Posts by Steve Curtis
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OnPoint: What Andrew Geddis Said, But…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
No Governor General refused assent in 300 years /
Hardly!
"In the period during which Britain had such powers (1854-1947) it blocked important legislation on a number of occasions. The power of royal assent was used to prevent thirteen pieces of legislation from 1856 to 1910." -
To me the numbers dont add up
. They got 230 poker machines last time, which they dont have to give back, when the smaller convention center is subsumed by the new one.So the actual number of machines for the new larger centre is 560
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Hard News: Marshall and the Media,
The cynic in me would suggest the online version , after all these years, might have been adjusted to remove any stain on the reporters credibility.
Does the library copy of the printed version match ?That would be an intriguing investigation ?
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Legal Beagle: All over bar the drinking?…,
A million RTDs a day seem to trump any conscience votes of Mps ?
If I was a cunning MP I would introduce an amendment taxing RTDs on sugar content as well as alcohol content.
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Legal Beagle: Before the fall,
Ive looked at each election since 1999 and gave probabilities based number of final quotients between 110 and 120 allocated to National.
Thus the result is 0.4 x 0.4 x 0.5 x 0.6 x0.6 = 0.036 , which is the chance of it happening in 5 independent elections.
Roughly the same as 5 heads in a row. ??? -
Legal Beagle: Before the fall,
I accept that being a larger party National ( or Labour) has more chances but apparently the Sante Lague method is chosen so as not to favour larger parties ( as opposed to D'Hondt method gives similar results too, but favours larger parties)
Here is actual quotients for 2002 when National got a very low 22% but still snagged the final seat.
http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2002/e9/html/e9_part2.htmlWe can see Labour had 9 quotients from 100+ while National had 5. The party to miss out in this election was United Future . Something like 25 votes making the difference
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Legal Beagle: Before the fall,
While worthy all the changes you mention dont 'enhance the overall experience' as marketeers might say.
So that brings me to my main point, 'you may get what you want but lose what you had' effect. For an electoral system the tinkering is never done. Is this what we really want ? I notice from the Germans experience of MMP, which ours is most closely aligned, they have ended up by small changes with quite a different system than what they started with.
As for National having the 120th quotient at every election bar one, I would have thought that the maths would point to astronomical odds on that happening. Has David Farrar reverse engineered that result from the way they chose electorate MPs who go on the list as well.
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Legal Beagle: Johndotbanks - the law is…,
The tax return just asks if 'the information is true and correct'.
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Legal Beagle: On the possibilities of a…,
Richard there would be no way the Coroner would publish before or during the trial.
Mostly a trial establishes who was responsible. -
Hard News: Judge Harvey: My part in his downfall,
Is there an 'Untertag' video version coming