Posts by Brent Jackson
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Looks like Colin Espiner is in agreement :
There are, as I see it, two major flaws with our MMP system:
1. MPs who get booted out of their electorates can come in through the "back door'' on the list. This could be stopped easily enough. MPs who hold an electorate seat and lose it at an election cannot come back via the list. Simple.
2. The 5 per cent threshold versus the electorate seat entry method. This is unfair. NZ First - while I was pleased to see the back of them - should be in Parliament before the ACT Party. NZ First got 4.3 percent of the vote and no seats. ACT got 3 per cent, and five seats - all because Rodney Hide won Epsom.
This should be changed. I'd lower the threshold to about 2 per cent and do away with the electorate seat method. Five per cent is too high, and I can't see why ACT should get more MPs just because it won an electorate.
I'm not sure that his No1 problem is actually a problem. But his solution may have a nice flow on effect. Party stalwarts that are high on the list, would have little to gain in running in an electorate, and plenty to lose. So the higher members on the big parties lists will not run in electorates (unless they are totally safe). This would make more electorates available for up-and-coming MPs which would then be likely to get in as electorate MPs (where they otherwise would have got in as list MPs). Hence, most MPs will have had an electorate at some time, which I think is good for the system, as MPs who are list only have a primary allegiance to their party, and not the voters.
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... or find some more Flower Pot Men.
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Note that if the threshold goes to less than 2%, then the "coattails" effect disappears, because a party that gets 1.5 to 2% of the party vote gets 2 candidates in anyway.
This is why DPF's charts do not have a 1% option (its identical to 0%).
Assuming no change in voter behaviour, thresholds of 3% and 4% would have only affected 2 of the 5 MMP elections (1996 & 2008). Similarly, thresholds of 2%, 3% and 4% would have only differed from each other in 1 of the 5 elections (1999).
However, I think that if the threshold was lowered, then voting for minority parties would become more attractive, as one's vote is less likely to be not counted.
I think a threshold of 2% or 2.5% is about right. This avoids 1and 2 MP parties, so the smallest parties in parliament will have 3 members (excepting those 1 electorate MP parties).
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some people would say that NZ First getting twice as many votes as Act but no seats was unfair.
Yes, it was. But that's because the threshold is too high.
I reckon 2.5% is about right.
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Umm. I have no idea what the opening section of your blog is on about. Perhaps if I had a facebook login I'd be able to work it out. However, for the edification of myself (and other unfacebooked PASers) could someone please explain what the story is.
Cheers,
Brent. -
Pauline Dawson wrote:
So far, the only thing I am having difficulty with is the time slip functionality. Maybe I am doing something wrong but it resets when you change channel. Also only being able to put it on fast forward or jumping in 5 second units is a pain. However I've just this minute found out how to tweak it.
Could you please explain these two limitations in a bit more detail. Ta muchly.
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@Cecelia :
Sorry, I don't have a strong argument for you.Pure democracy is nothing more than mob rule. The majority gets what it thinks it wants, and minorities do not.
We live under a representational democracy, where our elected representatives make decisions on our behalf for the good of all citizens. (Well that is how it is supposed to work ...).
California is a good counter example - if the majority had their way they would probably ban taxes and rates, and then get really upset when they would have to pay the true cost for doctors, schools, roads, garbage collection, etc.
HTH.
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We want a freeview decoder, and a PVR. From what I had originally heard I thought Tivo was the answer. It seems not (Telecom tie in, expensive, not enough disk space). So is a cheap freeview decoder, and some XXX GB PVR the answer ?
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My attitude towards this can be best summed up by "existence is better than non-existence".
I liken it to the temperature scale. On the "happiness" scale, being in the negatives is obviously bad, but, in my view, death is not 0 degrees Celsius, it is 0 degrees Kelvin. If you are dead, the essence that is you ceases to exist - this cannot be better than any state in which you can exist.
Obviously, this is stated rather baldly, and I'm sure, when push comes to slow-lingering-death, there may become a time to hasten the end, but I like "existence is better than non-existence" as an adage to live by.
(Heh - I've just googled it and come up with pages referring to "Augustine", "Nietzsche", "Leibniz", "Elsner", et al, so I guess philosophers have discussed this a bit already).
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You have to be called George for that role.