Public Address | Cafe | Legal Beagle: A submission on the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment bill

linger

Sat, 16 Jun 2018 18:16:41 +1200

It isn't clear that MPs necessarily "betray their electors" by leaving the party for which they were elected. The "electoral contract" may be mediated by the party, but to the extent that a list MP has sufficient individual support to have contributed towards the party support, then the "contract" is…

Dennis Frank

Fri, 15 Jun 2018 19:40:01 +1200

Graeme makes some useful suggestions in respect of improving the bill. What puzzles me is why nobody in the debate thus far seems to want to focus on the political psychology of the situation. Verbal contracts seem now to be recognised by the legal profession, so why can't they get…

izogi

Thu, 03 May 2018 22:34:47 +1200

Reading Jeanette Fitzsimons' thing on The Spinoff today, I was thinking it'd almost be appropriate if parties were to split apart over internal disagreements about voting for this Bill.

simon g

Wed, 21 Mar 2018 11:14:12 +1300

Neil, please don't crowbar irrelevant Simon Bridges' talking points into this thread. Cheers.

simon g

Wed, 21 Mar 2018 11:12:04 +1300

I'm sufficiently cynical to kick principles into touch if there's a prize worth winning (Andy Haden line-out dive? I saw nothing, only the final score).

But this won't work. In summary, a waka-jumper who stays in parliament is the bad guy, a figure of media mockery, who taints his new…

Craig Young

Wed, 21 Mar 2018 09:38:12 +1300

I'm afraid I disagree with Graham on this one. Let us not forget that the National Party relied for its continued governmental survival in the nineties and most of the tweens on a retinue of political remora fish. Many people are annoyed at the continued existence of mandateless microparties that…

Tom Semmens

Wed, 21 Mar 2018 07:27:10 +1300

any further than the fact that I think we can’t seem to be bothered improving the mechanism of MMP

I think that the threshold has been a barrier to new party entry, but remember that is what it is designed to do. On the one hand, you could say it…

Graeme Edgeler

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 22:29:44 +1300

Has any new party ever entered parliament under MMP without either a defecting MP or benevolent (but really strategic) help from a big party that's more interested in gaming the system?

Every successful new party has had an existing or former MP in it.

Benevolent help has never worked by…

Neil

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 21:58:51 +1300

I think Jones is a bit jealous that Mark is getting all the free flights.

Neil

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 21:11:17 +1300

Once the PM has finished cleaning up after male NZF MPs she might have the time to deal with these issues.

izogi

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 20:55:24 +1300

Plus even the Green Party arguably only remained in parliament, after splitting from the Alliance, because Helen Clark effectively asked Coromandel Labour supporters to vote for Jeanette Fitzsimons in '99.

Without that support it's highly unlikely that she would have won Coromandel with a 250 vote majority. Without the realistic…

izogi

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 20:15:23 +1300

Yeah, sure. I'm not trying to defend imperfect methods of getting new parties into parliement any further than the fact that I think we can't seem to be bothered improving the mechanism of MMP — even as far as seriously considering the report which came after the referendum to keep…

Tom Semmens

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 18:22:14 +1300

Until now, virtually all new parties under MMP have needed some kind of help whether it comes from a rebelling MP from elsewhere or from a big party unlocking the door from inside.

Which probably accounts for their signal lack of success.

Parliament isn’t the beginning of the democratic representation…

izogi

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 17:33:47 +1300

Aw crud. I was going to submit on this and had it half written a month ago, yet life intervened and I only just noticed that submissions closed yesterday.

Anyhow, thanks for putting in such a clear and concise submission. The problem with component parties hadn't even crossed my mind.…

Tom Semmens

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 17:24:32 +1300

115 odd MPs out of 120 owe their place in parliament to the colour of their rosette.

If they jump party they have betrayed the people who elected them.

Ergo, waka jump and you deserve to be slung out of parliament.

We only have a three year electoral cycle, if…

Public Address

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 17:24:32 +1300

Discussion from blog post.