Public Address | Cafe | Legal Beagle: MMP Review #2: Dual Candidacy

Graeme Edgeler

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 08:54:14 +1200

But not your electorate vote, surely.

No. Which is why I didn't mention it :-)

Actually Jane, some organisations do allow non-candidates at meet the candidate meetings.

That has been my experience too.

Ross Calverley

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:35:32 +1200

If you cast a special declaration vote because they can’t find your name on the electoral roll, and it turns out the reason they couldn’t find your name was that you got your electorate wrong, so were voting in the wrong electorate, your party vote will still count.

But not…

Ross Calverley

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:32:45 +1200

It seems to me that these two points are contrary. If you're not an electorate candidate, surely the only rights you'll have at the candidates meeting is to ask questions as a member of the general public. Why should the Rotary give you a platform at their meet the candidates…

Keir Leslie

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:30:13 +1200

Some run with the hope of winning, but not much chance. The Greens haven't run electorate candidates in a while, but I could see a serious Green candidate running in Wellington Central, aiming to win, even knowing they have only a 1 in 4 chance, or whatever. I think the…

Graeme Edgeler

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:17:38 +1200

I can’t see why any smaller party would waste a single good candidate in any electorate if the rule were to go.

They wouldn't. But I'm not sure that's a problem. Why do they run now, other than not to win?

Graeme Edgeler

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:01:46 +1200

I asked on polling day if I was required to cast that vote. The refused to answer my question…which I found annoying.

I suspect the person answering it just wasn't sure, and didn't want to mislead you.

The answer is "no".

You may cast a party vote and not a…

Steve Withers

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:55:16 +1200

Graeme, you make all the relevant points, so I won’t repeat them. I agree the dual-candidacy rule should remain. Through talking to people about the subject, I’ve come to understand that people opposed to the dual-candidacy rule don’t really understand MMP. Their heads tend – even after 15+ years of…

James Littlewood*

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 01:53:44 +1200

There's a lot of assumption here that pollies who stick around for ages and get good playing politics are axiomatically of high quality. Crikey, some long termers have written entire doctoral theses whilst allegedly representing somebody or something. What a joke.

It's also fair that running for reasons other than…

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 21:14:36 +1200

Personally, I think I'd rather have people I can vote against making legislative decisions (and review *is* legislative power – if a future government wants to tax the rich, I'm sure an upper house full of well paid notables would be keen to 'review' that away).

Ben Austin

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:07:49 +1200

Oh certainly, it doesn't guarantee quality.

I would prefer the other option of a Upper House that is a combination of a panel of experts and people with proven track records in whatever their field of interest is, to act as a house of review (rather than with say legislative…

tussock

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 18:19:47 +1200

If we want the best candidates available for our electorates, and the best candidates available for our party lists, those same people need to be on both bits of paper. It's just that simple.

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:16:34 +1200

Perhaps we allow for Ministers to be appointed from outside of Parliament

Not very successfully in the UK. At best they struggled with the very different environment of being a politician (without having gone through an apprenticeship of being a candidate and backbencher). At worst they were utterly corrupt criminals,…

Ben Austin

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:40:30 +1200

It seems that at least part of the criticism we are seeing results from dissatisfaction as to what an MP is expected to do. Perhaps that could be addressed elsewhere, outside of the MMP review.

The question of local representation vs. Ministers focusing on their ministerial duties is an interesting…

Matthew Smith

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:22:52 +1200

I was convinced that we need to keep dual-candidacy because of the effect on competition for electorates if we don't.

Parties won't risk their smart, articulate capabale candidates to electorate seat races that may see them excluded from Parliament altogether. This would lead to marginal seats not being contested (or…

Myles Thomas

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:39:59 +1200

Sometimes what we want from a local MP is just plain competence. If this went through I doubt any MP with half a brain would choose to stay as an electorate candidate if it was vaguely marginal. That would mean many seats would be represented by MPs who are inexperienced,…

Myles Thomas

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:32:09 +1200

Whatever challenge posed to smaller parties this would be far harder for labour and national who must gamble many of their electorate candidates to what could be a very close call. Do they risk Carmel Sepuloni or Paula Bennett to win the electorate or go for a weaker candidate who…

Peter Graham

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 19:23:12 +1200

When Damian Christie asked the four candidates featured on the Ōhariu electorate special of TVNZ7's Back Benches to raise their hands if they wanted people to vote for them, only two of them did. Lots of people stand knowing that they won't win, but putting your name forward for election…

Ian Tinkler

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 19:20:15 +1200

I think the question is wrong. It is looking at the sympton and not the cause.
My draft reply to this question is
"3. Dual Candidacy
Candidates should be able to stand in both electorates and list if they and their party agree.
However I think that the number of…

JLM

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:49:07 +1200

Not sure how relevant this is to this discussion, but under the current fpp electorate vote system who wins a local electorate can be a bit of a lottery, and plenty of people get in on a lot less than 50% of the vote. So winning an electorate may be…

Graeme Edgeler

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:06:37 +1200

p.s. you are all doing a pretty good job so far of helping to cease my wavering :-)

BenWilson

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:23:10 +1200

But does our current form of MMP really allow for strong local representation?

No. Local representation in the state government has always seemed like a daft old system to me. Where you live is but one of a hundred factors that matter to you in your choice of who represents…

Idiot Savant

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:34:57 +1200

Except maybe it did work under first past the post. Maybe the reason National or Labour never even adopted some policy was because electorate members in marginal seats who feared for their jobs spoke out loudly in caucus, in a way that they're possibly discouraged from doing now because those…

Idiot Savant

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:11:03 +1200

I think you're throwing the baby out to pursue a fantasy.

Firstly, list MPs act as local representatives, just as electorate MPs do. Archaic Parliamentary rules prevent them from advertising themselves as "the MP for [electorate]", but they open offices, do constituency work, and all the functions we expect of…

dave crampton

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:44:21 +1200

One of the benefits of banning dual candidacy could easily be that not only do we get stronger local representation, but we may also get list MPs who can focus more on the broader national constituencies they’re supposedly there to represent

I disagree with you ( and that doesn't happen…

Andrew Geddis

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:21:32 +1200

@Graeme: "Except maybe it did work under first past the post. Maybe the reason National or Labour never even adopted some policy was because electorate members in marginal seats who feared for their jobs spoke out loudly in caucus, in a way that they're possibly discouraged from doing now because…

Rich of Observationz

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:20:14 +1200

I disagree for a range of reasons:

1. It is a good democratic principle that anyone should be able to stand in an election, and that it is for the voters to choose the winner. Restricting who can stand as a candidate detracts from this.

2. Both list and electorate…

Raymond A Francis

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:04:56 +1200

I changed my mind a couple of times reading this Graeme, which proves how even handed you are
But I am inclined to think it comes down to which do we want, strong Parties or strong MPs looking after their constitunents
Living in a large rural electorate away down south…

Graeme Edgeler

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:47:27 +1200

As for the idea that forcing electorate candidates to rely only on winning their seats to return to Parliament will somehow encourage them to become more independent/prepared to buck their parties – why will it work now when (as you note) it didn’t under the old FPP system?

Except maybe…

Graeme Edgeler

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:39:10 +1200

Why should the Rotary give you a platform at their meet the candidates evening if you’re not a candidate and the race has been limited to people who want to represent the electorate?

Because the reason why groups like Rotary Clubs run meet the candidate meetings is to inform the…

Moz

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:31:02 +1200

The clincher for me is that banning dual candidacy increases the load on the local people running the candidate forums and community newsletters. Instead of 3-6 candidates for the seat+list you'll have 2-4 seat candidates plus a number of parties. You can bet that no matter how safe the seat…

mic weevil

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:43:36 +1200

"Banning dual candidacy will simply encourage the Greens to become the “MMP Party” they purport to be"

I think the biggest downside to the idea of prohibiting dual candidacy is that it disincentivises a party to run strong candidates in seats that are safe for the opposition. Parties won't want…

Andrew Geddis

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 07:54:07 +1200

“Jordan’s greatest complaint about MMP was that it was unfair that when a party lost an electorate it got an extra list seat (and sometimes even the very same MP). He argued that this meant that parties (and MPs) could ignore the wishes of the middle New Zealanders who make…

Jake Pollock

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 07:38:32 +1200

You don't have to be an electorate candidate to stand up at a meet the candidates meeting and say “I'm not asking for your electorate vote, I'm asking for your party vote”

It doesn't seem unreasonable to limit an electorate race to people who actually want to represent the electorate.…

Public Address

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 07:38:32 +1200

Discussion from blog post.