Posts by mic weevil
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"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.
I guess if you don't "see a fixed relationship between proportionality and effectiveness of a voting system" then maybe you're right, but I wonder how you define "effectiveness".
For me, an effective voting system is one where as many votes as possible are represented within parliament. I don't support the conservative party at all but I think that given they have the support of more than 2.5% of the population, they should have a voice in parliament. ACT have a much lower degree of public support and they get to have a voice.
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Legal Beagle: Election '11 -…, in reply to John Norman,
Methinks waste = support loss.
Waste refers to votes for parties that failed to gain an electorate seat or pass the 5% threshold. ie. the 2.8% of the country who chose to vote for the conservative party can be said to have wasted votes - their votes do not win representation in the house.
This effect is the biggest factor preventing proportional representation with MMP and is also the reason why Ohariu and Epsom have such ridiculous chicanery in their electorate votes...
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I think it would be great to remove the threshold. the very term "wasted votes" is anathema to a proper proportional system.
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tobacco are locked in to their product as well. it's hard to bring a new addictive product to market through those pesky andertons on the track so they're stuck with trying to keep their current product legal for as long as the gravy train keeps rolling..
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of course lowering the threshhold to 1 or 2% would eliminate the distortive electoral vortex emanating from Epsom
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Hard News: Meanwhile in Epsom ..., in reply to Ian Fish,
lots of Labour/Greens voters (including me) voted for Richard Worth last election
it's pretty farcical when most national supporters are voting Act while green and labour supporters vote national, and yet MMP is still a billion* times better than FPP
*approximate figure
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I agree with nzlemming. nothing is being banned, there is no human right to have your words distributed by large corporate bookstores and if Ian Wishart is really that concerned with the truth being told he could put up a free torrent of the pdf in all it's literary glory.
Sure the bookstores could be more upfront about their reasons for doing so but no one else in the media tells "the truth" so I'd be pretty surprised to hear them say "we think the bad press we'll get from stocking this book will hurt our profits so we won't stock it". They've done the sums and realised that the profits they'd take on the Wishart book would be less than the lost sales from a boycott and now they're spinning the decision as favourably as they can. just like everyone else in PR.
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"Assange does seem to be fairly sure he knows what is best for everyone. "
Unlike every politician, blog commenter ever? If you think that's how 'rapist' is defined, then I'm afraid you're surrounded by them...
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"Got relatively close to being PM a while ago"
and if that smiley Key guy would just kindly step aside those same talking points would be National party policy by lunchtime...
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my 2c:
I spent the first 8 months of this year on the dole - not for the lifestyle (rock'n'roll though it was, scrounging to cover expenses) - trying to find a job in the field I'm qualified for.
after settling for a much less interesting, less well-paid, more time-consuming job I'd have to say my parenting abilities have suffered for it. I've gone from having lots of time to spend with my youngling (2.5 yrs) to not enough.
the other day she said to me "you work all the time. sad" this made me tear up. how many awesome parents out there are bad-mouthing beneficiaries while working 60+ hour weeks away from their kids, I wonder? (not to diss you if you are in this situation, 'tis the world we've made)...