Posts by Rich of Observationz
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
A lot of the problem with the NOTW is the way they are entwined with the state. The police protected them by ignoring the complaints, the former editor became Cameron's press secretary, Murdoch and his editors have an open door into Downing Street (and are core in ensuring that no government to the left of George W Bush can ever get elected in the UK).
Basically, it's a media controlled by the nations rulers - Pravda, but much better disguised.
-
Legal Beagle: Referendum '11: counting…, in reply to Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling,
That’s almost a FAQ, and I think Graeme covered it off a while ago.
No. Candidates are candidates for the party they listed on their nomination form. The list numbers are computed when the final results are in and never change.
It doesn’t matter if Banks was a secret member of the Conservative party, or decides to refound the McGillicuddy’s* – the lists will be unchanged.
Banks is a sole electorate MP – ACT (like UF and Mana) have no list seats – if he changes parties, that’s up to him but no changes to the list.
If Hide (who did have list MPs beside him) had resigned, ACT would have kept their list seats irrespective of the result of any by-election. If he’d swapped parties, the same would have happened.
* McGillicuddys? The question of whether they took a possessive is, I feel, of rather more importance.
-
They concentrate on bloody systems & bureaucracies instead of supporting actual workers in the many glowing fields
Universal Basic Income would help there - some people could use it to give themselves time off to create stuff.
-
One of the big problems with STV voting for local body elections is that they’re send in by mail
I see the main problem as the way postal voting makes the secret ballot optional. With ballot boxes, you can't show someone else your vote even if you want to, or are being coerced into doing so. The only way around this is the fairly elaborate process of getting a postal vote.
There have been issues overseas with postal voting papers being collected and voted as a block.
-
Up Front: What if We Held an Election…, in reply to Lara,
I was thinking that was bound to happen.
-
...The concern troll posts in Web forums
I would strongly suspect that Peters has never posted anything on the web in his long and chequered life. I'd even suspect that he hasn't actually touched the keys on a computer.
Do you just mean that he's being insincere or using sophism in his statements?
-
Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Craig, did you know you've used the phrase "concern troll" 271 times on Public Address?
I don't even understand what it means.
-
Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Richard Grevers,
I'm some distance from the motorway extension and consider it a complete waste of money and desecration of the city. Wellington has the shortest airport-city journey of any sizable NZ town, and car use is falling, not rising.
I'm even unconvinced on light rail. It would be better to build some cheap dedicated busways and upgrade to rail sometime in the future when the population is larger.
-
Legal Beagle: Election '11: the special votes, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Seems there are two cases, correct me if I'm wrong:
Party A held seat, party A list MP wins seat: no net change on electorate or list
Party A held seat, party B list MP wins seat: +1 electorate MP for A, no net change on listIt seems (at least to me) fair enough that if a seat changes hands mid-term, the party winning it gains. The actual nationwide support numbers in mid-term are unknown, but one could take the victory as indicative of increased support for the winning party.
Also, the situation with a list MP or a newcomer is identical, right? If a newcomer from A wins a seat from B, their party goes +1 (the newcomer). If a list MP wins, the same happens, but it's the highest ranked unelected candidate that gets in.
This kinda smacks to me of deriving from the bogus idea that list MPs are a lesser class of representative, because their supporters are NZ wide rather than concentrated in one place.
-
Legal Beagle: Election '11: the special votes, in reply to izogi,
No, Banks is an electorate MP and ACT have no list MPs, not having polled enough to get more than one.
If Banks expires in office (and I take cheer from the mortality stats for fat old men) there would be a by-election. If the National candidate wins, there'll be +1 to the Nats and ACT will be out of parliament.
Key thing to remember is that the list numbers never get adjusted in the course of a parliament.