Posts by BenWilson
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Legal Beagle: MMP Review #1: The Party…, in reply to Steven Peters,
As I understand it, for you, it depends on the party vote threshold level.
Yes, I'd trade dropping the OST for any drop in the PVT greater than 1%. Ideally, I don't agree with PVT either. But a 20% drop in the barrier to political entry for minor groups is worth a lot. A 100% drop would be fairer, the reasons for barriers are extremely weak, as I detailed in long post on this thread some time ago. They are strongly similar to the reasons for excluding women and other races from voting, in times past.
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Legal Beagle: MMP Review #1: The Party…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
The one seat threshold empowers major parties: functionally, most electorate seats are in the gift of National or Labour, and so they can control which minor parties get to take advantage of that option.
Most seats, yes. But key seats, no. Strong electoral candidates, typically defectors, have made big differences in NZ politics. The possibility of coat-tailing encourages defection, which weakens the major parties.
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Up Front: Staying In, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Yeah, but what’s “kinky” anyway?
Having sex with the light on!
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Legal Beagle: MMP Review #1: The Party…, in reply to Steven Peters,
It seems all over for it bar the cheering, and the odd boo.
That's never going to stop me thinking something is right or wrong. Or saying it.
National is going against public opinion , and the electoral commission, wishing to keep it.
They haven't always been that way. When Winston Peters was routinely getting Tauranga, they said it was shite a lot. They might change their tune when people start realizing that Hone Harawira serves the same purpose with Mana, so a vote for Mana is not a wasted vote.
I'm trying not to let my own partisan beliefs affect it, even though coat tailing has worked against my preferences for quite some time. It's still a system that allows little parties into existence, serves some good on that account. The really oppressive part of the system is the party vote threshold. That would only become more oppressive if coat-tailing were eliminated with no other changes.
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Up Front: Staying In, in reply to Andre Alessi,
Aw, I thought it was good, man. Too harsh.
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Legal Beagle: MMP Review #1: The Party…, in reply to Steven Peters,
Are you for keeping the OST Ben, or dropping it?
Keeping it, and dropping the PVT. If the PVT were low enough (ie one seat) then the OST would become irrelevant.
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Legal Beagle: MMP Review #1: The Party…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
By taking the OVT away you don't ensure no one has more rights than anyone else. You ensure that everyone that supports a party with less than the PVT gets no representation. You are enforcing the higher power of the larger parties more strictly than before.
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Legal Beagle: MMP Review #1: The Party…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Unfair is not sustainable? That would be ignoring most of human history. Unfair is normal. That doesn't mean it's good, but I don't think the solution to someone having more rights than another person is to take their rights away. It's to give them to the other person also.
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Good stuff, Emma. Yes, honesty is a very mixed bag. It's part of what makes your blogging powerful, and yet I know that it must also limit it a great deal too. It certainly has that effect on me. Limiting oneself to saying only honest things, one can find oneself without anything to say to anyone.
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Legal Beagle: MMP Review #1: The Party…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
It’s unfair, and to be quite blunt, I'd prefer a fair but slightly less representative system to an unfair but slightly more representative system.
I guess I just don't. Every step towards representation is won very slowly, one grudging bit at a time. Sweeping it backwards with abstract ideas of a better design, perhaps with an eye that the threshold might then be lowered at some random time in the future, is giving ground that does not need to be given. Only IF the two are done simultaneously, can I possibly agree to it.*
It is better, in my view, that this be seen for what it is, not glossed over in half measures like the one seat threshold.
I get what you're saying, Steven, but I don't agree. One shouldn't break a bad system thoroughly, just so that it's clearer to people that it's broken. One should fix it.
*ETA The "two" I'm referring to are "lowering the PVT substantially" and "dropping the OST". The latter is only a progressive step if it's simultaneous with the former. Otherwise it's regressive, and it could stay that way for a long time.
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