda.
So one person's 'weak government' may well be another person's "Thank goodness we won't be doing that dumb thing...".
We see, right now, Don Brash calling National "weak" for not gutting public spending and handing everything over to the private sector. I'm very glad the government is 'weak'....as there is considerable evidence doing what Brash wants would actually destroy the economy....not save it.
So "weak" and "strong" can amount to little more than name-calling depending on the agenda being run.
MMP's job is very simple. It is intended to allow voters to elect representatives they want...and to do it in proportion to the level of support they receive at an election. No more and no less. MMP does an excellent job of that.
What would be worse is allowing one minority to do as it pleases...thinking they are being "strong"...and in reality they may be idiots and the majority couldn't stop them. That's what we had at times under FPTP. Strong idiots no one could stop.
No thanks.
One of the joys of wordpress is that you can go through the comments and intersperse comments... which is what I've done at Dark Brightness.
ReplyDeleteI think we have had crazy compromises and decisions. On both sides. Examples would be banning smacking (Clarke is and was too skilled an operator to do that -- it was the cost she paid to have the greens on board for confidence and supply) and the cluster of stupidity which has been the (multiple) foreshore and seabed rules.
Chris: Interesting you raise the "anti-smacking" issue. I've looked into that and really struggle to see what people got upset about. The S59 defence was only ever useful AFTER the police laid charges against a parent for physical abuse of their child. The police have never laid a charge - then or now - against a parent for "smacking". The new law made sense to me: putting assaulting a child on the same footing as assaulting an adult. The police don't press charges for trivial pushes and shoves among adults either. The history on this is very clear: the police don't waste their time on trivial stuff. It's a non-issue, which brings me back to wondering why people didn't see it for what it was: a beat-up.
ReplyDeleteThe foreshore and seabed issue, if anything, supports an argument that says MMP delivers strong government. Clark & Labour didn't give in on the issue. National pretended to...but didn't really...so the Maori Party are left with nothing. Also remember the Maori Party are 100% local MPs elected by First Past the Post. They have no list MPs. Either way, National lead them along and in the end didn't give them what they wanted. Looks like strong government to me (the rights and wrongs of the foreshore and seabed to one side...)