Posts by Kyle Matthews
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what I was really getting at was that Standing Orders as a safeguard (to an already entrenched law or to stop entrenchment without the required number of votes) seems to be relatively easy to get around (and makes the whole idea kind of moot)
I'm not sure about parliament, but typically you would set aside standing orders in order to do something out-of-the-ordinary but which everyone supports.
Like if only members are allowed to speak at a meeting, and then on my god, the Prime Minister has offered to speak, we'll need to set aside standing orders so that they can speak. Everyone is in favour, very logical, move on.
Setting aside to undermine democratic processes should rightly incite riots in parliament. Like Graeme, I'd be pissed if any party voted for that, and they'd pay come next election.
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From that herald article:
Even as he was speaking, however, residents of Alaska, where Mrs Palin is Governor, were awaking to find that the state's largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News had endorsed the Obama-Biden ticket.
Man. Wheels are really coming off the straight talking bus aren't they.
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You can make arguments either way, but it is, however, less proportionate. Party X gets 50% of the vote - in a 120 seat Parliament you expect them to get 60 seats, with a 4 seat "overhang", operating this way they'd get 58 seats.
The difference to proportionality isn't too horrendous.
60 seats in a 124 seat parliament is: 48.387%
56 seats in a 120 seat parliament is: 46.667%Neither is proportional to the party vote, which is what happens when you allow an overhang to occur.
Your 50% party would have two less MPs, but would need two less to get to the majority (61 as compared to 63), so it would be no more difficult to form a government.
It just seems somewhat strange that, now we have a system where the main block of MPs is set at a fixed number (120), we let this other number of overhang MPs jump around. We have a fixed number of MPs, if we keep it the same every election, a bunch of things get simpler.
For one thing, it would mean not having to add or remove seats from the house every time there was an election. MP offices, staff, budgets. You could know with confidence by looking at voting records back through history whether something passed etc etc.
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I'm not overly concerned about the threshold.
I do however think the floating number of MPs that we have, based on the possibilities of overhangs, bizarre.
Currently we use the party list votes to proportionalise parliament up to 120 MPs, and then we have overhangs on top of that.
If there's one thing that should be fixed in parliament, surely it's the number of people that sit there. It would always make 61 the magic number, not sometimes 62, 63 etc.
To me when they figure it out, they should take 120, remove the overhang MPs from the number, and then proportionalise the remainder. So your party vote might figure out 115 MPs, and then the overhangs are the other 5.
It would still be very likely to be proportional, but would discontinue this bizarre random size parliament we have.
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Ah yes. Through browser is about as easy.
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Not any more. They used to not vote on stuff, and then cast a casting vote. Now they vote on everything, and don't get a casting vote.
Since MMP, and the changes to standing orders that followed, a tied vote is a lost vote.
OK, thanks Graeme. I do remember the short term circus about giving the speakership to the opposition after the... 1993 election? In order to free up one more vote. That stopped being talked about after one electorate changed with special votes and National didn't need it anymore.
The size of the overhand could potentially be quite important. If it finishes up on an even number - 122, 124, then the government will need one more seat than if it had been 121, 123 etc.
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Doesn't say much for the elite group of runners.
"Ah yeah, y'know how you started 20 minutes earlier than all the plebs that didn't pay lots of money to race? One of them almost beat you all..."
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No - someone would have to agree to support both sides for that to happen.
Hmm. Yes true. Which makes me wonder what happens when parliament is tied in a vote. The speaker doesn't vote do they?
Or, support one side, abstain on the other could work. (ie, support a block with 57, abstain for a block with 59).
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So what happens if no one can twist enough arms and two blocks approach the GG wanting form a minority govt? first come first served? largest block? the GG makes a call on stability? or whim?
Well a minority government has to have the confidence of the house, which requires a majority through ayes and abstentions. So it's unlikely that there could be two blocks that fulfil that, unless a party agreed to abstain on confidence for both sides.
The GG would annoint the first there who didn't look like idiots. Once the house sat someone in the opposition could call for a no confidence vote, and that would decide it real quick.
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From the Herald editorial:
It is no coincidence that all post-election negotiations under MMP have produced Governments led by the first past the post.
The article notes below that we have had, a couple of times, the government formed by the party that got less of the popular vote. Now they're arguing that under MMP this shouldn't happen, even if the coalition of parties got the majority of the vote?