Speaker: Remembering the Chartists
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but as far as I understand, its only convention and the presence of witnesses that removes the actual ability to check who someone voted for... if no-one was watching you can easily figure out who people voted for.
Not just convention - there's also the fact that it would be a criminal offence...
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Scott - I guess the problem is that trusts are used for lots of things - maybe they're a bit broad - the Nats for years funneled their money through some big trusts effectively hiding their donors - to me that's wrong - I want to know if my representatives are bought and by who.
We have the situation in Dunedin where the controversial stadium is actually being built by a trust and most of the public money's been funneled through it - it's been used for things like advertising to try and persuade us to support the thing - no public politician could spend money like this on something that was an issue in an election campaign - they've been given tens of millions of dollars without any public accounting - there are various rumours around town about [stuff I can't probably shouldn't mention without Russell being open to a libel charge] - (and the bastards are using my daughter's image without my permission - they just don't actually have an address so I can't sue them - or get really irate and camp on their doorstep)
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Paul, fair enough. When public money or politicians are involved I think it's fair to require a reasonably high level of disclosure and transparency.
Otherwise a person should be entitled to privacy in relation to their financial and legal affairs, so long as the person stays within the law.
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Paul, how did they get the picture of your daughter? I'll understand if you can't say here.
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Sacha: I don't know, it was in a public place - she was probably 11 at the time - it's not our image, someone else probably holds the copyright.
However to me it kind of says that by them using that image it says that our family endorses their cause which we emphatically do not - I've had people notice the image and ask me why I'm supporting the stadium - that's how I found out it exists.
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Paul Campbell, as an aside - and as a WDC & ORC ratepayer - may I say how much I loathe the lack of transparency apropos The Great Stadium Rort? It has been an exceedingly manipulative process since it became public, and a very great deal of stuff has never been made public.
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well there's one way to make it all transparent - kick the bastards out then open up the halls of power and let some light shine through - it's election year next year and I know where my money's going .....
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I'd like to know a little more about MPs renting properties of each other. Do they manage to save the taxpayer money or is there some kind of double up of payments going on?
I believe, though I haven't researched it, that it works like this:
1. You are an MP from somewhere that isn't Wellington.
2. You've been an MP for some time and bought a house or apartment in Wellington some time ago, for the purposes of living there while in Wellington.
3. If you own that house freehold, parliamentary/ministerial services won't pay funds to support it, because it doesn't cost you anything (no mortgage).
4. So you rent the house you own out to another person, possibly an MP. They pay you rent. They claim that rent back from parliamentary services.
5. You then rent or purchase another property, and claim the rent or mortgage back from parliamentary services.QED.
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I've stood up as a scutineer several times
the security and confidentiality of ballots is taken incredibly seriously
OMG, Craig and I agree. Can I take something for it?
Seriously, I encourage everyone to act as a scrutineer for the party/candidate of their choice. It is about participating in democracy.
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I am reasonably au fait with the NZ electoral process and systems. It is pretty sound.
Postal voting for local Councils passes the same tests.
It doesn't pass the "secret ballot" test.
I have emailed Don to discuss offline, and have said I am happy to discuss online. His choice, I think the issue is geeky enough to take offlien.
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Tim McKenzie / Punchscan
interesting. Hadn't previously heard of it. Not convinced yet. Will read more.
The issue is, people have to have confidence in voting systems.
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Each ballot paper has a consecutive number repeated on the foil/butt. Both numbers are covered with a black sticker. Your personal page and line number is recorded on the foil. (To find out what you had voted I would have to undo countless black stickers to try and find yours.)
Weeks after the election every sticker is removed by officials.
Every Roll is inspected to make sure that each person has voted only once. If duplicated then there is a knock on doors to find out who if any voted more than once. -
As I said in another thread, while not objecting to MPs being paid well, I am far from thrilled that they're well seated above the 95th percentile of national income. I suspect that ministers are at more like the 98th or 99th percentile. Unfortunately Stats NZ don't publish income statistics at any greater degree of granularity than a huge band of above (from memory) $1080/week. Even with that being the upper quintile MPs are still in no danger of being considered low-paid.
What disturbs me more is that we pay highly-trained medical professionals considerably less than we pay MPs. An opposition list MP gets more than a junior doctor, and ministers are getting more than senior doctors (assuming no private consulting practice). That, as far as I am concerned, is a total nonsense. Being an MP requires no training, no particular experience, and certainly carries no life-in-their-hands responsibility.
At best we should be indexing parliamentarians' pay to median doctors' pay in the public health system (watch the lightning-fast pay increases!), and personally I'd say tie it to the median wage. Multiples thereof, to be sure, but indexed to the median wage all the same. Say par for list MPs, one-and-a-half times for electorate MPs, double for ministers and party leaders, two-and-a-half-times for the deputy PM, and triple for the PM. That would put English on a shade under $70k (2.5*52*$537) (sorry for the 2008 median income, I can't find this year's figures and I doubt that they're terribly much more), and Key on just under $84k.
Want more money? Run the country in a way that improves the median income. That tends to rule out flogging shit off to your cut-through mates who'll run it into the ground by employing as few low-wage monkeys as possible, and also tends to rule out doing things that weaken collective bargaining and other tools for improving wages. Basically it means that treating employees well is important, instead of a despicable option that gets in the way of making money.
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I sort of like that idea - sort of incentive bonuses for politicians - I'm sure there would be unintended consequences though
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Unfortunately Stats NZ don't publish income statistics at any greater degree of granularity than a huge band of above (from memory) $1080/week.
Treasury, OTOH, has a rather handy table in every Budget on who pays tax and how much?. Which tells us that even ordinary MPs (base salary $131K + $14K expense allowance, plus travel, accomodation etc) are all in the top 1% of earners. Which goes a long way towards explaining why they talk about tax so much...
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I have family members who are part of the medical profession. Even the mostwell-paid doesnt earn anything like a PM's wage: this person has numerous post-graduate qualifications, and over 20 years experience- NO BLOODY POLITICIAN can come close to this person's dedication, expertise, and sheer good input into the general wellbeing of ANZ society.
If all politicians - all of 'em- dropped dead tomorrow, the country would continue to be.
Sure: there'd be power scrabbles (and they'd get down to really local & nasty ones.)
But - professional organisations (medical/police/army/local body et al) would be around -and I know we'd very quickly find that our ingrained democratic system - preferably a parliamentary one - but I do begin to doubt it's utility- would get up & running via komiti lines very bloody quickly.And then?
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A CEO of a large corporate isn't spending taxpayer dollars.
Unless the corporate is an SOE. Or it receives a subsidy or implicit guarantee from the taxpayer (like the banks, for instance). Even if the company's wholly in private hands, it's still probably spending the public's cash, extracted through a monopoly market position.
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Treasury, OTOH, has a rather handy table in every Budget on who pays tax and how much?.
BTW, if David Slack is reading this, a nice quiz on income distribution in NZ akin to your Treaty of Waitangi quiz (with extra bonus questions on how much peopl eon the dole vs MPs get) could be illuminating.
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Good idea. I'll fire it up.
Keeping in mind Dorothy Parker's advice, of course:If you want to know what God thinks about money, just look at the people He gives it to.
And also Rita Rudner:
Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be.
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Warning <geek>
Ian is very very close but not quite 100%
Each ballot paper has a consecutive number repeated on the foil/butt. Both numbers are covered with a black sticker. Your personal page and line number is recorded on the foil. (To find out what you had voted I would have to undo countless black stickers to try and find yours.)
Weeks after the election every sticker is removed by officials.
Every Roll is inspected to make sure that each person has voted only once. If duplicated then there is a knock on doors to find out who if any voted more than once.For the record:
- The stickers are on the ballot paper only
- The check for dual votes is not 'weeks after', but in the official count which starts on the 10th day after polling
- 'Every sticker' is not removedRather if for arguments sake the check of the rolls shows Ian's details on the stub for a voting paper at one of the six polling booths at Blenheim Central School, and also at the polling booth at Tuamarina, then only the voting papers from Tuamarina and the one relevant booth at Blenheim Central are opened up.
Only those batches of votes have the stickers lifted. And IIRC, the practice is that the ballot is covered with a sheet of paper while a sticker is lifted and replaced, to preserve secrecy.
Yes, dual voting is taken seriously. 58 cases were referred to the Police after November 2008 and there was one prosecution.
See s150(15), s167(3), s176(2) of the Electoral Act
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I have family members who are part of the medical profession. Even the mostwell-paid doesnt earn anything like a PM's wage: this person has numerous post-graduate qualifications, and over 20 years experience- NO BLOODY POLITICIAN can come close to this person's dedication, expertise, and sheer good input into the general wellbeing of ANZ society.
Certainly not, and even the Prime Minister wouldn't earn anything like the rumoured US$19 million plus a respectable chunk of points that Universal gave PJ for King Kong. Jackson has my mad props on all kinds of levels -- even if I found Kong a snooze-a-rama -- but I sure wouldn't claim he's somehow 'better' than a doctor. But I don't get too bent that he managed to convince the studio he was worth millions either.
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OMG, Craig and I agree. Can I take something for it?
Oh, you'll get over it in no time, Phil. :) But seriously, whether you liked the outcome, we had a peaceful and orderly change of government following a free, fair and credible election. Its too easy to take that for granted -- and forget it doesn't happen by magic --, because the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders have zero experience of anything else.
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peaceful and orderly change of government following a free, fair and credible election
Amen.
The arguments continue about the arguments used in the campaign and the things done, whether they were above board. And the continuing arguments are part of free speech. But amen, a free and fair election.
So people, mark your calendar for a Saturday in late 2011 to spend time as a scrutineer for the party of your choice.
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Whilst I find it deeply ironic and quite hilarious that the Dark Sith Lord of Fiscal Restraint has been proved the one most flagrantly with his hand in the till, I am not greatly exercised by this whole expenses affair.
In terms of what MP's get paid, well it is always a vexed question. It is hardly fair to compare their renumeration with professionals and technocrats, because they are not professionals or technocrats, and if they were then democracy as we know would be over. After all, it is the house of REPRESENTATIVES, not the house of experts, or professionals, or the house of silver-spoon-in-the-mouth-born-to-rulers.
In a general sense it seems to me that if the public thinks MP's are now over-paid vis-a-vis the average/median wage then that is probably a reflection of the wider growth in income inequality that has occured in the sort of obscene money our self-important CEO's and top executives now think they are worth.
Perhaps the answer would be to publish all the incomes of everyone in the top two percentile in New Zealand, so we can accurately gauge the relativity of MP's wages with top executives, and also - like MP's - so we can accurately measure the performance of those in the oligarchy who, by their utterances through and funding of bodies like the ACT party and the Business Round Table, also choose to have a significant role in policy formation.
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I always find it amusing that when justifying their pay MPs say but of course we would earn more if we were out in the workplace
OK you don't often hear this from the left but it does get said
What I would like to see as well as Tom's list of the top top 2% incomes, is a list of ex MPs incomes, excluding of course the super super they (we) pay themselve
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