Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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Legal Beagle: Coalition of Losers, in reply to Keir Leslie,
I don't propose to enforce mandates. I propose to state that they exist, and discuss the extent that they exist, and to do my bit to hold politicians to account for them.
You are right that we elect people to Parliament, not policies, but at least some of us vote for those people (and not for others) because of their policies.
We agree that National could, if it really wanted to, pass with ACT a law re-introducing the death penalty. However, while you appear to think they have a mandate to do this, I do not.
If your views are as stated, I'm not sure we can have a sensible debate about this - our conceptions of democracy are just too different: you appear to adopt the elective dictatorship model Geoffrey Palmer described our system as: Parliaments are elected and have a mandate to do whatever they want. I don't. I may recognise that they probably have the power to do whatever they want, but I see democracy and their pre-election policies and mandate as at least morally limiting this.
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You have a mandate to form a government if you have the votes in the House; you have a mandate to pass laws if you have the votes in the House — or at least, as far as anyone under heaven, or outside the polling place, cares.
I dispute your assertion that the National Government, whose leader John Key prior to the election told voters that National would not raise GST had a mandate to raise GST.
I also dispute your assertion that no-one cared that state assets were sold by the fourth Labour Government without having the option of voting for or against that policy at the 1984 election.
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STV results in similar proportionality to MMP if the number of members elected in each electorate seat leads to the same effective threshold (1/n = MMP%). So for our current 5% threshold that would mean 20 MPs elected in each electorate.
I'm not sure that's necessary. A party with 5% support is likely to have pockets of support, do better in some electorates than others, etc. so may be able to get representation even with smaller electorates (winning one seat in each of six 20-member electorates is the same as winning one seat in half of the 12 10-member electorates).
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Um… but isn’t that kind of the point then? Call me crazy, but shouldn’t the government be doing what we – the people – want and if they don’t we vote someone in who does.
That's the point for us. But it's bad for you if you're a national MP or a labour MP. Which is why they won't do it (short of a World War or that sort of thing).
Graeme, you’re arguments seem to hinge on the false idea that a single party government is better. It isn’t. It seems to me that a lot of the complaints about MMP stem from a mindset of “my team didn’t win:” and not really have any focus on whether or not it is good for the country.
Not at all. My arguments are based around the reasons I believe some people will feel disgruntled if there is a coalition of runners-up. I won't be disgruntled, but if others are, and that disquiet is broadly and deeply held, it could present problems for MMP and the political system more broadly.
Us just telling people "don't you understand how MMP works?" isn't going to solve that problem, should it ever arise. Understanding the concerns will be important to acting in a manner likely to allay them, rather than deride them.
Your key error of thinking here is the somewhat archaic idea that government can only be National or Labour. But that isn’t a particularly rational position to take.
I don't accept I made that assumption, although I did use National and Labour as examples because I consider they'll be easily understood.
That said, in the medium term - say the next five Parliaments - I think it is a perfectly rational position to adopt that assumption. Never rule anything out, but if either National or Labour do not form part of the Government in each of the next five Parliaments I will be very surprised.
This is not about winning, and NZ needs to get out of the flawed thinking that it is.
And if NZ doesn't change its mind to agree with you, what then? If a large portion of New Zealand "wrongly" believes elections are about winning, just because they are "wrong" doesn't make them irrelevant. I think lots of people disagree with your position, and that that lot of people are important and can have an influence over the political culture. This post is about exploring what that means and what can be done within that system to meet people's expectations and concerns.
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I don’t quite see the argument for STV (I’m not sure whether Graeme is making it or presenting it, barrister fashion) ... Is the idea that STV provides a figleaf of proportionality, but doesn’t interfere with Labour and Nationals right to govern absolutely?
No.
I wasn't making the argument for STV at all. Someone asked a question that related to a bit of my earlier blog post (from October) explaining how STV worked. They wanted to know why I said something I'd said in the post, and I was trying to explain it.
STV is very likely to result in a system where the largest party, with the most votes, lacks a Parliamentary majority.
Both STV and MMP are largely proportional systems (although they do this in a very different way, and minor parties are likely to get a little less than their fair share under STV).
The argument for STV over MMP is that every MP has a personal mandate; there are no list MPs, and there is greater voter control over which MPs from a particular party are elected.
One problem opponents of MMP point out is that in a safe seat, or with a safe list spot, some MPs - who may be highly unpopular - are virtually guaranteed re-election.
Under MMP or FPP or PV, if you don't like, for example, Judith Tizard, you have to vote for someone from a different party, which you may be reluctant to do. Under STV, you can still vote for a Labour candidate, while ranking, for example, Judith Tizard below the other Labour candidates on offer. It's not an accurate way to look at it, but STV kind of gives some control over the list order to voters.
Look out for some posts later in the year that will look into this further.
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Labour and National should be able to form a coalition government one day – if the Germans can, why not us?
Because, in the medium-term, it won't work for either of them.
If National forms a government, and you don't like what it's doing, then Labour can say "vote for us, we'll do better".
If Labour forms a government, and you don't like what it's doing, then National can say "vote for us, we'll do better".
If National forms a government with Labour, and you don't like what it's doing. Then you probably won't vote for either of them.
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If you could explain how only part of my vote goes to candidates down my list, and also why I should vote for someone I believe should not be elected I’d appreciate it.
I've done my best at the first in the comment above. I'll now try the second:
Imagine that you are a left-wing Green Party supporter. You live in an electorate that elects 8 MPs. You list the three Green Candidates as 1, 2, and 3. You list the six Labour candidates as 4 through 9. You're now left with the National and Act candidates. It's pretty damn likely that there will be at least some National or Act candidates elected from your electorate. The question you have to ask is: would I prefer one of those MPs to be John Key or Roger Douglas. If you really don't care, and would be exactly as (un)happy with John Key as Roger Douglas, then don't vote for either of them. But if, despite your strong Green/Labour leanings you feel that you'd still prefer John Key to be your MP than Roger Douglas rank Key higher.
Your vote probably isn't going to help either of them. And ranking both of them will not in any way impact on the election chances of any of the Green or Labour candidates you've ranked higher. But there's a chance, particularly if you're living in an electorate that doesn't like the Greens and Labour much, that it will come down to a race between them for a spot, and if you have an opinion, then ranking one higher than the other will help you avoid what you consider a greater disaster.
STV/PV are sometimes referred to as instant run-off systems. Other voting systems have actual run-offs. Imagine a system in which if at an election for a single seat, no candidate got over 50% then the two highest-polling candidates had another election between just the two of them two weeks' later. This system is in use in other countries, including for example French Presidential elections.
In the 2002 French Presidential election, right-wing Jacqes Chirac, and ultra-right-wing nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen (from the French National Front Party) finished first and second. At the run-off, supporters of Lionel Jospin, the socialist candidate, came out and supported Jacques Chirac. Even though they didn't want Chirac to be President, they really really didn't want the National Front guy to be president.
Under STV/PV, the ranking of lower candidates is a way to hold a run-off without having to go out and vote again. You're saying "if there was a run-off between person A and person B, or person A and person C, or person B and person C, then whoever I rank higher is the one I'd vote for."
If your position would be "well my Green Party candidate didn't win, I don't mind which of John Key and Kyle Chapman is my MP", then don't rank them. But if you'd prefer John Key over Roger Douglas, or John Key over Kyle Chapman, then ranking them that way is how to show that.
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Legal Beagle: Coalition of Losers, in reply to Moz,
First, I’m not aware of an STV system actually used where lower preferences count less than higher ones
It's perhaps easiest with an example:
There are 60 voters, electing 2 people under STV from 4 candidates. As soon as a candidates get more than 20 votes, they are elected (because its not possible for 3 candidates to get more than 20 votes.
You vote, in order, Candidate A, then B, C and finally D.
After the first preferences are counted up:
Candidate A has 25 votes
C has 16 votes
D has 10 votes
And B has 9 votes.Candidate A - your favoured candidate - has more votes than are needed. So the 5 excess votes are transferred to the second ranked people on the ballots of those who votes for A. How do they decide which five votes get looked at? Well, they look at the vote of everyone who voted for A, and count 0.8 of their vote for A, and 0.2. of their second-rank vote. This leaves the count after the second round of counting as:
A 20 votes (elected)
C 17.2 votes (because six of the 25 A voters had C as their second pick)
B 11.6 votes (because 13 of the 25 A voters - including you - had B as their second pick )
And D 11.2 votes (because six of the 25 A voters had D as their second pick)No-one else has made it over 20 votes, so the 11.2 votes for person D are re-distributed. The nine people who had D as their first pick have their whole vote transferred to their second preference. And the six people who had A first have their 0.2 votes for D transferred to their third preference.
After this the count is:
A with 22 votes (still elected - two of the nine D voters voted A)
C with 19.8 votes (two D voters had C second, and three of the D then A voters had C third)
B with 19.2 votes (five D voters had B second, and 1 of the D then A votes had B third)
D (NOT elected)Still no-one else is elected:
The two new "overvotes" for A are now distributed to C and B, this involves going back and recalculating the value for everyone so of the people who voted for A first ~ 0.741 of their votes go to A, and ~0.259 of their votes goes to their second preference (or their third preference if their second preference was D, who has now been eliminated. And so on until someone has more than 20 votes.
I've actually simplified this a little, but the simple point is that if your first preference is elected, then they keep enough or your vote to keep them elected and a fraction of your vote goes to your lower preferences. The whole vote filters down the list if your preference is declared to have lost (by coming last at one point and having those votes re-distributed.
p.s. sorry if this is complicated, but there's a reason why the calculations are done by computer :-)
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The argument here, when stripped down to its essence, appears to be that Guyon Espiner gets to decide what is a legitimate coalition government and what is not.
No. Guyon Espiner had someone ask 1000 people their opinion on a matter and he reported the results.
And John Key claimed a moral mandate to govern if National came first [by a reasonable margin?].
Perhaps Guyon had them ask because John Key had made that claim. Perhaps he had them ask because a bunch of people were telling him that that was the case, or because it had been running hot on talk radio. I don't know. But I do believe the story would have been different had the poll gone the other way: "John Key's claim for 'moral mandate' rejected by voters" etc.
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Legal Beagle: Coalition of Losers, in reply to Pat Hackett,
However, Graeme’s bumper sticker has provided me the best reason to return to FPP that I have heard of. Maybe my family and friends were right after all.
Unfortunately, while there's some truth in it, there's also a lot untruth.
1. A lot New Zealanders rejected the two broad church "coalitions". In 1981, for example Social Credit got over 20% of the vote (but 2 of the 95 seats).
2. The assumption might be that having broad coalitions is better, or more transparent. If your friends are worried about the influence of, for example, ACT over the current National Government, at least that influence is open, and the public and media act as a significant check on its overuse. Contrast this with the influence "ACT" had over the Fourth Labour Government.
3. The better phrasing is probably: "we’ve always had coalitions, it’s just that they used to be called National and Labour, they announced their policies before the election, and if they won they got to implement them."
But the response to this is the 1993 election - our last under first-past-the-post. National got a majority in the House after that election, so could continue to implement its policies. But they got that with 35.05% of the vote. After three years of National Government, their platform was rejected by almost 65% of the country. Staunch government critics Labour, New Zealand First and the Alliance carried more than 61% of the vote between them. A system in which 35% beats 60% faces real mandate problems.