It’s general election time again in New Zealand this year, with the added twist of an additional referendum on whether to keep MMP as our electoral system. If you’re not interested in New Zealand politics, then you should definitely skip the rest of this post.
I’ve never understood why some people consider their voting choices a matter of national security, so when via Andrew McMillan, I saw a good rationale for why you should share your opinion I found my excuse to write this post.
Party Vote I’ll be voting for National. I’m philosophically much closer to National than Labour, particularly on economic and personal responsibility issues, but even if I wasn’t the thought of having Phil Goff as Prime Minister would be enough to put me off voting Labour. His early career seems strong, but lately it’s been one misstep and half-truth after another, the remainder of the Labour caucus and their likely support partners don’t offer much reassurance either. If I was left-leaning and the mess that Labour is in wasn’t enough to push me over to National this year then I’d vote Greens and hope they saw the light and decided to partner with National.
Electorate Vote I live in Dublin, but you stay registered in the last electorate where you resided, which for me is Tamaki. I have no idea who the candidates there are, so I’ll just be voting for the National candidate for the reasons above.
MMP Referendum I have no real objections to MMP and I think it’s done a good job of increasing representation in our parliament. I like that parties can bring in some star players without them having to spend time in an electorate. I don’t like the tendency towards unstable coalitions that our past MMP results have sometimes provided.
Of the alternatives, STV is the only one that I think should be seriously considered, FPP and it’s close cousin SM don’t give the proportionality of MMP and PV just seems like a simplified version of STV with limited other benefit. If you’re going to do preferential voting, you might as well do it properly and use STV.
So, I’ll vote for a change to STV, not because I’m convinced that MMP is wrong, but because I think it doesn’t hurt for the country to spend a bit more time and energy confirming that we have the right electoral system. If the referendum succeeds and we get another referendum between MMP and something other than STV in 2014, I’ll vote to keep MMP. If we have a vote between MMP and STV in 2014 I’m not yet sure how I’d vote. STV is arguably an excellent system, but I worry that it’s too complex for most voters to understand.
PS. Just found this handy list of 10 positive reasons to vote for National, if you’re still undecided and need a further nudge. Kiwiblog: 10 positive reasons to vote National.
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