Posts by izogi

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  • Hard News: #GE2015: Proper Mad,

    On the other hand, STV lets the victorious major parties point at the result and claim they really do have a mandate of popular support. because so many voters fell back to supporting their candidates eventually... if only because the mechanics of the counting process knocked out everyone else.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: #GE2015: Proper Mad, in reply to Ben Austin,

    One of the main reform organisations, if not the main one, is the Electoral Reform Society. Their preference is some form of STV.

    I can see how STV is a fairer system on an electorate-by-electorate basis, as it reduces the ability for a candidate to benefit from splitting the votes of adversaries. I don’t think it’d be such a bad idea to use it for electorates in NZ, if voters could stomach the higher complexity.

    But when parliament is made up of winners from individual seats, does STV alone really result in a more representative parliament? If 15% of the entire populace supported candidates from party 3, I could easily see a situation where nearly all of that 15% still seeped back to supporting either party 1 or party 2, due to party 3 dropping out earlier during the counting process and those voters’ later preferences being used. The consequence (as far as I can tell): it’d continue a system where two major parties largely dominate, despite not having the same level of popular support as they have influence in the house. It just becomes easier for candidates of those two parties to win against each other when there’s a third party draining their immediate support, because STV means they probably get it back anyway as long as they have a nose in front of the 3rd candidate.

    What has the experience been with the proportionality of representation in Australia under STV?

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Will the grown-ups ever…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,

    Looking further it's probably somewhere in the Ship Registration Act. I'm just interpreting this by myself, which means I'm probably wrong.

    I can see:

    * S58 says that all NZ registered ships (which covers most ships >=24 metres that aren't registered in other countries) have to fly the either NZ flag or the NZ marine flag, but not both, when signalled by NZ armed forces, and when berthed either in NZ or at a foreign port.

    * S59 says that the nationality of a ship has to be correctly declared to customs before it's allowed to leave for an overseas port.

    * S60 states that a ship that's not a NZ-registered ship is not allowed to do anything to make it appear to be an NZ-registered ship, and similarly a NZ ship is not allowed to pretend to be registered overseas. (The text says "New Zealand ship", but that's defined earlier as meaning a ship that's registered to New Zealand".)

    So if you're NZ-registered and fly some other country's flag, you might be in trouble, as with being overseas-registered and flying a NZ flag. But the law doesn't seem to care about overseas ships flying flags of the wrong country as long as it's not NZ. It also doesn't seem to care much about smaller unregistered vessels flying flags for any country, unless maybe it could reasonably be interpreted as signifying the ship is registered in NZ when it isn't.... but s58 doesn't really say that unregistered NZ ships can't fly the NZ flag. It just says that NZ-registered ones have to.

    And as usual when I try to do this, I may have missed much more.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Will the grown-ups ever…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,

    Apparently the Minister can make rules about the manner in which the flag is to be flown, either "by notice in the Gazette or otherwise".

    The online Gazette database doesn't seem to have a very good search mechanism, but if I browse the notices, sort alphabetically by Act and click through to about page 8224, the notices seem to go from ones declared under the Fishing Industry Board Amendment Act to those declared under the Food Act, with nothing declared under the Flag Act in between.... at least since they started going online around the early 1990s.

    Maybe a former Minister used the "or otherwise" clause to avoid the Gazette notice and instead declare the rule by arranging their breakfast spaghetti, before eating it.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Behind Baltimore, in reply to Steve Rowe,

    On a tangent, having viewed this video exactly one time, Youtube and Google seem to have decided many days later that I'm still absolutely interested in viewing CIA conspiracy videos, and not much else.



    Thanks.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Will the grown-ups ever…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,

    Also, the “how can we spend money on trivia before world hunger has been solved” argument is a bit dubious

    For me it's not the consideration of a new flag which annoys me as the way in which it's been deployed by politicians at strategic times in ways which distract attention from other issues which are politically inconvenient.

    Apart from that I like the idea of considering a replacement flag, but there's never going to be a time where it'd not be possible to point at something and say "that's more important!" We should be able to focus on two things.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Will the grown-ups ever…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    his four stock ‘terms’ are becoming progressively more incoherent

    They weren’t much better than that before the previous election, either. This morning’s interview was a train wreck for the Prime Minister, who at times sounded as if he was barely concentrating, but those who’ve made up their mind were either not going to vote in his direction already, or they’ve already had plenty of similar reasons to change but didn’t. The majority of the latter probably won’t even bother to actually listen to it, but even those who do will perceive Espiner's questions as part of the extremist left-wing media beat-up that's supposedly hounding the PM.

    I think as long as people-who-vote are convinced they don’t want to vote for the opposition, we’re just going to continue seeing a steady stream of apologism for the status quo, no matter how dreadful it might be. It’s a shame it’s come to this.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: About Campbell Live,

    Guyon Espiner had a lengthy interview with the PM this morning on Morning Report, largely on ponytail pulling. The PM didn't sound at all comfortable with the line of questions.

    It's not something that some wouldn't simply write off as a media beat-up, though.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Behind Baltimore, in reply to Tom Semmens,

    I don't know enough to really understand how much training is the right amount, but is 'number of weeks' necessarily a great metric for comparing and measuring?

    Looking at the recruitment site for the NZ Police, it seems to be 18 weeks at Police College but they also seem to make a big deal about needing a certain amount of competency assessment and distance learning to even reach the candidate pool for being there, then Police College training is followed by more assessments and qualifications during the first 2 years of work.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Behind Baltimore, in reply to James W,

    What an enlightning handling of the interview for this guy with Wolf Blitzer.

    As referenced by Stuff.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 1142 posts Report Reply

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