They must ensure the undecided and fringe Socialists and Communists supporters see how dumbarse Labour and the Greens are

I thought we now had a system called LPP, whereby the party with the least votes in the House gets to call the shots. I find it trite that people demand to know what a party’s policies are, when the reality of LPP says that those policies will never get to be legislation if the party gets elected.
We also suffer from a “last election” issue, whereby policies espoused at the last election were appropriate that day, but not binding on this government – otherwise how could the new chief choo choo wallah have bought his train set; there was no policy regarding that in the last election that I remember !

SO there we go, a complete reversal of a system that has stood the test of many centuries, goodbye first past the post, hello last past! Progress is!

“I do hope the Nats choose to take the opportunity during the campaign to use authorisation statements in a way that completely takes the piss out of the EFA.

That would both annoy Hulun and amuse voters at the same time. And Hulun couldn’t say a thing about it.”

Yep, like ACT and the Libertarianz have been doing already………presume you’ve seen them and know what they say? If not, get somebody to post them here, they are BEWDIFUL……..

Besides hullen has their balls in a jar on her desk already.

You trust the NZ public with MMP, but you don’t trust them to see through a disinformation campaign?

Your latest post could be paraphrased as

“I believe MMP is superior to any other electoral system. Anyone who disagrees is evil. Therefore the easily-duped public should not be given a choice”.

Pardon me for being unpersuaded.

And before you make too much noise about FPP entrenching ‘white middle class middle aged males’, take a look at the top ten places in cabinet. All white except the Minister for Maori Affairs, just like in the FPP days. At least you can’t call them all middle-aged – not when the third-ranked Minister was born well before the Second World War broke out. But I suspect that wasn’t what you meant.

“Why is it indefensible to give people choice in their electoral system” Simply because if anyone believes that there won’t be a massive disinformation campaign a-la Peter Shirtcliff et al against MMP, then you live on another planet.

Every day the great unwashed are told time and time again by those evil bastards running talk back radio (you know the ones who perpetuate the myths that the country is stuffed and all politicians are evil), that MMP is wrong and that the likes of Bradford etc are only there because of MMP, not on merit.

If and this is the biggest IF on the face of the earth, the public were given the simple facts about MMP and FPP and shown the merits and brickbats about both without bias then that would be a fair choice. But MMP is doomed from the off because the powers that be will never accept a system that allows parliament to be descriptive of the people rather than prescriptive of the power elite.

Ah Peters, now there’s a Politician. Will sleep with whomever is paying his bills. He’ll even sleep with Mr Key if they need him. That is a political reality, not a fault of MMP. How is it then that two elections in a row the people voted Piggy out and yet the system entrenched his power? How is it then that very same system gave us a parliament that was predominately white middle class middle aged males, when we know for a fact that is not the face of NZ.

A voting system that is descriptive of the people is far preferable than one that which is prescriptive of the few.

Don’t start me on choice. I’d love to grow my own weed, drive faster than 100km (i’m a bloody good driver), sleep with under 16 year olds – have you seen my cousin! It would be bloody nice to yell fire in a theatre just to see the reaction, and of course carry a gun, now that’s real choice.

Why is it indefensible to give people choice in their electoral system?

When National last put the question to the public in the 19990′s and they chose MMP, was that indefensible?

Or is MMP sacred merely by virtue of being the status quo?

Paul – you need serious psychological help, but I see the spelling is coming along nicely. Good boy.

what else is National going to sell down the river to the highest bidder.

What’s indefensible Stephen is the absolute hypocrisy of National in supposedly giving people “choice” when it comes to their voting system. MMP has bought about proportionality, and without it the likes of ACT would never have happened.

This so called “choice” as we all know is a front. There will be no greater harm to democracy if and when we are told we need to choose our voting system. The neo-Shirtcliffs et al will be out in force and there will be nothing resembling a fair fight. What greater dammage to democracy could there be but by taking the people’s reflections (proportionality) out of parliament.

I would not complain. As long as they keep defending that indefensible they’re working for us.

Of course if someone else was looking for fun, a complaint might provide some.

They must have whacked the shit out of the Sonny Thomas fella, have you seen his face?

That would both annoy Hulun and amuse voters at the same time. And Hulun couldn’t say a thing about it.