Posts by Hans Versluys
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1 MP parties are mainly electorate ones and they are exempt from the threshold (which indicates that there are two classes of MPs - John Banks always labeled them as Clayton MPs) This 'discrimination' is not solved unless the threshold is 1/120th. Also, the fragmentation of parliament under MMP so detested by majoritarians is due to electorate MPs (and MPs splitting off their main parties) not the list system or threshold. The 5% in Germany isn't actually working very well to keep the Nazis (or Pirates) out of their parliaments either these days.
Pity we can't have the Israeli system. Maori may actually be better represented by a range of parties under PPR (pure proportional representation) as they will have wider party choice than currently. -
Come on Eileen Dexy's Midnight Runners: The rhythm is perfect for drunk morons who can't dance even when sober. The lyrics shouted by said drunk morons at dreadful parties give me a worse hangover than cheap liquor.
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Hard News: Dirty deeds done by Digger?, in reply to James George,
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As one of the smug Waiheke dwellers, I can endorse the assessment of our island's micro-climate. We don't grow the best wine in the country without it. Weather bomb-schmeather bomb. Good to hear you had a swell time on Rotoroa. Oh, and if you had ever run out of booze, take a lead from the former inmates in 1914 in this delightful newspaper report: http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=EP19141031.2.133
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Greece (and Ireland) could learn a lesson from Iceland: refuse to bail out banks; make banks' international division go bust but keep the deposit taking as the core business of domestic banks; have capital controls to prevent bank runs; go back to basics of fishing (and tourism in Greece's case).
Result: Iceland has now got a credit rating back, paid off its IMF loan money, is growing strongly economically (even tourism is booming due to a cheap Krona), but still has capital controls.
Greece would need to leave the euro for this to make its internal prices and costs competitive on the international market by a devalued drachma. German tourists could then support their economy, even if they must get first choice of the sunloungers at the poolside.Interesting comparison of economic woes and responses by Iceland, Ireland and Latvia
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Hard News: Dispatches from Summer, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Euro collapses so I can turn forty in Copenhagen in some style at modest expense
The only snag is that Denmark doesn't use the euro.
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I'd go with Brent Jackson's suggestion. It will do away with the need of an electorate vote as your list nominee gets to be your MP. MMP would then need only one vote. Vote splitting would be a thing of the past as would coat-tail/tea pot MPs. Total list votes determine the MP numbers with the highest tolling on the list getting in. Simple, easy, democratic, local (you choose your MP instead of a party choosing one for you) and proportional.
How do I add this to the MMP review process? -
"Put another way, a threshold is A Good Thing."
Not if you voted Conservative this election. If you did, then despite the party having won enough votes to earn 3 seats in the house, you instead get no representation.Put another way, it means that not all votes are of equal value: the Conservative vote is worthless now, while Key and Banks were hoping that Epsom votes would be worth more than anyone else's in the country (i.e. get more MPs than their share indicated). The lower the threshold, the more democracy.
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Certainly a much better result! And easier to understand: 0.8% of the party vote would get you a seat. We could do away with all that timewasting in electorate campaigning if NZ was one 120 seat electorate. (No separate Maori seats either, as a bonus!)
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Hard News: The Solemnity of the Day, in reply to thegirlstefan,
so, what happens if I stroll around the neighbourhood wearing my "I'm a KEY person" T-shirt before going in to the polling booth at the school across the road to vote?
You'd be better off wearing a t-shirt saying: "I'm a Tool"