Posts by Idiot Savant
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I'd like someone to explain why I should give a rodent's rectum either way.
Morbid curiousity? The same way you want to know what colour that pus is going to be?
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As for Tinks, I think of them as memebots, a slightly more complicated walking version of MAKE MONEY FAST. They're no more worth talking to or engaging with than a robocall from an insurance company. There's no-one in there, just some quack looking for more hosts, and spamming endlessly in an effort to find them.
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they're specially vulnerable to being ignored, and laughter. And slash weapons.
But you need fire or acid to stop them regenerating.
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Latest Mediaworks excavation: how Steven Joyce put the fear into Cabinet.
After Mediaworks had opened their books, and Deloittes had found that they didn't need our money, Joyce took a paper to Cabinet arguing that unless they got a deal, they would default on their payments and go into liquidation. These claims appear by magic in the first draft of the paper, with no hint anywhere else in the advice of this scale of problem.
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Hard News: Time to get a grip, in reply to GeoffRobinson,
Maybe I'm ignorant of party processes but couldn't Labour have reviewed their list post-election so that it reflected their actual preference for next-in-line candidates?
No. section 137 of the Electoral Act 1993 requires that list vacancies be filled from the same party list as the departing member - that is
(D'oh! Beaten to it by Rich!)
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Perhaps it's time for NZ to embark on a national conversation around what we consider to be our basic human rights as Australia did in 2009* and then set about codifying these into law.
Already done it. It's called the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. The real question is whether we make it superior law, and how, not what those rights are.
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The idea that parties should be forced to field two separate and incompatible slates of candidates has no virtue that I can think of.
You're not the only one. The Royal Commission on the Electoral System thoroughly rejected the idea:
If list candidates were excluded from contesting constituencies voters would retain the power to remove unsatisfactory local representatives and list members could focus on the representation of wider groups and interests, or on national issues. On examination, however, we consider the prohibition of dual candidacies to be undesirable in principle and unworkable in practice. First, the creation of 2 rigidly distinct types of candidate (and hence representative) would be likely to contribute to party disunity. Second, we see considerable advantage in allowing parties to both protect a limited number of their more valuable MPs in marginal seats and reward superior candidates in unwinnable seats. Banning dual candidacies would prevent such practices and be of particular harm to small parties who are unlikely to be assured of any constituency seats but who nonetheless wish to have their high profile members contest such seats. Third, a smaller party would win more list than constituency seats. This may be reversed if that party does particularly well in an election. Under MMP, therefore, a party may lose some of its list members while gaining seats overall. In our view this is an unacceptable prospect if dual constituency/list candidates are banned.
It would mean small parties standing electorate MPs they didn't actually want to see elected, which would in turn increase the number of required candidates and hence the barrier to participation. Though big parties would probably regard that as a Good Thing.
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Hard News: Time to get a grip, in reply to Steve Curtis,
Wikipedia says B-W doesnt have a list at all ( uniquely in german state elections), The supplementary members are selected from the defeated electoral candidates , by party and by the highest numbers of votes they received.
I wonder what Gower et al would think of that. But really, it just means a different list, which replaces explicit ranking by party with implicit ranking through candidate selection.
As for the Welsh law, its about patch protection by incumbents; they not only ban dual candidacy, but they try and prevent list MPs from doing constituency work, robbing the public of a service (and the MPs of a direct and visible connection with their constituency) in order to limit competition in the electorate vote.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
If we had some good reporting on what is actually going down in the House then, all politicians could be held to account for the state of our Nation, and the smug ones with no agenda other than to pick up the pay chek will be shown for what they are.
The House isn't the only place where politics happens. Its certainly not the place where government happens and decisions are made.
And you can watch it, direct, unedited, on the web, every day it sits. Or listen to it, either webcast or broadcast. You can blame the media all you like - but you have the option of informing yourself, directly, without their mediation. You clearly want to know more. You can know more quite easily. Whose fault is it then if you don't?
(No, I am not trying to excuse any failings of the media, imagined or otherwise; we pay them to do a job and I expect them to do it well. But there are other options)
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Jan Farr,
Just to be a little clearer. We won the right to vote. With rights come responsibilities - if we ditch the responsibilities the rights become meaningless. Which is what's happening now IMHO.
I find the idea that voters have a "responsibility" to elect your preferred government deeply troubling and undemocratic.
Bluntly, I'll vote for whoever the fuck I like, on whatever basis I like. Good policy, tribal loyalty, sex appeal, random choice, pawmistry, whatever. Its my decision to make, not yours, and I deny absolutely that anyone can dictate my interests and preferences to me, or my strategies for advancing them, or that I "should" vote in any particular way. That way lies oligarchy and worse, the comfortable prejudice of those who think they know how the country "should" be run towards us dirty peasants. And we get more than enough of that shit from the right.
Democracy is not about electing good government, or moral government. It is about electing our government, one that reflects somehow our diverse interests and preferences and that we can feel ownership of. And that is all.