Comments on: HoS on Progressives

By: chrishipkins

chrishipkins — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:50:48 +0000

How are the Progressives any different to UnitedFuture? Peter Dunne sits with the government, speaks for the government, votes with the government… I can’t recall Dunne voting differently to National on any measure since the election.
Both Dunne and Anderton were elected to electorate seats under the banners of their respective parties. That is a lot different to someone who jumps ship from the party they were elected to represent in parliament and gets extra funding in the process (as was the case with Kopu, and Tau Henare et al when they split from NZ First to prop up Shipley’s govt).

By: s.russell

s.russell — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:04:22 +0000

Consider this:

It the Progressive Party had not contested the last election, but Anderton had stood as in independent, then Labour might well have picked up all those 21,241 votes – and won two more seats.

So the existence of the Progressive Party actually helps National.

By: starboard

starboard — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:47:38 +0000

The public pays $164,000 a year to Jim Anderton’s Progressive Party – which sits with Labour, speaks with Labour, votes with Labour, and now campaigns for Labour.

…fucken parasite…

By: AG

AG — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:35:46 +0000

Bryce,
“I also think there needs to be some caution in pronouncing that a party is a “fiction” and should not be regarded as a real party by law or Parliament.”

Err … just who went from one claim to the other? The law recognises actually lots and lots of “convenient fictions” … see virtually any family trust arrangement, or the concept of innocent-until-proven-guilty. So saying Anderton’s party is “a convenient fiction” in fact (precisely because it allows for the retention of funding/speaking opportunities in the House/etc, while Anderton acts as a de facto Labour MP) says nothing at all about whether the law ought to regard it as being a “real” party.

By: burt

burt — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 02:04:52 +0000

Jolly Jim with his snout in the trough…. It’s not the first time is it.

By: unaha-closp

unaha-closp — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 01:48:50 +0000

The Progressive banner is a very useful party to Labour, a party to the left of Labour a mirror to Act. In the next few electoral cycles it might well pick up more seats as swing flows leftward and Labour goes centrist.

It will become especially valuable if (in an admittedly unlikely scenario) the Greens adopt some sort of an enviromental policy instead of being hard left.

By: Poliwatch

Poliwatch — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 01:34:15 +0000

Two questions

1. What is the effect on his future Parliamentary Super payments because of this hypocritical rort? I am assuming he does leave Parliament one day.

2. Have the good people of Wigram been misled and think they are actually voting for a dog catcher every three years. At least with Kopu her electorate seemed to know the difference.

By: fredinthegrass

fredinthegrass — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:43:07 +0000

Mr. Anderton is showing he is an old dog who knows the rules of politics. If/when he stands down as an MP do you think
The Progressive Party haas a SSIH of winning his – or any other for that matter – seat. He goes – the party is over.

His Party funding may not be illegal – but it IS immoral.

By: OldNews

OldNews — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:17:53 +0000

If this was a post-election creation, like the Progressive Party in 2002, then it would be a rort. But the guy has run as a party over the last 3 elections and won 2 seats at the first and then 1 seat ever since. I think that should count as a party.

By: Alfred

Alfred — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:08:56 +0000

And he destroyed the Vogel House front lawn

By: Bryce Edwards

Bryce Edwards — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:50:54 +0000

As vibenna and dave say above, there’s actually quite a big difference between what Jim Anderton was criticising and his contemporary political party.

I also think there needs to be some caution in pronouncing that a party is a “fiction” and should not be regarded as a real party by law or Parliament. While there are lots of important issues and questions to be raised about Jim Anderton’s Progressive party, it’s a slippery slope if lawyers etc start saying that it doesn’t deserve to be recognised. What about other political parties that have been elected? Was Jim Anderton’s NewLabour Party (elected to Parliament in 1990) a “real” party? It also only had one MP. What about the Alliance, with 2 MPs elected in 1993? There are other examples.

The slippery slope problem is that in many countries, this argument that parties are “fictions” or “undemocratic” or “bad” are reasons to ban them or refuse to recognise them. In Samoa, independent MPs recently declared that they were now members of a new party, and the Speaker kicked them out of Parliament!

The real issue with Jim Anderton’s Progressive party and Alamein Kopu’s Mana Wahine party is the fact that they get additional parliamentary funding just by virtue of calling themselves a political party. Essentially they get pro rata more funding than other parliamentary parties. The basic reason that this has come about is that these minor parties have been “bought off” by the parliamentary funding cartel. In designing the parliamentary funding system, the larger parties have thrown minor parties a few crumbs of extra funding so that these parties share in spoils of the backdoor state funding system. This is classic cartel behaviour.

It’s a bit silly to say some parties aren’t real parties, when really it’s the funding system in Parliament that’s the problem, and acts as an incentive for such small minor parties to start up and continue as supposedly separate entities.

Bryce
http://www.liberation.org.nz

By: dave

dave — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:34:26 +0000

Its a little different Kopu was an Alliance list MP, she split with the Alliance and got funding for Mana Wahine. Gordon Copeland was in a similar position, He split with United Future as a list MP and became co leader of the Kiwi Party but did not get extra funding as the rules were changed post Kopu so he he declared himself an independant MP. Of course Anderton also won his seat, which is material.

By: vibenna

vibenna — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:15:44 +0000

To be fair to Jim, he won his seat at the last election. That is quite a big difference.