Posts by Idiot Savant
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Dave: the seats are inseperable from the option; both are covered in s45.
And to follow on from Graeme's point, not only would we still have to appoint people to the Representation Commission to determine the boundaries of non-existent maori seats, we would also have to calculate the general electoral population as excluding the Maori electoral population (which, one presumes, would be legislatively set at zero, or else a repeal really will screw hings up). Repealing these seats neatly already requires a supermajority.
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Of course, Mr. Trotter's respect for the New Zealand constitution etc, doesn't extend to that tiresome convention you actually have to hold a fair trial before convicting anyone of treason.
Or indeed, that parties should obey electoral law.
"Courageous corruption", anyone?
Reading Trotter's rant, I'm very glad we repealed sedition.
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Section 268 of the Electoral Act is not something from a Parliament past. Its entrenching provisions exists because New Zealanders adopted them in a referendum in 1993.
Um, no. The Electoral Act 1956 included an identical entrenchment provision (s189), which was carried over. The referendum was strictly needed to allow modication of what is now s35 (as it changed the number of seats in the South Island).
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Is there a time limit on how long an MP can hold a seat when they're not allowed to?
Yes: until the Speaker notices.
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Yes, although so far this scenario has been played entirely inside your head, it has to be said - I wouldn't mind seeing it tested in reality. Not saying you're going to be proven wrong, necessarily, but we'd have to just see.
as I said, it's my inner pessimist (as opposed to my outer one). Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
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I'll take that further and admit to a surprising respect for a few of the policy platforms that he proposes - tax simplicity etc is particularly appealing to me.
Tax simplicity is nice. Drowning the government in the bathtub so you can give a couple of billion to the rich isn't.
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Much more convincing than your insistence that the Greens might not do what they've said. You might well be right. But I don't think it would take long for the public to get tired of it ...
My inner pessimist says that the public would get very tired of it very quickly. To which the only response is "fuck them". The idea of Maori exercising real political power should not be considered automatically horrifying in this day and age, and the fact that it is says rather a lot about how far we still have to go as a society.
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The latter is effectively what the Greens have done, right? I'm just wondering, because my follow up might be a little more useful if I'm not talking past everyone else.
The Greens have said that they could not form a government with National, or support them on confidence and supply. This doesn't technically rule out abstention, but I can't really imagine them doing that either.
OTOH, if the Maori Party don't get their bottom line, they could simply abstain, let confidence and supply fall whereever it does (so, whoever has the largest coalition gets to form a minority government), and sit on the cross benches and make the government suffer. This would be a highly effective way of exercising power, though more likely to hurt National than Labour.
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Arguably we can't, because we retain the sovereign right to change our minds, as expressed through parliament.
While we retain the sovereign right to change our minds, Parliament is not the only way to express that, nor necessarily the best vehicle for doing so. And Parliament recognises this, which is why it allows entrenchment to be overcome with a simple majority in a referendum.
Referenda take time and are a PITA to organise. Good. I'm quite happy to have the slow deliberation and public debate of a referendum on large constitutional issues than letting politicians change things in a matter of months.
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Dave:
But... if no one shifts and there is a hung parliament and the Maori Party refuses to offer confidence and supply
Refuses to offer as in "votes against", or refuses to offer as in "refuses to vote for"? There's a significant difference there (depending of course on which way the numbers fall).