Public Address | Cafe | Legal Beagle: Referendum Fact Check #6: Afternoons with Jim Mora

merc

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 07:55:50 +1300

I.e., disaster capitalism. = CERA

Kumara Republic

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 00:36:48 +1300

I’m calling crap and lazy argument on this. Any democracy can be subverted when it’s institutions grow weak. There were checks on Nazi power. They failed, again and again.

Florida and the hanging chads in 2000 was something of a farcical example of this.

Apparently we are in crises time,…

David Hood

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 22:20:14 +1300

There must be a suitable name for that wonderful condition…

Helpphilia

Steve Barnes

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 13:02:06 +1300

all electoral systems are open to manipulation if parties are determined to do that, for example doing deals on who gets selected as candidates, who stands against them, how you set electoral boundaries etc.

And if what is happening in Epsom were a Cricket match then the two Johns would…

martinb

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:05:50 +1300

and a personal army in the streets, after a campaign of political assassination.

I have heard this argument before- proportional is part of the European weakness that allowed the Nazis in.

I'm calling crap and lazy argument on this. Any democracy can be subverted when it's institutions grow weak. There…

Hilary Stace

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 21:25:03 +1300

Graeme, there was another misleading discussion about MMP on JM's Panel today. (And one new panel member complaining that no parties are looking at the long term – she obviously hasn't noticed that's about all Labour is doing). Anyhow Tim Watkin and Jim Mora said repeatedly that the Epsom 'cup…

tussock

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:01:42 +1300

The Māori seats under MMP have helped mitigate the low enrolment rate and electoral turnout of Māori voters. Ideally government would work harder on getting disenfranchised minority groups to vote, but out here in the real world they don't, for various reasons, some of which are even principled.

Graeme Edgeler

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:10:41 +1300

This thought raises the question that no one wants to ask about the elephant in the room.

Do we need to have Maori Seats under MMP?

We have The Maori Party.

We have The Mana Party, including Bradford and Minto.

You really think no-one's talking about this? Here maybe not.…

merc

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 08:08:06 +1300

Apparently we are in crises time, he said so. The dumb, it hurts.

Steve Barnes

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:16:33 +1300

The myth of the hard working minister must be maintained, 19 hours a day 7 days a week you know.

When I were a lad you used to have to have a proper job to be prime minister, not one of those mamby pamby fruit machine type jobs, you used…

peterpeasant

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:56:29 +1300

Germany has a republican cultural history.

This could be read as a tribal history of sorts.

This thought raises the question that no one wants to ask about the elephant in the room.

Do we need to have Maori Seats under MMP?

We have The Maori Party.

We have The…

Steve Curtis

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 21:25:05 +1300

Looking more closely at MMP in Germany, its a far more complicated beast than the MMP we use in NZ.
The first postwar election there doesnt seem to have been two votes, if you voted for a person , you voted for their party as well. This continued in some…

Steve Curtis

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 20:47:54 +1300

The NAZIS came in via a preferential system.

Nope. Proportional. The change after the war was to introduce electorates (and the new threshold, I think)
The Nazis also had the support of "the 1%" which seems to been enough on top of the 33% they got in the Nov 32…

Steve Curtis

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 20:27:32 +1300

I dont see how Gordon Mclaughins comment that Gillard is only there because of the voting system can possibly pass muster.

A quick check of wikipedia gives labour 50.12% and Liberal National coalition 49.88%. These are a strange beast called two party preferred totals
You would very much hope that…

merc

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:54:58 +1300

The myth of the hard working minister must be maintained, 19 hours a day 7 days a week you know.

Sacha

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:52:56 +1300

greater numbers were also meant to better power Select Committee work, I recall

Steve Withers

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:48:07 +1300

Major arguments for 120 MPs were the hope that any governing body of MPs (be it one party or many) would have a sufficient number of people in it to provide enough competent people to populate any Cabinet…and also a large enough backbench that the executive might have their chain…

merc

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:47:35 +1300

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNF1db5hoUw&feature=feedrec_grec_index

Tom Semmens

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 08:41:47 +1300

Arguing about the the makeup of the panel’s guests isn’t the half of it. The panel frequently has Mora inviting on and interviewing hard-right commentators, to whom Mora then proceeds to lob gentle tennis ball questions.

Mora’s loaded guest list and questioning technique was perfectly illustrated by his patsy interview…

George Darroch

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 07:57:10 +1300

It is really problematic that if someone living in Blenheim is on the Maori Roll, then it is almost always half a day’s travel to meet the MP, or even see their office.

The Maori MPs are given much greater funding for travel around their electorate and locally based support…

Miche Campbell

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 07:28:37 +1300

It's a variant of Helium Hand Syndrome.

Keir Leslie

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 03:47:39 +1300

Pretty much. There's a real problem with the size of the Maori seats and some of the Southern general seats. It is really problematic that if someone living in Blenheim is on the Maori Roll, then it is almost always half a day's travel to meet the MP, or even…

Sacha

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:48:16 +1300

like the Maori electorates, you mean?

Keir Leslie

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:33:33 +1300

I live in the south island, I don’t care if we have 16, 15, 14 etc MPs. Just as long as we get a fair number based on how many of us there are.

To be fair, if there were fewer (general) seats in the South Island, they would start…

Graeme Edgeler

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:43:08 +1300

The NAZIS came in via a preferential system.

Nope. Proportional. The change after the war was to introduce electorates (and the new threshold, I think).

Hilary Stace

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:41:21 +1300

How about age, ethnicity, socio-economic decile and voting record while you are at it?

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:16:46 +1300

Pryer engagement….
Because I have trouble not doing extensive unasked
research on topics for no reward
There must be a suitable name for that wonderful condition…
:- )

peterpeasant

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:14:12 +1300

Leaving aside the tower of Pisa discussion (which way it tilts depends on where one stands), the MMP system was dreamt up by victorious Allied forces after WW2 and foisted on Germany.to block any future German power blocs setting off another major war.

Within the context of the 1940's it…

David Hood

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:49:26 +1300

Because I have trouble not doing extensive unasked research on topics for no reward, here is the canonical list of people who, in the period 01 Feb 2011 to 31 Oct 2011, made up 72% of panel appearances in order of frequency:
Name (appearances)
Neil Miller (12)
Graham Bell (12)…

Graeme Edgeler

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:43:56 +1300

OK two men who may be not quite 40 and one conservative Maori man. Not much a nod towards equity.

And looking at October above:
Raybon Kan, Simon Pound, Penny Ashton, Tino Pereira, Mark Inglis, Jeremy Elwood.
I think.

Geoff Pritchard

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:11:30 +1300

The notion that electorates can't possibly be larger than 1/70th of the population isn't one I subscribe to myself.

It's interesting to note that MMP could work just fine with a 99-seat Parliament – if we were willing to reduce the number of electorates from 70 to 60 (leaving 39…

Hilary Stace

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:59:32 +1300

OK two men who may be not quite 40 and one conservative Maori man. Not much a nod towards equity.

Geoff Pritchard

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:53:26 +1300

how do you get from 70 to 120 rather than 140? Maori seats?

MMP uses the list seats to achieve proportionality. For this to work nicely, the list seats need to be roughly 40% of the total; having 70 electorates thus implies 120 (-ish) seats in all.

It's not a…

David Hood

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:51:33 +1300

Here is October's List, which I extracted from the website thanks to regular URLs. I'm not on Facebook, so can't easily look up peoples demographic info. This list has them seperately for each appearance so accounts for frequency. There was a little copy/pasting so there might be a manual error,…

martinb

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:33:21 +1300

This doesn't show the proportion per show (particularly of late) or of how each issue is dealt with- the way a host backs an opinion or frames a topic.

Graeme Edgeler

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:18:09 +1300

But less than a third of the whole list are women and I still bet none of the regulars are non pakeha and/or under 40.

I don't believe Scott Yorke is 40. Nor Matt Nippert?

And I've no idea whether Chris Wikaira is a regular, but profiling would suggest some…

Sacha

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:09:16 +1300

if we upset them, they'll go off and form an independent federal state with Tasmania

and take all their frozen lamb and gold with them.
Oh, wrong century.

Graeme Edgeler

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:06:04 +1300

So the National Party says that National Radio doesn’t have a right wing bias, and we must believe them.

No. That's why I invited others to disagree with the categorisation.

And you’ll notice that Farrar’s analysis doesn’t look at the time people got, just the fact that they appeared.

No.…

Graeme Edgeler

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:00:16 +1300

The argument that “MMP needs 120 MPs” is based on the assertion that the maximum practicable size for an electorate is 1/70th of the population. Thus, the current 70 electorates are already as large as they could possibly be.

That strikes me as unlikely, given that we've had an MMP…

Hilary Stace

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:58:46 +1300

Thanks Graeme. I should have known that my comment would become a challenge to a fact checker. But I disagree with David Farrar (who justs 'leans right' – yeah right). And Jane Clifton – not known – hasn't he read her Listener columns of the last two decades? By far…

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:53:24 +1300

Isn't there also some (entrenched?) rule about the South Island having to have a certain number of seats. Because they're special, you know, and if we upset them, they'll go off and form an independent federal state with Tasmania.

Sacha

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:37:18 +1300

how do you get from 70 to 120 rather than 140? Maori seats?

Geoff Pritchard

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:30:55 +1300

The argument that "MMP needs 120 MPs" is based on the assertion that the maximum practicable size for an electorate is 1/70th of the population. Thus, the current 70 electorates are already as large as they could possibly be. To be kind, the evidence for this notion is less than…

James Francis

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:27:40 +1300

And Graham Bell

Sacha

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:31:30 +1300

Joanne Black 'not known'? Puhleese

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:27:37 +1300

So the National Party says that National Radio doesn't have a right wing bias, and we must believe them.

A core aim of the right-wing discourse is to cast conservative opinions as "apolitical". Having journalists from domestic magazines is not balancing the right-wingers, it's reinforcing them.

And you'll notice that…

Kyle Matthews

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:21:03 +1300

I don’t pretend a lot of people will read it, or that I’ll have a big impact through my blogging, but if the sum of knowledge about issues of public importance increases, I’ll consider my time well-spent.

I'm enjoying them. Always like a good pendant.

Kyle Matthews

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:16:55 +1300

we could decrease the number of MPs in the South Island (the Royal Commission recommended 15, not 16), if an larger Parliament was that much of a concern

I don't get this rule. Is that what it took to massage the concerns of south islanders in the early 90s? It…

Graeme Edgeler

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:44:42 +1300

The fact that they have Jordan Williams and David Farrar as if they are independent commentators shows how far public broadcasting has gone from reflecting the public.

It was made clear that Jordan was spokesperson for a lobby group. It was never even implied that he was an independent commentator.…

merc

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:13:08 +1300

We could always ask for their programming sheets. Same with the Herald, it's an easy enough analysis. They tighten the electoral advertising funding thingy, I reckon there's now more stealthy ways they push their messages, and yes, they do need to be held up to scrutiny.

Hilary Stace

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:06:05 +1300

If I could bear to listen more often to the Panel I would tally up the regular contributors. My guess is 10% female, 1% under 40, 1% not pakeha, 90% centre right to extreme right (increased since Bomber was fired).

merc

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:45:05 +1300

Internet kills the radio star.
Oh and here this guy bares up under scrutiny, http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/blogs/david-farrar-by-the-numbers/5927172/Don-t-work-and-get-more-money

Hilary Stace

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:32:00 +1300

The panel is very right wing, and overwhelmingly male, middle aged or older, comfortable and smug. And women are represented by those like Michelle Boag and Rosemary McLeod. The fact that they have Jordan Williams and David Farrar as if they are independent commentators shows how far public broadcasting has…

Craig Ranapia

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:55:42 +1300

Oh for goodness sake. The panel is there for light entertainment. Holding it to any kind of standard is pointless – it has never existed in any other realm.

Well, it's supposed to be a "magazine format" — which doesn't have to mean empty-headed. Kim Hill – and the weekend…

3410

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:17:08 +1300

Oh for goodness sake. The panel is there for light entertainment. Holding it to any kind of standard is pointless – it has never existed in any other realm.

Depends what they're talking about. If it's Kim Kardashian, then WGAF?

If it's Jim Mora giving incorrect information about asthma medication…

Graeme Edgeler

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:15:09 +1300

Oh for goodness sake. The panel is there for light entertainment. Holding it to any kind of standard is pointless – it has never existed in any other realm.

My fact-checking has never been intended to be about holding people to account for their statements (except maybe my last one…

Graeme Edgeler

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:06:38 +1300

Graeme, I really value your fact checking, but you seem to be parsing opinions here rather than checking specific facts.

That is often the case. I think that was what I intimated when I did my first fact-check. Sometimes it's correcting errors, sometimes it's providing context or further information, and…

George Darroch

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:05:50 +1300

Oh for goodness sake. The panel is there for light entertainment. Holding it to any kind of standard is pointless – it has never existed in any other realm.

what's the frigging point of it?

I ask myself the same question every time I change the station. Mind you, when…

Craig Ranapia

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:32:36 +1300

And anyway, do we really hold The Panel to any serious standard of discussion or debate?

Yes I do, Dave. I really really do. Hell, it's all very nice to sign up to 'Save RadioNZ' Facebook groups, but if public broadcasters can't, or won't, elevate public discourse over Paul Henry…

Tom Semmens

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:19:55 +1300

I find the Panel broadly leftwing,

That's right, because David Farrar asking Jordan Williams questions is the very dark heart of radio socialism.

Dave Guerin

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:12:43 +1300

Tom, I find the Panel broadly leftwing, but whatever political complexion it is on the day, it's not the stage for our finest political and social debate.

Russell Brown

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:11:44 +1300

And anyway, do we really hold The Panel to any serious standard of discussion or debate?

Hardly the point. It has a fairly substantial audience which benefits from any informed commentary on its content.

Tom Semmens

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:01:14 +1300

And anyway, do we really hold The Panel to any serious standard of discussion or debate?

That depends. If you think out of touch and conservative middle aged whites discussing issues with carefully picked right wing commentators demands serious consideration, then the answer would be yes.

If, on the other…

Dave Guerin

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 07:46:35 +1300

Graeme, I really value your fact checking, but you seem to be parsing opinions here rather than checking specific facts. And your second reviewed comment, by Matt Nippert, takes him to task for an implication that MMP requires more than 50% voter support to get things done, but the comment…

Public Address

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 07:46:35 +1300

Discussion from blog post.