Vote for Change: MMP review is 'sneaky'

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Sun, 27 Nov 2011 10:57a.m.

Vote for Change campaign spokesman Jordan Williams says there was no intelligent debate on the other options

Vote for Change campaign spokesman Jordan Williams says there was no intelligent debate on the other options

The public has voted to keep the current electoral system MMP, but Vote for Change campaigners say how the MMP review now unfolds is the “sneaky” part of the debate.

Watch the video to see debate between Vote for Change and Keep MMP

With only advanced votes counted, MMP won with 53.89 percent, and of those who did vote for change, First Past the Post was the preferred option.

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However, Vote for Change campaign spokesman Jordan Williams told The Nation this morning he was disappointed there was no “intelligent debate” led on the compromise options and the public has no idea how the MMP review will unfold.

"The sneaky thing that was put in this debate is the politicians said, 'If you don’t like MMP, trust us we’ll review it'.

"So now of course we’re in the situation where we just don’t know what will come with that review, but more importantly we don’t know what the politicians will take from that review,” said Mr Williams.

He said the MMP referendum has been an “under-cooked debate”.

“We never really got off the ground those middle options of supplementary member.”

“It wasn’t until the last week that [John Key] finally came out and said ‘I’m backing supplementary member’.”

Sandra Grey spokesperson for the campaign to keep MMP argued there was debate, and that the Prime Minister told the public over a year ago he supported supplementary member.

“The public were out there talking about these systems, there wasn’t a mood for change,” said Ms Grey.

She says that is because the referendum came out of an election promise, not a push from voters.

Both sides of the debate agreed the referendum could have been managed better.

It will be two weeks before the final result is counted.

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Comments

26 Apr 2012 11:41a.m.

Ken Westmoreland wrote:

There is a system which operates exactly the way that Dmitry describes, in the German state of Baden Wurttemburg. Like New Zealand, its parliament is a single chamber with 120 members, in which 70 members are elected by first past the post. The rest of them are chosen on a 'best runner up' basis. That means all candidates have to contest electorate seats, and there are no party lists. Voters vote for one candidate - it's that simple.

27 Nov 2011 11:28p.m.

Dmitry wrote:

The much SIMPLER and FAIRER system is what I would call SINGLE VOTE PROPORTIONAL (I googled it - didn't come up): All candidates stand in their electorates, and each voter has a SINGLE vote, where they vote for an MP who represents the party of their choice. All the votes are tallied up and then the PROPORTION of the total vote is calculated for each party based on the number of the votes their candidates get - that is their share of the 120 seats in Parliament (assuming the current make-up of 50 additional MPs on top of 70 electorates). Like with MMP, the party's share beyond the winning candidates is picked from a list, only it consists from the party's candidates who lost in their electorates in the order of their share of the electorate's vote they got (say 49%, 40%, 30% etc) until the party's share of the total 120 seats is reached. It uses the same mathematical model as MMP, only there are no pre-determined party lists subject to the leaders' arbitrary judgement beyond voters control. Under that system, hard-campaigning MPs who get a lot of votes, but fall a little short of the win, may still get into Parliament and will still be answerable to their electorates, while the unpopular candidates will not stand a chance. Simple, and I am puzzled why nobody has thought of it as a viable alternative to MMP, instead there are those hard on the voter multiple rankings based STV and PV, as well as SM, which is MMP's less ugly twin. Let's use KISS - keep it simple stupid.

27 Nov 2011 11:27p.m.

Dmitry wrote:

There is a SIMPLE system that has ALL the advantages of MMP and NONE of its drawbacks, and it wasn't in the referendum, and it beats all of them hands down. MMP sucks because people who nobody has voted for or who got few votes still get into Parliament and may be in a preferential position to other MPs, as they don't need to bother with an electorate and may just sit on their bums for 140 grand a year and look up to their leader, while hard-campaigning candidates who get just a few votes short of a win don't get elected if they are not high enough on the party list. Other systems, apart from first-past-the-post (which doesn't give representation to the losing side even if its share of votes is large) or supplementary-member (which is similar to MMP with unelected party lists of lesser size) are too complex, as they make voters to rank candidates, which is a pain in the butt, as it is hard to choose one, and that job is multiplied by the number of ranks one should give (I did that in local elections and it is essentially pointless as most of the ranks above 1 or 2 are pretty haphazard, as they are very hard to judge); plus, those vote "transfers" and candidate "eliminations" are not fair and are mathematical hymnastics.

27 Nov 2011 09:19p.m.

Matt wrote:

I'm all for change to MMP be it tweaks or change in system but please get rid of Jordan williams. He has no good points or anything to offer. And on a side not I have meet him and he doesn't care for anything but himself.

27 Nov 2011 08:56p.m.

Johanna wrote:

The lack of intelligent debate was due to a problem at the level of Jordan Williams himself. He gave no reason to change that would attract any intelligent person. I see in the above he was still calling Supplementary Member a middle option, when countless people had explained to him that MMP was in fact the middle option of full electorate or full list systems.

I believe a sensible consensus for tweaking MMP will be found as we compare our experience with that of MMP regimes overseas. On this occasion just one overhang seat was created which is good outcome. Most wasted votes were for the fledgling Conservative Party. The election outcome reflected poll trends. What is there to complain about?

27 Nov 2011 08:38p.m.

Andrew wrote:

Can Jordan Williams disappear from TV screens now. OK thanks

27 Nov 2011 06:07p.m.

Anon wrote:

@mike How is SM the least representational? FPP is inherently bipartisan. Troll or stupid

27 Nov 2011 04:34p.m.

Samantha wrote:

No, SM is very middle ground. It means smaller parties have some power, but not so much power that the likes of Winston Peters become the neck that controls the head. I think what was sneaky was having the 2 options to vote MMP or not MMP before choosing other methods. It meant that people who didn't know just went with what was already in action.

27 Nov 2011 01:57p.m.

mike wrote:

No surprise Key is backing the option which is the least representational.

27 Nov 2011 11:59a.m.

Bruce wrote:

I will admit that I am a proud voter to retain the MMP system. As was mentioned, the voting system is "our the voters" system. not the politicians. The politicians can tell us how we should be voting, but the system shows how we "want" to vote.