Posts by Tim McKenzie
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I think it's a reasonable question if it comes with a "If New Zealand were to adopt a new electoral system, which would your prefer?" as well. ... if someone wants to search for the original 1992 question I wouldn't be surprised if it looked something like that (Tim?).
Sorry about the delay. Page 16 of Voter's Choice has a mock voting paper. First it has:
Part A
Voting System ProposalsI VOTE TO RETAIN THE PRESENT FIRST-PAST-THE-POST SYSTEM.
I VOTE FOR A CHANGE TO THE VOTING SYSTEM.
and then it has:
Part B
Reform OptionsI VOTE FOR THE SUPPLEMENTARY MEMBER SYSTEM (SM).
I VOTE FOR THE SINGLE TRANSFERABLE VOTE SYSTEM (STV).
I VOTE FOR THE MIXED MEMBER PROPORTIONAL SYSTEM (MMP).
I VOTE FOR THE PREFERENTIAL VOTING SYSTEM (PV).
There is no actual question in either part, and no explanation on the paper that you can vote to retain FPP and also vote for a preferred reform option, in case a majority of other voters vote for reform. The rest of the book is to explain all that and more.
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You prompted me to search our shelves for the book about the original 1992 vote, Voter's Choice: Electoral Change in New Zealand? by Helena Catt, Paul Harris, and Nigel S. Roberts. I wanted to see if that ballot paper was as absurd as I remembered it: one question with five choices, one of which was FPP. Of course, it wasn't: it was two questions, the first asking "change or not?", and the second asking "change to what?".
Anyway, I happened to notice this sentence on page 11:
Whether or not there is a second referendum the government intends to hold a referendum in 1993 on whether a second chamber of parliament, likely to be called a Senate, should be introduced.
What ever happened to that? And how old would you have to be to have been asked that question?
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my opinion of McCain will take a serious nosedrive if he starts singing from that hymnbook
Funny you should mention singing.
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Since you asked, according to Campaigns Wikia, Barack opposes capital punishment, but Hillary doesn't. I have no idea whether or not it's true.
Also, in what I've seen, Barack and his wife talk about unity a lot, whereas Hillary says things like
I am ready to go toe to toe with Sen. McCain whenever and wherever he desires.
I'd be more inclined to vote for unity rather than conflict, but since I'm on the other side of the world, what I see could easily be a very distorted picture of what the candidates are actually like.
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I think that story's far too scary for most kids---starting the school year on Boxing Day?
<><[**REPLY:** Ha -- you spotted my chronological glossing-over! It was originally written when we were in Boston (although, even there, they don't start school again on Boxing Day -- but they do restart school cruelly soon after Christmas). -- DH]
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Kyle, a law that says "you can say what you like, but only if..." really does restrict your freedom of expression. If it ends with "only if you give your name and address", then it's a much more mild restriction than it could be, but it's still a restriction. Worse ways of ending that sentence could be "only if you say who you voted for last time", or "only if you pledge allegiance to The Party".
Again, there's thankfully a very long road for anyone who wants to replace New Zealand's current liberty with the recent, horrible oppression we've seen in Burma. But if someone is fined for talking to passers-by in the Octagon (which won't happen), then we'll be taking a very large step along that road.
I don't know how I got into talking about such absurdly hypothetical situations. I'm sorry I ever responded to your mentioning Burma.
I mean, I think it's silly if you have to give your name and address when making an election related speech, as my understanding was that the bill was about electoral finance, not electoral activity.
Well, we agree on one thing.
But I don't have high expectations of the current parliament in terms of producing quality legislation.
Make that two.
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That's a long way away from the Burma direction, where the monks didn't just forget to give the home address of their monastry.
Sorry, I may have given the impression that I was getting a little carried away in my previous comment. Let me clarify.
Fining someone $10000---or even $1000---for failing to give their name and address when speaking to the public in the Octagon would be a massive departure from the liberty that we're used to enjoying in New Zealand. The direction of that departure is the direction that Burma has gone, but a fine is still much less worrisome than the violence we've seen recently in Burma.
I guess it's a bit like the bill, but the other way around. The select committee has done a great deal of work that has pushed the bill in the right direction, but it still has a long way to go.
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I'm not trying to compare the EFB to Burma. I realize, Kyle, that you didn't accuse me in particular of making that comparison, but I thought I'd clear that up, anyway. I'm honestly very grateful that we have much more freedom of expression here than the citizens of Burma have had recently.
The Bill does restrict your freedom to express yourself in certain ways---for example, by buying too many advertisements. Once we've decided that we're going to make minor restrictions to freedom of expression, we need to be very careful about how we do it.
As currently worded, the bill would restrict your freedom to stand in the Octagon, telling the general public to "vote for a party that cares about the environment"; unless you also tell them your name and address, you will have wilfully contravened section 53, and will be liable for a fine of up to $10000. If that was enforced, we'd be quite far in the Burmese direction.
Fortunately, even if the bill passes in its current form, that sort of thing won't be enforced, because there are sensible people in New Zealand's Police and sensible judges in New Zealand. But that's not the point. To quote from my submission again:
The mere existence of such a law will act to suppress expression of political thought, because of the uncertainty about the limits of its application. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that future governments will be so lenient with its application.
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P.S. The debate on the second reading is starting now.
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Kyle, you seem to be saying that I should be free to express myself in some ways, but not in others. That sounds to me a lot like a restriction on freedom of expression, or "free speech" as you seem to like to abbreviate it.
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The rest of it isn't so much free speech, as 'money speech'.
The word free has several related meanings in English. Most of them are about freedom. Another is an abbreviation of "free of charge". Please don't conflate the two ideas---they're quite distinct.
Now that we've got those two ideas separate, are you trying to suggest that our right to free speech isn't about freedom?
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