Panda
What you don’t seem to get is that Fran and her ilk actually don’t want democracy. Their whole reason for reopening this debate and trying to game the process is to regain the control over the country they lost when MMP was introduced, and restructure things to benefit themselves at the expense of the public.

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perhaps the smacking referendum provided a good adjunct to the democratic process as people were able give some feedback as to the influence of this 1969 Voter politician?

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A dog whose tail is wagging is usually a happy dog.
MMP is still a relatively new system and has come a long way in a short time.
Minor party politicians involved in this system have shown an increasing amount of maturity as this system has become better understood and the general public have not made MMP an issue to this point.
Perhaps John Key could try to work with this system for a term and gain some experience and skills with it before looking to something else.

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Actually I am with Sapient.

The “Upper House” is the Maori. It’s a natural fit.

BJ

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What Greenfly said.

Peter Shirtcliffe was first chairman of Telecom when it was privatised, and was the very public face who led the anti-MMP campaign in 1990 – 1993. So, yes, it most emphatically IS a big business conspiracy. Shirtcliffe and his ilk still haven’t forgiven the hoi-polloi for daring to defy them back then. Sad to see them all slithering back out from under their rocks again.

(What Shirtcliffe probably still hasn’t realised is how many people likely decided that anything the chairman of Telecom was for they were against on general principle )

With luck someone like the chairman of Contact Energy is the public face for the anti-MMP campaign this time…

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Ari says:
September 9, 2009 at 4:07 pm

> Most of the problems with MMP are comparatively minor and can actually be addressed with further small reforms, or a move to OLP.

what, or where, is OLP?

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An elected Upper House is essential in any proper system of democratic representation. How else do we stop the Shenigans perpetrated by Nats under ‘emergency’. What a sham !

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I have had enough of the tail wagging the dog it is time for some balance to be bought back to the NZ electoral system

The problem is that under FPP and SM the tail still wags the dog, it’s just bigger. We’ve had “majority” government when the opposition received more votes under FPP, and SM is essentially FPP in drag trying to pretend it’s representative.

I’d rather have Winston wagging the dog than go back to elected dictatorships. At least with Winston the news makes some money and seniors got something out of the deal, lol.

Most of the problems with MMP are comparatively minor and can actually be addressed with further small reforms, or a move to OLP.

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And you really think it’s appropriate for him to make policy announcements in private because a constituent asks him a question? At the very least you should be questioning whether he’s making up policy on the fly for interest groups based on that behaviour.

Are you a journalist or not? o_O If you report on the actions of government, it explicitly becomes your job to bully it into following proper process.

This sort of thing is exactly why we have this whole “bloggers criticise the media demeans the bloggers” circular fight. If you do your part of the civic duty, we can leave you alone and get back to posting amusing pictures of cats.

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“The simple message to these Nimbys is – hundreds of thousands of hectares of windswept tussock won’t lift our living standards – the minerals buried beneath it will.”

See I’d find much more ‘comfort’ sitting amongst ‘wind swept tussock’ than in a old mine..
- interesting they would describe our diverse conservation land as ‘wind swept tussock’ unless they were attepmting to evoke images of nothingness.

Finally, since when were ‘standards of living’ intertwined with being able to sell more coal? Happiness indexes (and human nature) seem to indicate quality of living is more about the relationships with other citizens and the environment than exclusively tied to our quest for the dollar.

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He appears not to know the difference between a blog and an electoral system.

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If nukefacts’ rage was pent up, you’d not get to see it panda. He let it all out and hit the target square-on.

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What this guy says!
“anything which is not a proportional system of representation (i.e. relies on electorates) I am opposed to”
Bingo.

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Hehe sorry Toad, that wasn’t meant to sound serious! I was just having a dig at this quote from Fran…
“in my own google search to find out what was being said”
so twisted my interpretation a little to imply she was googling what was said about ‘her’..
Meh, it wasn’t that funny anyways

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People from all over the political spectrum get hot under the collar. Have you been over to kiwiblog much?

But yeah I was asking about this part of your comment

“it is time for some balance to be bought back to the NZ electoral system “

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Comments like

You and your right wing cronies totally disgust me
Crawl back under your rock – your time has passed dinosaur,

such pent up rage cant be good for your health

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What exactly do you mean by ‘balance’, panda? Is that the balance where there is only Labour and National in government, and where a party can govern even if it got less votes than the other party?

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Gosh Panda

Do you really understand how proportional a scheme is, that allows for 2 MPs out of 120, for a party that pulls 10% of the overall vote.

Even combined with STV for the electorates, it is still not proportional.

We COULD modify the MMP system, though it is working pretty well. I can think of a couple of modifications that people would like to see.

respectfully
BJ

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WOW
good to see such a balanced comment

I cant wait for this referendum and the chance to dump the nonsensical MMP

I have had enough of the tail wagging the dog it is time for some balance to be bought back to the NZ electoral system

I am proud to say I voted for the Supplementary Member system and will do so again
I don’t think NZ will dump a proportional system but I do think MMP will be history

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Fran, I’m not sure even where to start.

You and your right wing cronies totally disgust me. Having lived high on the hog ripping NZ off during the late 80′s and 90′s in one of the worst examples of crony capitalism anywhere (except perhaps Russia) you have the audacity to try again by gaming the electoral system to again get your way.

And you have the audacity to talk about catching up with Australia through revisiting privatisation – because our previous history of privatisation was sooooo successful, you just can’t wait to repeat it. Get this – Aus was successful precisely because they didn’t make the screw ups our righties did. Unlike your business mates they seem to understand about investing in more than their fat salaries and not screwing workers at any opportunity, and they kept labour laws and didn’t sell off the family silver.

Crawl back under your rock – your time has passed dinosaur, the world has moved on and you can’t screw the country in the name of ‘business’ again.

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