by frog
Dr Cullen’s beach cricket analogy is an interesting one. He told the Labour Party conference over the weekend that Helen Clark and the Labour Party have been batting so long that the
Personally I think the problem is more that for the last few years the Labour Party has been padding away or dead batting deliveries. And the audience are getting bored. Three years ago a large number of the spectators in the crowd came along to see Labour hitting over the circle in dashing partnerships with big hitting all-rounders from the Greens and the Maori Party. Instead what they got is Labour Bruce Edgar style, with New Zealand First and United Future, slowly using up the overs while the run rate ponders along.
Published in Campaign by frog on Mon, April 14th, 2008
Tags: , beach cricket, bruce edgar, green party, greesn, maori party, Michael Cullen, new zealand, New Zealand First, united future
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Awwwwww Frog
Comparing Bruce Edgar with the corrupt Labour govt is a bit rough, one was an honest toiler with a respectable average and no shortage of talent.
The other is corrupt, dishonest and incompetent.
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Fair point. I was an Edgar fan, but don’t you remember those afternoons, yelling at him through the TV screen to just hit the ball and get on with it.
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Bruce Edgar was corrupt, dishonest and imcompetent?
Seriously though Big Bro- whether you like their policies and politicians or not, surely you can admit that Labour achieved a lot in their first term after ousting National?
I think Frog is on the game here, personally. Labour has been pretty sleepy this term until National started showing them up in the polls. Now they’re getting a lot of stuff done- but it doesn’t seem to be stuff their coalition partners are too happy about. Maybe they should consider if the Greens and the Maori Party would make for a more well-rounded cricket team?
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Ari
Please tell me what they have “achieved” other than completely wasting the best economic conditions in living memory.
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“the crowd came along to see Labour hitting over the circle in dashing partnerships with big hitting all-rounders from the Greens and the Maori Party”
Sometimes I do wonder what planet you’re on, Frog….
The Greens and the Maori Party are specialist tail order….
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BP, now that national are not going to privatise anything, how are you going to vote. Seems as though National’s policy is becoming more and more like Labour’s, and that in Government they would get very few, if any, runs on the board. More like Geoff Allott’s remarkable batting record – 0 in 101 minutes.
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The unfortunate consequence of MMP. Big parties must occupy the middle ground.
Who am I going to vote for? I’ll vote for you guys if you scrap MMP.
I don’t think any party represents my views. Perhaps ACT….
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BP – ACT do quite well under MMP, they are even hoping to cosy up more to National. Whats your Beef?
Under MMP, ACT can stick to their principles and the Greens on theirs. Where they share common ground they can work together, as with opposing the stadium. Further – if under FPP we had had to rely on those no hopers national to be an effective opposition… Those noobs can’t even muster an effective opposotion, how do they think they are going to run the country.
Labour and National will always be shifty, MMP or FPP. NOthing wrong with some principled wildcards to keep them on their toes – if it wasn’t for third parties I wouldn’t bother voting.
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>>Whats your Beef?
That politics has become even less honest under MMP. If that were indeed possible…
>>some principled wildcards
Hilarious. Are you talking about the ex-member for Tauranga?
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Also, scrap MMP for what? Something proportional, surely.
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Bassett puts it well:
“Roger Kerr who nicknamed MMP “Much More Paralysis? hit the mark. It’s not only the voting system, but the time wasted making it work that retards our economic progress. Having to massage weak brothers and sisters’ egos eats into thinking time about long-term national strategy. What is it about New Zealanders that makes us so obsessed with the demands of misfits in minor parties, most with nothing positive to contribute? Is there a rational explanation? “
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BluePeter Says:
April 14th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
> What is it about New Zealanders that makes us so obsessed with the demands of misfits in minor parties, most with nothing positive to contribute? Is there a rational explanation?
There are too many parties in Parliament for it to work properly. Our electoral system has a 5% threshold to stop there being lots of small parties in parliament, but then it lets all those smaller parties in again by giving an exemption to every party with an electorate seat.
This is inspired by the German system which requires 3 seats to get around the threshold, but one seat lets in lots of small parties in the way that 3 doesn’t. If we had a proper threshold that couldn’t be breached, we would have fewer parties in Parliament and it would work better.
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Personally, I believe in representation of peoples’ views.
As a Green supporter, I might have once been considered a “misfit”. I now feel I have a voice.
Much as I disagree with (and in the latter case despise) the opinions expressed by ACT and NZ First supporters, I recognise that they have a right to be represented in Parliament.
For democracy to work, it has to be about not alienating people. Personally, with a Parliament of 120 MPs, I think 1% should be the threshold. But I disagree with the electorate threshold, but which a Party can get 1 MP elected (like Jim Anderton or Peter Dunne) and tag extra seats into Parliament on that basis even though they get less votes than the Party threshold. It should be strictly proportional.
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Hmm I think that 1% sounds rather chaotic, unless perhaps the MPs under ~5% had less rights in something or other – I would hate to see the National Front or Communist League etc.. member holding the balance of power, however rare that might be.
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Toad says:
“Much as I disagree with (and in the latter case despise) the opinions expressed by ACT and NZ First supporters, I recognise that they have a right to be represented in Parliament.”
I’m quite at home with Chris Trotters opinions but not John Minto or Tama Iti’s.
What is it about NZ First you don’t like. Is it their questioning of immigration policy or their stance on crims?
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What’s holding Green membership up Toad?
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toad
I think Bassett is being a little disingenuous, in places. In reality, parliament is full of misfits, from all parties.
MMP seems to have resulted in sluggish, ineffective government, chock full of toadies and party loyalists who are not directly accountable to a constituency. Deals are decided post election. It isn’t democratic. Power has been transferred to politicians, and away from the people.
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People question immigration policy all the time e.g. ‘how many skilled immigrants should we let in?’, ‘what type of skills do we need?’, ‘how many refugees can we cope with – are we obliged to take in more refugees?’. I would suggest that NZF is not engaging in run of the mill questioning of immigration policy, they are pulling out the same asian immigration card every three years which JUST so happens to be around election time. *yech*
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good one stephenr – you want only those whose views are acceptable to you to be represented proportionately to their numbers! if it’s proportional there should be no threshhold – not even 1%. otherwise we can’t really call it proportional representation.
the german system seems miserly compared to ours, but in fact their 3-seat threshhold is less of a hurdle in proportional terms.
lack of momentum is a great thing in politics. labour may not have done much to reverse the previous couple of decades, but they’ve performed a service whose magnitude we might soon be about to realize: keeping the other lot out. just slowing down the rate of change is an achievement. if the need to negotiate & compromise within parliament slows it down even more then good.
people hate change, especially rapid change. it’s always going to alienate half the electorate.
it’s absolutely the sense of “giving the others a go” which is influencing the mood of the electorate. i knew a 19 year old girl who was voting for the first time at the last election – not because she deeply valued her chance to participate in the democratic process & make the best decision on behalf of the country – but because her dad was forcing her to. she said she’d vote for national, because “labour have been in for long enough”. i guess to a 19-year-old 6 years is a long time! & that’s half the problem too – with so many new voters who weren’t alive before rogernomics, & so many others who only recently came into the country, there is a huge & increasing bloc of new voters who either don’t understand or don’t care about some of the big national issues.
i’m not seeing it. all around the world main parties are becoming clones of each other. during the 2002 french presidential election the 2 main rival candidates came so close to each other that they came to be referred to as josrac & chispin!
i reckon it’s the lack of real choice for voters which forces them to a “lesser of two evils” vote, which in turn prompts the main party candidates to position themselves just a little bit less worse than the other. more & better proportional representation is the appropriate cure.
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Toad
“For democracy to work, it has to be about not alienating people. Personally, with a Parliament of 120 MPs, I think 1% should be the threshold. But I disagree with the electorate threshold, but which a Party can get 1 MP elected (like Jim Anderton or Peter Dunne) and tag extra seats into Parliament on that basis even though they get less votes than the Party threshold. It should be strictly proportional”
Can you imagine the shambles our parliament would be in if you had a 1% threshold?..its bad enough with a 5% threshold.
You say that you are not comfortable with Anderton or Dunne being in the house and claim that it is not democratic yet your party does not have ONE elected member, in my opinion Anderton (as much as I dislike the man) and Dunne have more right than any Green LIST MP
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Frankly, never mind their batting average, it’s the foul shots that have me concerned – the Beazley Report into Rickards mishandled, the Operation 8 fiasco, and now an FTA with China while blatant human rights abuses are carried out daily.
Well, we can only assume she’s running a fascist, terrorist organisation, hell-bent on currying favour with the capitalist globalising powers run by the big MNCs, who respect no nation’s sovereignty, only their consumer base, which Clark seems happy to deliver to constant indebtedness.
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One way to improve the democratic system is to improve the level of debate through better presentation of arguments and reaching to a wider range of people (getting around a party mob) by on line decision making.
Debate graph is a step in the right direction. Lets face it the party decides the official line (house prices caused by ring fencing etc) and that’s it.
https://debategraph.org/
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StephenR Says:
April 14th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
People question immigration policy all the time e.g
………..
Both major parties have a PC position It is Good
“Growth is good”… Gary Moore ex Mayor of Christchurch.
The benefits are postive at the top, hour glass in the middle and go negative at the bottom (my impression). Immigration doesn’t seem to improve GDP per capita but affects many unmeasured aspects of life.
The Greens can’t see immigration issues for “racism” and seem to want to give our changing Anglo Saxon base a putsch?
http://www.davesag.com/unabomber/2leftism.html
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Andrew it’s not so much that I want those who are acceptable to me to be represented, it’s just that with a tiny bit of support the ability to slow MMP down even MORE is magnified. It’s incidental that I don’t like all the parties that are under 5 percent…
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Well BB the Greens got TWICE as many votes as UF, and almost as much as NZF, but they don’t deserve to be represented?? Great!
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http://2005.electionresults.govt.nz/partystatus.html
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jh asked: What is it about NZ First you don’t like. Is it their questioning of immigration policy or their stance on crims?
I don’t think their stance on crims works. We’ve seen tougher sentencing progressively introduced and we’ve seen significantly increased police numbers already, but we haven’t seen any corresponding reduction in crime.
But it’s not that position I despise NZF for – I just don’t think it is effective policy to deal with crime. What I despise them for is their dogwhistling to the ugly racist underbelly of New Zealand society.
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I don’t think anyone would be arguing *against* increased police numbers though now would we…
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BB – I didn’t say that I am uncomfortable with Anderton or Dunne being in the House. What I am uncomfortable with is that Judy Turner and Gordon Copeland got to tag in on Dunne’s coat-tails – and that Copeland is still able to stay there despite resigning from UFNZ – (and Heather Roy on Rodney Hide’s coat tails, for that matter) simply because those Parties won an electorate seat.
Personally, I prefer multi-member electorates and Single Transferable Vote, but under MMP I’d like to see all Parties required to hold democratic primaries (as the Green do) to rank their lists, so the public had some way of getting rid of non-performers like Ashraf Chaudhary, Dave Hereora etc.
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StephenR said: I don’t think anyone would be arguing *against* increased police numbers though now would we…
Depends what number they are increased to, StephenR. If you get too many cops, they find/do the crimes to justify their jobs, and then we’re on the slippery slope to a Police State. But likelihood of getting caught is one factor that can help to reduce crime, and at the moment competent burglars and thieves probably have little likelihood of getting caught. So a modest increase in police numbers probably is justifiable.
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>>dogwhistling to the ugly racist underbelly of New Zealand society
I agree, but I disagree that incarceration isn’t the answer to various problems.
There is a cost to society in locking people up, but there is also a cost to letting criminals roam the streets. Which is higher? If the cost to society is higher letting criminals roam the streets, then we should lock them up.
I care not about “rehabilitation”. Provide the opportunity, by all means, but if progress is not made, then it is in jail they stay. For the good of society.
And as for the root cause? Opinions differ, but various studies show unwanted children and poor parenting plays a significant role. Time to rethink the entire welfare state, methinks.
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I thought Labour wiped their boots on the Greens on the way to the crease. Probably because you rolled onto your backs and said “I’m yours baby, do it to me baby” and wondered why you got ‘done to’.
Now that Labour and Nat are the same it’s vital to keep your allegiances strictly neutral.
By the way shouldn’t proportional representation mean a Labour/National coalition every time, or is that National/Labour?
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>>dogwhistling to the ugly racist underbelly of New Zealand society
Ah yes in Gore (Southland)!.
The rest of NZ is well and truly used to Asians. The blues want immigration to fill the subdivisions (from one end of the country to the other) the reds are too obsessed with racism (hiding self loathing of our own society perhaps) that they are blind to (and don’t care about) what’s happening on the ground. The Greens have done B/all when it comes to championing the Kiwi lifestyle/the batch etc; the emphasis has been on spy bases, the SAS, foreshore and seabed, Maori sovereignty (thanks to Alliance refugees seeing their ship wasn’t leaving port).
:watermelon:
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jh, http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR8447.html
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On the crime thing it doesn’t work because you can’t manhandle (thump) prisoners. In Asian countries they do what they are told (not what they agree too). They march (swinging their arms with gusto) > there is no swagger or “bird” to the TV crews. There is also no prisoner on prisoner violence and sentences are shorter.
Couldn’t we just try it…?
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StephenR Says: [above]
…………
Every bit helps doesn’t it
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that was like a 10 second google search, i just had a hunch there was something – could be more I guess.
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obviously if you consider it “bad” that most voters are represented in proportion to their numbers, you will consider it worse that almost all the voters had that same opportunity to representation according to their numbers. but if you consider that having many MPs outside of the control of the major party whips, is a shambles, experience suggests you are panicking needlessly. only 6 parties have ever been denied a seat due to the threshhold (counting parties which subsequently merged as separate), accounting for a total of 18 seats in 4 parliaments, and many of these either subsequently or previously gained representation (by themselves or in a merged entity) without any obviously disastrous or shambolic effect. we could easily extend to all parties the represention they deserve, without any adverse effects in government (a vague concept anyway – what big bro & stephenr probably really mean by this is “voting not according to my wishes”)
don’t get confused over the issue. the objection is not to parties getting into parliament on the basis of one constituency seat, it is the fact of having a threshold at all.
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