https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361099333/dirty-deal-chris-hipkins-and-christopher-luxon-should-actually-strike
He says so plainly. He wants Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins to promise that "if an overhang is the only path to government, then we'll ask the Governor-General to call another election instead." He says it "would be called a 'dirty deal' between the big two almost immediately."
Quite.
New Zealanders get their say once every three years. Parliament wrote the rules. Every voter gets two votes, one for an electorate MP and one for a party. If enough of us use our two votes to maximum effect and split our votes then we will get an overhang. Indeed, present polling consistently has National in overhang already with every party vote for National a wasted vote. That party votes for National may as well not be cast. Those votes could usefully be cast for ACT or New Zealand First. That's not cheating. That's MMP working exactly as Parliament wrote the law.
The cheating is Henry calling on the two old parties to conspire to defeat the votes of the people.
Henry has woken up that the campaign to split the vote gets the centre right returned despite the MSM’s best efforts to defeat the centre right by getting TOP over five percent. He doesn't like that result, so he wants the two old parties to pre-agree to throw it out and send us back to the polls until we get it right.
His plan is for National and Labour to agree before the election to a grand coalition with one job: rewriting the electoral law to suit themselves. In his own words, no supermajority would be needed, and no referendum. They'd change the rules, then call another election under the new ones. That's the political editor of a major newspaper urging the two biggest parties to fix the electoral system between themselves without asking voters or Parliament. He wants the fix in and he wants it now.
He frets that an overhang "would let well-organised minorities govern less-organised majorities." Henry, that's called campaigning. Persuading people how to use their votes is the whole point of an election, not a threat to it.
A journalist's job is to report on power and hold it to account, not to act as a broker for Labour and National. Or worse, a partisan hack for the Centre Left. It’s up to Parliament to decide our electoral rules. Until then, voters decide, with both their votes, and they don't need a second go because the political editor of The Post didn't like the first one.
New Zealanders get their say once every three years. Parliament wrote the rules. Every voter gets two votes, one for an electorate MP and one for a party. If enough of us use our two votes to maximum effect and split our votes then we will get an overhang. Indeed, present polling consistently has National in overhang already with every party vote for National a wasted vote. That party votes for National may as well not be cast. Those votes could usefully be cast for ACT or New Zealand First. That's not cheating. That's MMP working exactly as Parliament wrote the law.
The cheating is Henry calling on the two old parties to conspire to defeat the votes of the people.
Henry has woken up that the campaign to split the vote gets the centre right returned despite the MSM’s best efforts to defeat the centre right by getting TOP over five percent. He doesn't like that result, so he wants the two old parties to pre-agree to throw it out and send us back to the polls until we get it right.
His plan is for National and Labour to agree before the election to a grand coalition with one job: rewriting the electoral law to suit themselves. In his own words, no supermajority would be needed, and no referendum. They'd change the rules, then call another election under the new ones. That's the political editor of a major newspaper urging the two biggest parties to fix the electoral system between themselves without asking voters or Parliament. He wants the fix in and he wants it now.
He frets that an overhang "would let well-organised minorities govern less-organised majorities." Henry, that's called campaigning. Persuading people how to use their votes is the whole point of an election, not a threat to it.
A journalist's job is to report on power and hold it to account, not to act as a broker for Labour and National. Or worse, a partisan hack for the Centre Left. It’s up to Parliament to decide our electoral rules. Until then, voters decide, with both their votes, and they don't need a second go because the political editor of The Post didn't like the first one.
Rodney Hide is former ACT Party leader, and Minister in the National-ACT Government from 2008 to 2011. This article was first published HERE
2 comments:
The Post was all in favour of exploitating the overhang when TPM were proposing it, but it is a different story if it could result in a government the Post doesn't like. Why does Luxon give our money to these clowns?
Cooke called the voting process leading to an overhang undemocratic; what does he call what he is suggesting? A vote is a vote and can be used as the voter sees fit. That is democracy and if it doesn't fit Cooke's world view, well that is just tough. Are the lefties running scared?
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