Speaker: The Government lost the election
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I'm unclear on how official it is or if it's already common knowledge, but on Nine to Noon this morning, Gavin Ellis seemed to have information from somewhere suggesting that Ben Mack won't be writing for the NZ Herald again. http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018621572/media-commentator-gavin-ellis About 11m45s in.
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More imaginative fiction posing as analysis in an international forum.
It will come as a surprise to Helen Clark to know that the Maori Party propped up her government, or that NZ First were on board from 1999. It will come as a huge surprise to Pasifika people to learn that they are driving property speculation.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
imaginative fiction posing as analysis in an international forum.
This is starting to look like it should be an award category - and this ex-National Party Adviser is a worthy contender.
Who knew there was a 'Diplomat' magazine dedicated to cheap guitars...It never fails to amuse me (bordering on irritation) - the arrogance of American publications that respell the proper name of the NZ Labour Party as Labor (as the sycophantic and kowtowing Australians do from the outset). - some diplomats!
(at least Ben Mack did spell it correctly) -
I do like this photo of our PM Jacinda Ardern explaining the function of the fulcrum in rotational mechanics to the aptly named Australian PM Turnbull.
(or in layman's terms: 'Malc, ya just sit on it and rotate...")
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Re yesterday's media, does anyone know much about what's in the works for the NZ First legislation to prevent MPs jumping parties?
It hit media yesterday with news that the Greens are considering supporting it in exchange for legislating Parihaka Day. NZ Herald; Stuff.
I'm very concerned about this and surprised the Greens are considering supporting it. Not so much because I have a well developed opinion on whether MPs should stick with their parties as because since 1996, the only new parties we've ever seen enter parliament under MMP have been ones that started with a defecting MP. Even the Green Party itself had Jeanette Fitzsimons and others in parliament for the Alliance when it entered parliament independently in '99, and arguably it still needed Helen Clark's support for Labour voters in Coromandel to support it.
Under the current MMP system, if MPs can't defect from parties then it's effectively a death sentence for the future of having any small parties at all, because when the existing ones die off it's impossible for new small parties to replace them.
Not to criticise the merit of having Parihaka Day, but if the Green Party were going to demand something in exchange for supporting MPs defecting, why not demand something to properly compensate for its effects, like serious reconsideration of and implementation of the 2012 MMP Review results? At least make it more realistic for new parties, with interesting and inspiring ideas, to get independently elected without requiring so much help from incumbent MPs and Parties.
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John Farrell, in reply to
I can see why Winston Peters might want this - in 1998 National collapsed their coalition with New Zealand First, by enticing away a number of Winnie's MPs. They became independents, supporting National. The waka-jumping bill would require a disgruntled list MP to resign, rather than change sides. A new appointment would then be made from the party list.
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For electorate MPs, resignation from a party doesn’t necessarily remove them from Parliament. What does the proposed bill do there? Are they automatically entitled to sit as an independent, or is a by-election forced? If they sit, or win election, as an independent, what subsequently prevents them from founding a new party? Does the proposed bill make any distinction between founding a new party and switching to a different established party (the latter being the specific outcome that such a bill would aim to prevent)?
For list MPs, presumably the argument against allowing them to take independent status is that the party identity is the only thing that got them into Parliament, and hence resignation from that party removes them from Parliament, with no process equivalent to a by-election applied to assess the contribution of their own personal (local) popularity to the party’s success. This seems slightly unfair, and it might be preferable to explore whether some kind of equivalent test could be introduced.
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All worthy points. I don't mind discussing what should happen when MPs, especially list MPs, choose to leave their party. (In my view it needs to be seriously taken into account that voters might have voted for that party because of the MP who's choosing to leave, or because of the particular views which that MP is leaving for.)
It's sort of a tangent, though. My concern is that MMP is presently broken, and without fixing MMP this change could make MMP much much worse.
After 21 years and 8 elections, it's demonstrably impossible for new parties with new ideas to get elected into parliament, UNLESS someone who's already inside chooses to unlock the door and let them in. Most recently the Conservatives and TOP have thrown considerable resources at their attempts. They've received considerable support, but even with those resources even they could not break into parliament, so all the people who were either brave enough or stupid enough to give their support to those parties ended up not getting the representation they most wanted. By comparison, the only reason it's even seemed like there's been diversity of parties for the last few elections is that National's chosen to keep zombie parties like ACT and United Future on life support for its own strategic reasons, despite nobody actually wanting to vote for those parties.
MMP is only hanging on at all because of this possibility for MPs to leave their existing parties. Without that, and especially if the Greens and/or NZ First were to die off, National and Labour effectively get to decide who else is allowed into parliament with them. It's not in the political interests of either National nor Labour to let in any other parties unless those parties can be kept on a very strict leash, because doing so just allows that party to become a threat to them.
The proposal from NZF is apparently to remove that possibility, and it seems to be making zero consideration of the likely implications that could have on the rest of our electoral system if it's not properly fixed at the same time.
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nzlemming, in reply to
Under the current MMP system, if MPs can't defect from parties then it's effectively a death sentence for the future of having any small parties at all, because when the existing ones die off it's impossible for new small parties to replace them.
Nope. The Greens existed before the Alliance. The Alliance was, in effect, a mini-coalition of different parties, hence the name. Parties have to grow themselves.
The point about not switching party is that the electorate made a party vote. If you can switch mid-term, that invalidates that vote. Why should an MP be allowed to do that? If they feel strongly enough that they can't continue with their party, they should resign from the job. If a list MP, end of their story, until the next election at least. If an electorate MP, let them present themselves for judgement to their electorate in a bye-election.
Also, 1 new MP asking fellow MPs whether something was appropriate or a good idea does not mean that the Greens as a party were "horse-trading" their vote, as James Shaw has pointed out.
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izogi, in reply to
Nope. The Greens existed before the Alliance. The Alliance was, in effect, a mini-coalition of different parties, hence the name. Parties have to grow themselves.
This is sort of what I'm complaining about, though. The Green Party most likely wouldn't have been able to enter parliament if it didn't already have incumbents and support from elsewhere in parliament.
The Alliance was in parliament before MMP started so came with incumbent MPs. When the Greens went independent in '99, it had 3 incumbent MPs (Fitzsimons, Donald, Bunkle). Even then, it probably still only got elected because Helen Clark signalled to Labour's Coromandel supporters that they should vote strategically for Jeanette Fitzsimons, which both just-barely gave the Greens an electorate seat and encouraged people elsewhere to give the Greens their party vote with less fear of it being wasted. ACT might be a better example because it didn't have any incumbents when elected in '96, but much of its support likely came from National pulling its candidate from Wellington Central to let in Richard Prebble, so giving others the confidence to also Party Vote ACT..
Whichever way it's framed, MMP has so far ensured that new parties have always needed some kind of permission or help from someone already in parliament before they've been allowed to enter. Maybe the only exception is NZF being re-elected in 2011 after being booted in 2008, but it wasn't exactly a new party.
Of the small parties, though:
ACT started in MMP with National abandoning Wellington Central and telling its supporters to vote for Prebble.
NZF started in MMP with incumbent MPs.
The Alliance started in MMP with incumbent MPs.
United NZ, and later United Future, started in MMP with an incumbent MP.
The Greens started in MMP with incumbent MPs, and support from Labour in Coromandel.
The Maori Party started in MMP with Tariana Turia, as an incumbent, defecting from Labour.
Progressive started in MMP with an incumbent (Anderton).
Mana started in MMP with Hone Harawira, as an incumbent, defecting from the Maori Party.
The Independent Coalition started in MMP with Brendan Horan being expelled from NZ First (and didn't last long).Defections and transitions and occasional strategic manipulations by major parties are all there is. After 21 years, new parties still can't get elected under MMP by themselves, even when masses more people vote for them than ever voted for some of the tiniest parties that the big parties have on life support. Meanwhile, the smaller parties have been dying out. ACT and UF should have died long ago except for National's games. The Green Party came close to death in 2017, and NZ First's days might be numbered once Winston's gone. Who's replacing them? Anyone?
Why should an MP be allowed to do that?
Again, a valid question but not really the concern I'm presenting right now. I get that there might be a problem, but my concern is that attempts to "fix" that problem might create a much bigger and more serious problem, unless the faults with MMP are fixed. Otherwise we risk descending back into a largely two party system, and everyone who wants to vote for different ideas is screwed.
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nzlemming, in reply to
The Greens started in MMP with incumbent MPs, and support from Labour in Coromandel.
You miss the point. The Greens started as a party in 1990, well before the Clark/Anderton deal and before Fitzsimmons was elected. They were already a party when they joined with New Labour (and others) to form the Alliance. Social Credit were a party for a long time before they got a seat in the house in 1966, and their representation was spotty with only 4 MPs over 20 years.
If anything, MMP has reduced the time it takes for a party to achieve enough support to translate into votes. I believe the Greens have yet to win an electorate but, nationwide, have sufficient support to field 8 MPs in the house. If one of those MPs was allowed to jump waka, then the people who voted Green will have lost that level of influence that they voted for. That's unfair.
You're targeting the system because of the way it has been (ab)used, but that doesn't invalidate it. MMP is designed to split the House according to the percentage of support that a party has, not to allow dissidents to mask their intent until they're safely inside the tent before they announce their own party, which is a possible endpoint of what you're suggesting.
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No-one involved in MMP thought that it would be perfect from day one. Vested interests were always going to be a problem. The FPP mentality persisted far too long, in Labour as well as National. But it's still really young. In 180 years, 21 is a blip. The older voters have never cottoned to it, but they're starting to fade. Voters under 60 generally understand how it should work, now.
The 2017 election was the first, in my opinion, that was actually an MMP-as-it-was-meant election. And that's not just because Labour won, because they almost didn't. But they did change their mindset and (mostly) stopped back-biting natural allies and potential coalition partners. Whereas National went full FPPtard and devoured their young.
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Meanwhile over the ditch:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-18/greens-win-northcote-by-election/9164644 -
MMP Ignorance Update: still as strong as ever.
TVNZ Colmar Brunton poll shows government (would be) comfortably re-elected. But National WIN!!11!
Of course they do.
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Neil,
The majority of votes Labour has shed has gone to NZF not the Greens. I’m not sure how progressive Labour supporters would interpret that.
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John Farrell, in reply to
The latest poll has labour at 43%. At the election, they were 37%. What votes have been shed?
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