Dear Mr Shirtcliffe
We haven't met or done business together, but you seem to think it acceptable to send me an email full of assertions pushing your political barrow. This is the same behaviour as people who hawk unsavoury products on the Internet and may well be illegal under the anti spam law passed a few years ago.
Can I suggest that, not only do you remove my details from whatever list you are using, but that you think carefully about your methods in future. If the best way you can think of to build support for your cause is the same as the method used to sell penis enlargement pills, you may as well give up now.
Yours sincerely
[name withheld]
On 20/04/2010, at 10:35 AM, Peter Shirtcliffe wrote:
Dear [name withheld]
It’s no secret that MMP continues to frustrate New Zealand’s attempts to move forward economically and politically. And it is not as if people like the system: list MPs are despised and the turnout under MMP elections is consistently lower than under first-past-the-post polls.
The public desire for change is strong yet their chance to vote for a better system is under threat by the government’s bureaucratic and long-winded referendum process. Unless the process is changed, electors will have to wait to 2017 for a new voting system, if at all.
The government says that if MMP remains it will “tweak” the system. Don’t believe the politicians. Parliament failed to reform MMP in 2002 and it won’t in future. The system is beyond reform.
The way to bring about change is to have a robust and contestable referendum process. That will not happen unless the terms of the government’s referendum process are changed.
The online petition linked below, which we ask you to consider signing and circulating, aims to encourage the government to speed up the referendum process to give you a true voice to bring about change.
Help us get the government to listen. This is your one opportunity to give the country the voting system it deserves.
Click here to sign the petition and please do forward this email as widely as possible
CITIZEN’S PETITION FOR AN EFFECTIVE REFERENDUM ON MMP
(Reply to this email with ‘not interested’ in the subject line to receive no further information on this.)
Peter Shirtcliffe and Graeme Hunt
Co-leaders
Put MMP to the Vote
Peter Shirtcliffe
peter@petershirtcliffe.co.nz
www.petershirtcliffe.co.nz