Not sure what all the SoE Treaty Clause fuss is about.
Easily solved.
Indemnify the companies. Essentially what the act does now. Risk unchanged and stays with the crown.
If the Maori Party settle for less they are stupid.
Better still of course, abandon the sell down.
A clear victory for MMP means we can now focus on the tweaking necessary to improve the system. My view is that a threshold reduction to 4% and an abolition of coat tailing are good debates to have. Could be but not necessarily linked.
I turned down an approach from the team pushing for change to support their badly run campaign. They knew I had supported FPP in the past, but were not aware that I had grown to accept MMP as a fairer system.
I’ve got a bit of shit from the right for my role in the Labour campaign. Fair enough.
But they didn’t cover themselves in glory either in fact major campaign losers were the crack team of Simon Lusk and Jordan Williams ably assisted by Whaleoil.
If there was a three strikes rule for political campaigners they would be jailed for life. As it is their fee quote must now be in almost two figures rather than the $30k they were previously quoting.
The record in just one election:
1. Destroyed Act by implementing hopeless coup.
2. Lost the MMP referendum they were running.
3. Winston back in off the Losers for Change publicity.
I have been meaning for the last few days to link to this article from Jon Johansson on John Key’s views on MMP and SM.
In classic indirect Keyisms, he says while “not entirely unhappy with MMP”, and that he likes proportionality, he “slightly prefers the characteristics” of SM. Johansson proceeds to tear Key apart because SM is not seen as a proportional system, and he thinks that Key is trying to manipulate the referendum result.
Johansson asks what Key might like about SM.
Is it the characteristic which sees SM reduce the equality (and thus fairness) of every New Zealanders vote? Is that what he likes?
Is it SM’s inability viz-a-viz MMP to promote the effective representation of women? Is that what he prefers?
Is it SM’s inability when compared to MMP to provide effective representation for minorities?
The whole article is worth a read as Johansson really lays in, and finishes with this thought
Key’s political risk is significant here. I cannot think of another issue that can so quickly reduce him to looking like merely another grubby self-interested politician than seeking to manipulate voters over the referendum. It’s not a good look – it’s as non-prime ministerial as it is party partisan – and if others view him and his poorly thought-through actions similarly, and stripped of his brand strength, what then really is there left?
Disclosure: In my personal capacity I have stated on a number of occasions that I strongly support the retention of MMP.
Tumeke added an extreme racist to the weird group running the anti MMP campaign.
Sloppy sloppy work from Lusk.
I wonder when the funders are going to ask for a refund.
Got a bit of a hard time for a series of posts which slowly linked Whaleoil, Simon Lusk, Jordan Williams and Steven Joyce first to the Brash Act coup and then to the anti MMP campaign.
They have gone public over the last 24 hours.
Lusk and Williams first two to like the Facebook page.
Vindicated.
Now of course in the interests of transparency they will tell us who is paying them.
Doubt it is John Banks who singlehandedly funded the Brash coup. At the moment he looks like he is going to get into Parliament with the support of the Leader of the National Party, with an other likely to be his leader Brash.
Greens launched Wellington Central campaign last night.
It is the most controversial waka house this side of Cook Strait, but the Greens weren’t put off, last night launching their Wellington Central campaign at Te Wharewaka o Poneke, on the waterfront
Interesting to hear their candidate Gareth Hughes describe it as a campaign for the party vote on Backbenches last night. Mature beyond his years.
Going to be interesting to watch the approach in Whangarei, Waitakere, Auckland Central, Maungakiekie, and the provincial marginals.
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“This is not a time we can afford to indulge in “nice-to-haves”, even though sections of the population feel the loss of those services.” Bill English, 29 March 2011
This quote is from a speech that Bill English gave to public service professionals.
Show Bill and John what would be “nice to have” by going to here to create your own poster, email and share it with friends and family.
Here’s mine:
Over the last few weekends six Labourr Party regions have been meeting to put together their input into the Labour Party list for the November election.
In Wellington we did it in one day, but during the fortnight before candidates addressed meetings in each of the electorates.
On the day each candidate (including all local MPs) make a speech and are the subjected to a pretty robust Q + A session.
The voting is by exhaustive (and exhausting) ballot. In our case to win a particular spot candidates had to get 49 votes because there were 97 voting delegates (one delegate for each 50 members). The bottom candidate drops out and then we vote again.
In our case we had to send in 14 names to the moderating committee, a group of about 30, effectively an augmented New Zealand council, which makes up the final list.
Names and local results confidential but we will know overall results in a couple of weeks.
But one thing is for certain the number of bright, mainly young, people with a wide variety of backgrounds that I’ve met from three of the regions shows that the party renewal and summer school programmes have been working well.
Again this post will be tightly moderated – including bans with no further notice. Frankly I’ve been disappointed with a few comments over the last four days.
The NZ Herald reports a poll that shows that support for MMP has grown over the last year.
The Herald did a poll in 2009 that saw MMP gain 36% approval with 49% opposed to it. This poll taken just before Christmas shows a major improvement in support.
In the current poll, nearly 51 per cent of respondents said they wanted to keep MMP, while 40 per cent wanted a different system. Ten per cent either did not know or refused to answer.
With the shenanigans in the ACT Party and John Key’s attempts to talk MMP down, this might come as a bit of a surprise. I am sure we will see a strong anti-MMP campaign as the year goes on from Mr Shirtcliffe et al.
One thing that is important to remember is that if MMP wins the referendum this year it will trigger a review of the system. While it would be better to have the review first, this will still be an opportunity to deal with some of the concerns about it. Top of the list for me is the “electorate lifeboat” that sees parties who do not make the 5% threshold but win an electorate seat still getting multiple seats in Parliament (eg ACT with 3%, but 5 MPs).
As previously stated I am a supporter of MMP (with some modifications). If you are interested in more information about the non-partisan campaign to support retaining MMP you can find out more here.
John Key’s announcement that he will quit politics at the end of the year when he is no longer PM is no surprise. He has always given the impression of being a CV builder and someone who lives for the moment rather than the grind necessary to get real change. The same interview shows he has given up on catching Aussie wages.
His comments will be causing interesting debate around the English bbq. Talk about mixed incentives for a deputy.
There is however a serious issue raised. Should Key be running for Helensville ?
Geoff Palmer and the Royal Commission were always of the view that list positions should be used by senior MPs rather than (mainly) being an entry point.
In some countries there is a nominated list member as a deputy for electorate members, so there is an ability to shift to a list and not cause a by-election. And voters know about it at election time. That way say PM Deputy Finance Foreign Affairs and Trade at least would not have day to day constituency responsibilities. And it can be a two way door – ie former Ministers resume electorates if they choose to. Might be something for a longer term debate.
But in the interim I wonder if we are up for a discussion on whether we should, in the medium term, develop a convention of leaders and deputies of major parties being list but not electorate candidates.
And no I never made the suggestion to Helen. And please don’t show this to Phil and Annette while they are having a break.
An interesting story in the Sunday Star Times today
THE PRIME Minister’s chief of staff told anti-MMP campaigner Peter Shirtcliffe last year that John Key supported moving to a Supplementary Member system, and that there were no “impediments to progress” in caucus, minutes leaked to the Sunday Star-Times show.
This is interesting in light of John Key’s comments last week that he thought the ACT party’s meltdown was likely to see people vote MMP out. This was of course a classic tactic to divert the debate away from the actual issue (the fact he is supporting Rodney Hide who covered up David Garrett’s actions) to try to make it about MMP.
In what we now know as business as usual for Key he has played every side of the argument with MMP, and we have heard lots of platitudes about him not taking a strong stance. Many people have had suspicions for some time what he really thinks. Its time for him to front up to the public about where he stands.
(For the record I support MMP, though I would like to see a couple of changes, in particular the electorate lifeboat, that, for example saw ACT get 5 MPs despite failing to get to the 5% threshold because Rodney won Epsom).
