Election '11: Doing Something
Because mr_orgue has spoken :)... My party vote will be for the Greens. For a long time I was pretty contemptuous of them because of the strong anti-GE and sometimes anti-technology stance of some of their most vocal members. However, they are the only party that has shown any real commitment to the environmental and social issues that matter to me. I am casting my vote in favour of a future where people and the environment are treated with respect and care, although I acknowledge that such a future is unlikely while the world is dominated by individualistic, capitalist ideologies.
In my electorate I will be voting for Iain Lees-Galloway, the Labour candidate, since he has been a reasonably innocuous MP and the Greens do not have a particularly strong presence in Palmy.
I am voting to keep MMP (+STV if we lose it) because proportional systems are fairer and more representative. If you have any doubts, have a play on this page which calculates the composition of Parliament (with polling results from past elections or results you input yourself) under each of the five electoral systems considered in the 2011 New Zealand referendum.
Edited: It has just been pointed out on FB that the modelling is done on percentages, so in 2008 the Maori party would still have've won 5 seats under FPP and United, Act and Progressive would've had one each. So the tool is a bit flawed, but still illustrates a point.
And edited again: They address this on their questions page " Why doesn't the Maori Party win more of the Maori seats under the alternative systems?
This is a similar problem to National's in 2002. Maori Party candidates won the electorate vote in 5 of the 7 Maori electorates, but the Labour Party won the party vote in all seven. This leaves it a little unclear what the voters would do if they had only one vote each, instead of two. We have chosen to stick with the same assumption we use in the general electorates: party support is distributed in the same manner as the 2008 party vote. The implication is that if the 2008 general election were re-run under a single-vote, single-seat-electorate-based system (i.e. FPP, PV, or the electorate-seat part of SM), the Labour Party would win all of the Maori seats. Under STV, the Maori Party gets 5 of the 12 Maori seats, and under SM it gets one of the 30 list seats. "
This link is also useful... Radio New Zealand asked the parties to explain their policies and plans if elected. Maori and ACT have not yet answered, and National declined to answer any of the questions, but there is quite a lot of useful info about the policies of the others.
In my electorate I will be voting for Iain Lees-Galloway, the Labour candidate, since he has been a reasonably innocuous MP and the Greens do not have a particularly strong presence in Palmy.
I am voting to keep MMP (+STV if we lose it) because proportional systems are fairer and more representative. If you have any doubts, have a play on this page which calculates the composition of Parliament (with polling results from past elections or results you input yourself) under each of the five electoral systems considered in the 2011 New Zealand referendum.
Edited: It has just been pointed out on FB that the modelling is done on percentages, so in 2008 the Maori party would still have've won 5 seats under FPP and United, Act and Progressive would've had one each. So the tool is a bit flawed, but still illustrates a point.
And edited again: They address this on their questions page " Why doesn't the Maori Party win more of the Maori seats under the alternative systems?
This is a similar problem to National's in 2002. Maori Party candidates won the electorate vote in 5 of the 7 Maori electorates, but the Labour Party won the party vote in all seven. This leaves it a little unclear what the voters would do if they had only one vote each, instead of two. We have chosen to stick with the same assumption we use in the general electorates: party support is distributed in the same manner as the 2008 party vote. The implication is that if the 2008 general election were re-run under a single-vote, single-seat-electorate-based system (i.e. FPP, PV, or the electorate-seat part of SM), the Labour Party would win all of the Maori seats. Under STV, the Maori Party gets 5 of the 12 Maori seats, and under SM it gets one of the 30 list seats. "
This link is also useful... Radio New Zealand asked the parties to explain their policies and plans if elected. Maori and ACT have not yet answered, and National declined to answer any of the questions, but there is quite a lot of useful info about the policies of the others.