Posts by Hans Versluys
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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"
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OnPoint: Brain Drain Et Cetera, in reply to Ben Austin,
I wouldn't call it "immigrating" or "emigrating" if you're going to a country that has your mother tongue. Real immigrants learn a different language.
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My entry into NZ in 1990 is invisible in those charts. I came from Europe (not the UK) to steal your land, jobs and men.
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Hard News: The Solemnity of the Day, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
"Do any other countries have laws like this?"
I remember at election time in Belgium the party propaganda (mostly leaflets) were ankle deep around you in the polling booths everywhere. There was nothing solemn about the day (in the 1970s at least). They're still bickering about a Goverment formation 18 months after the balot boxes closed. -
And the GST goes to the central Government, not the local council.
Rates should be abolished anyway and replaced by a transfer from central Govt of a percentage of all income and GST taxes collected in your local body area. Cheaper to run, fairer to implement, more stable revenue and linked to your ability to pay than to the peceived value of what you may own. -
And again, no indication of the increase in number of Maori seats under all MMP alternatives. Something that could attract Maori voters to their cause (or rednecks to vote MMP). Missed opportunity.
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The alternatives offered to MMP in the referendum all have a provision for more Maori seats than under MMP (from 9 to 12 seats, according to the info website). Won't that lead to (say, in a return to FPP) elections only basically fought in Maori electorates as they will be effectively be the cross-bench seats and they will determine a Labour or National majority?