Why all the fuss about parties openly doing deals over electorate candidates?
Patrick Gower calls them dirty electorate deals done dirt cheap; and the Herald follows up one editorial saying parties do deals at their peril with another saying it’s politics but not as many want it.
One of MMP’s virtues is supposed to be that it encourages parties to work together to get concensus. If that’s good in parliament, why not in elections?
There’s nothing new about accommodations between potential allies and it’s better to have overt deals than covert ones.
There is a risk. National voters put Peter Dunne into parliament which allowed him to be part of the Labour government for nine years.
But if there’s going to be deals it’s better that they’re in the open. That way voters know parties’ intentions and can take them into consideration, or not, when they vote.
If people don’t like the way parties are playing the game they have an opportunity to change the rules by voting against MMP in the referendum on the electoral system on election day.
Homepaddock 
What makes you think it was National voters wat done it? Ohariu or Ohariu-Belmont probably has the highest percentage of Public Servants in it population on any electorate in NZ. And it was Peter Dunns electorate as a Labour MP in FPP days.
The people there are well represented in the halls of power, Most of the candidates on the ballot contesting the seat have high list positions. There are four current MPs who contested it last time, being
Peter Dunn (U)
Katrina Shanks (N)
Charles Chauvel (L)
Gareth Hughes(G)
Heather Roy has been on the Ballot for this electorate also in the past though last election she “moved” to Wellington central.
If there was ever an example of how MMP distorts things in favour of the urban ruling class it would be this one.
The people there fully understand which side of their bread is buttered on
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“Why all the fuss about parties openly doing deals over electorate candidates?”
Because Ele, it smells.
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Andrei, check the results, Dunne always gets far more electorate votes than party votes and it looks like more came from those who gave their party vote to National than other parties.
http://2008.electionresults.govt.nz/
Robert: you’d prefer covert deals?
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Have you got one for me Ele?
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But in 2005 the party votes for Labour and National were just about on a par and in 2002 the party votes went nearly 2:1 in favour of Labour!
This is a well educated and well heeled electorate Ele and one in which the distinction between Party Vote and Candidate Vote is well understood.
You get more bang for you bucks if you split your vote and even more so if your preferred candidate is guaranteed a place whatever the outcome.
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“Have you got one for me Ele?”
RG I will help HP out by saying anything Labour and the Greens do or have done over the years.
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Fair point, Andrei – not only National voters got him there, but if I’m reading the figures correctly, in most elections if most National voters had voted for the Nat candidate s/he would have been more likely to win the seat than if most Labour voters had voted for the Labour one.
Robert: vote National and you’ll get a happier, healthier, better educated, more secure and wealthier NZ 🙂
PDM – there’s good deals and bad ones 🙂
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I fail to see how NZ is going to be happier if people fail to vote MMP back in so there is less representation for New Zealanders, how it will be better educated with National supporting Act’s bill to remove student levy fees, which has shown disasterous results where the same was applied in Australia. More secure with foriegn interests drilling for oil of our shores? Wealthier? Because National always come through with their tax-break promises…
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Ele because you tick National’s box in a particular election does not make you a “National Voter”.
Not everybody is that tribal.
If I hold my nose and tick National’s box next November it will not make me a National Voter on the other hand I might hold my nose even more firmly and tick Labour’s box because come the day I might perceive that it might be better if National’s victory is not too overwhelming. But count on it I hold Labour in utter disdain
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Robert – politic smells, get over it.
If you do not like the way deals are done in Electorates under the MMP system the remedy is in your hands come November – you can do as I am going to do VOTE TO DITCH IT
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Ele – ‘vote National etc.” – I note you stuck an inane, vacuous smiley face at the end of your comment – Key?
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I agree with Ele. I really don’t see the problem with these electoral deals, as long as they’re out in the open. Ultimately, they lead to a broader spectrum of views in the house, even though I don’t like some of those views.
And it’s the voters in the eletorate who decide. They can always choose not to vote for Peter Dunne, or John Banks, or whoever.
And yes, like Andrei, I have in the past, and I anticipate doing so again in the future, holding my nose and gritting my teeth and casting my party vote a particular way, not because I really wanted that particular party in power, but because I thought the alternatives were worse. Including the alternative of a party having too much power. Which is why I will be holding my nose and gritting my teeth, and voting for Labour this year, despite Phil Goff.
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Why vote to ditch MMP? Just change our electoral system when we feel aggrieved about certain politicians, banana republic style? What no-one here seems to realise is that a vote to keep MMP is a voter for change anyway. Under the Referendum Act, if more than 50% of kiwis vote to keep MMP then the Electoral Commission must review the system next year, must review, for example, ‘The one electorate seat threshold for a party to be eligible for allocation of list seats.’ MMP is the most flexible system in the world and can be modified to what we want from it now.
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Why vote to ditch MMP?
Because it is an appalling way to choose a Government which leads to appalling MPs selected by anonymous committees and who are there based on political patronage and because they mix well on the Thorndon cocktail circuit.
What we need is a primary system whereby the local people can have a say in who their candidate for a particular political party should be. And then come the election let the best take the spoils based on voter preference.
And the ability to give those who don’t perform the sack – send them packing to sink or swim in the real world.
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It’s not an appalling way to choose a government, it’s a fair one. It’s representative democracy, and as was said above, a vote to KEEP it is a vote to IMPROVE it. I fail to see how the MPs aren’t selected by the people voting for them – I join a political party, I vote for the MPs I want on the party list, then I vote for that party in the election. If enough people concur with me, that MP is voted in. Not counting people’s votes fairly, by not voting MMP is the only appalling way to choose a government in this debate.
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Don’t make me laugh. We woke up after the last election to find, for example,we had “elected” a Sikh that nobody had ever even heard of and who had actually lived in this country for about five minutes before God Knows who on some selection committee had given him a winnable place on the list.
And do you know what nobody knows who he is to this very day.
Representative democracy means we choose who we wish to represent us – not leave it up to our betters
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I suppose it’s not possible he was elected to represent the views of the growing Sikh community in New Zealand then? Or that he just happened to be an MP who was elected for what the people who voted for him saw in him, regardless of his faith?
“And do you know what nobody knows who he is to this very day”
Wow, really? We have an MP who nobody even knows who he is? If that’s the case, are we even sure he exists? Or is that just what our betters want us to think..?!
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And people wonder why when we have a referendum which clearly and unambiguously says we don’t want Sue Bradford’s authoritarian anti-smacking legislation why the Government collectively gives the voting public the finger.
Or why we have an ETS which is sheer insanity and corrupt as hell to boot.
It’s because we can’t go to our representative and make our views known and let him/her/it know that if our views are not taken into account then we will be voting him/her/it out come next election.
Their focus is not on the peasantry who keep them in the style to which they feel they are entitled but on the party hierarchy who they do need to keep onside in order to maintain their place in the feeding chain.
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