In the traditional FPP (First-past-the-Post) system, the candidate receiving the most votes is elected.  And even though most electorate candidates are chosen by the party heirarchy, at least the voters in the electorate can chose between them.  Poorly performing MPs can be voted right out of parliament, and they face the vote every three years.

Unlike NZ, Britain retains the traditional system.  A recent referendum overwhelmingly rejected a form of proportional representation called the Alternative Vote, which is similar to the STV (Single Transferable Vote) system used in Australia.  Both systems require voters to rank candidates in order of preference, and if no candidate scores more than 50% of the vote, a formula is applied counting up all the preferential votes.  The result can be the election of candidate who was the first choice of very few voters, but the most popular second choice.  In other words, nobody gets what they wanted.

NZ’s MMP system at least does not have that drawback.  Each voter votes twice – one vote for the member for his or her electorate, and one party vote.  The elected members representing each constituency are still chosen by FPP according to the electorate votes, so the one with the most votes wins.  ”Proportional” representation is supposedly achieved by having list MPs.  A party that wins no electorate seats must achieve at least 5% of the overall party vote before it has any MPs in parliament.  The total number of  MPs for each party in parliament (electoral plus list MPs) is proportional to the party’s share of the overall “party vote”.  So MMP has another advantage – it is not vulnerable to gerrymandering.

But it does have other drawbacks.

Any party with 5% or more of the overall party vote will have 5% or more of the MPs in parliament.  Thus, small parties that may possibly never gain an electoral seat in parliament can be represented there by one or more list MPs.  Gee, that sounds fair.  Bingo – proportional representation!

Except that it is not really proportional.  The result of MMP is a much higher likelihood of coalition government, in which no major party gains a clear majority and so must go into coalition with one or more other parties in order to form a government.  Because they wish to maintain public perception of their points of difference, the major mainstream parties do not form coalitions with each other.  Inevitably, the coalitions are formed with one main party and one or more minor ones.  And that is why the representation of the minor party is in fact disproportionate.  A minor party in coalition with a major one has a proportional share of the total seats, but much more that a proportional voice in parliament – it has real power.  Because the price it demands for of going into coalition is the promise of the major partner to promote and vote for an agreed set of its policies or private member’s bills.  It is, remember, a minor party.  If  only 5% of voters have given it their party vote, there is no assurance that the 95% of those who did not do so actually accept its policies.  Yet with this arrangement, some of them will become law.  The tail ends up wagging the dog – a recipe for bad law and bad government.

It has another major drawback.  List MPs are never directly elected by the voters – the public has no opportunity to chose who is in an who is out.  Each party creates its own list of potential list MPs, in order of party preference.  When all the party votes are counted and the numbers allocated to each successful party, the seats are allocated strictly in party list order.   And naturally the parties tend to stack the top order of the list with MPs they want to retain, even if the public rejects them.  The top of the order is usually occupied by senior electorate MPs, to keep their positions safe regardless of what the voters might prefer.  In effect, MPs at the top of the list can almost never be voted out.  That can hardly be called democracy.  MMP should be scrapped – it is neither truly proportional nor truly democratic.

The NZ Herald thinks otherwise.  After the British result, and in anticipation of the forthcoming NZ referendum on the future of MMP, the Herald has published an editorial (see Appendix) calling for the survival of MMP.  The Herald firmly believes it is a Good Thing, giving the voters of NZ the government they want.  The Herald article even says that “tails have not wagged dogs”.  I disagree, firmly.

Were it not for MMP, NZ First, the Greens, the Maori Party and ACT either would never have been represented in parliament or would have had only a couple of seats.  Under the cosy coalition arrangements with MMP, this is the reality:

• In coalition with Labour, NZ First’s Winston Peters scored the plum role of Minister of Foreign Affairs.  Hardly the choice of the NZ voter!
• In coalition with Labour, the Green’s Sue Bradford rammed through the most hated legislation in NZ history, the unnecessary and totally ineffective anti-smacking bill that has had zero effect on child abuse.
• In coalition with National and against the wishes of almost everybody, the Maori Party has overturned the Foreshore and Seabed act

God knows what will happen if ACT under Brash forms a coalition with National after the forthcoming elections.

Appendix – the Herald Editorial:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10724716

There are some unbelievable comments in made in the “New Zealand Herald” about the recent tragic spate of fatal accidents involving bicycles and motor vehicles.  Some suggest licensing and WOFs for bicycles, as if that would make cycling less hazardous!   Another comment says there is  ”no space for cyclists on the road – they need their own lane they are the biggest hazard, they put themselves in a lot of danger by being on the road.”  The cyclists didn’t die on motorways that are restricted to motorised traffic – they were killed on ordinary roads.

Sadly, the comments above were representative of the tone of a significant proportion of the comments about the Herlad reports.  Comments that illustrate what is wrong with the attitude of too many NZ motorists.

One comment from a man named Rhys has it right – NZ should use the Dutch approach.

The Dutch approach is twofold – it addresses the safety of the roads, and it addresses the attitudes and behaviour of motorists.   The Netherlands invests heavily in bike lanes to reduce the likelihood of accidents.  Real bike lanes – not a half-share of a footpath.  These run parallel to all major roads, and cross the countryside.

But of course, even in the Netherlands, not all roads have bike lanes.  Dutch road laws and behaviours are based on the premise that roads are for all users – pedestrians, cyclists and motor vehicles.  The only roads on which motor vehicles “rule” are motorways.  On all other roads, cyclists and pedestrians rule.  Motor vehicles use them as a convenience, not as an unfettered right.  The legal onus is on the motorist to avoid collisions with people and cyclists, without exception.

That does not mean that there are no road rules for cyclists.  Of course there are.  Cyclists can be prosecuted for dangerous behaviour or for failing to give way, and police will act when cyclists break the rules.  But being in the right does not prevent prosecution of a motorist who collides with a bicycle.  It is extremely rare for a motorist to be cleared after a collision with a bicycle.  If the motorist does not have incontrovertible proof that he/she could not have possibly avoided the accident, even when the cyclist was flagrantly in the wrong, the motorist will be found guilty, and the punishment is severe.  The same goes for accidents with pedestrians.  The result is that motorists are very careful of cyclists and pedestrians, very patient when cyclists are on the road (even two or three abreast), and very courteous toward pedestrians.

The Netherlands is the safest place in the world for a cyclist or pedestrian.  And traffic still flows, quite happily.

In 2009, 16 children died in New Zealand, killed by members of their own families.  Child Protection Studies chief executive Anthea Simcock said the figures for child deaths equated to one killing by a family member every 23 days.  “This research shows child abuse at its clearest and most stark.  We need to start talking about child abuse …  Child abuse is a massive problem in its own right.  Let’s not allow it to be hidden under the blanket of family violence”.

Child abuse in New Zealand is a disgusting disgrace.  Its a double disgrace.

The first disgrace is the collection of apologies for human beings who visit violence upon defenceless children – all too often their own family.  Pita Sharples, the Minister of Maori Affairs in NZ, calls them “mongrels”.  He’s  not wrong.

Tragically, the violence often ends in death.  From 1993 – 1996, 35 children up to the age of 14 were killed by members of their own families.  (Died from injuries purposely inflicted).  That’s 8.75 deaths per year.   By August 2007, the average child-abuse death rate per year was reported to be 12.

And that leads to the second disgrace.  Politicians who mouth on about how disgraceful it is, about how we are all collectively responsible, and promise firm action to protect children from abuse.  In 2007, they took that “firm action”.  And now in 2010, here is what NZ still sees:

Ineffectiveness of Child, Youth and Family (CYF) – the social welfare agency charged with protecting the interests of children.  No meaningful overhaul of their procedures.  No tracking of known problem parents to see if they have more children when the state has taken their abused babies into care.  No attempt to address the social breakdown and lowering of educational and behavioural standards that result in children that grow up to be selfish, careless and abusive parents.  (Children are carefully taught their rights, but nothing about responsibility or duty of care).

The “firm action”  was an easy politically correct “solution” – an anti-spanking bill.  Almost all of the NZ parliament, Tory and Labour, Greens and Maori Party, forgot that they were elected by the people of NZ, and colluded to ram this monstrosity into law against the wishes of nearly 90 percent of the NZ population.  The new law classifies all parents who resort to spanking, even when it is  necessary, as criminals by default.  Good parents and bad.

It is now a criminal offence to spank a child in NZ – period.  No spank is considered reasonable under law.  The police have the sole choice on whether to prosecute.  If they decide it is “trivial”, then the parent is not prosecuted.  So only the police can consider a spank reasonable or trivial – incredibly, the courts of law cannot.  The parent has no defence if charged except to plead “Not guilty”.  If it is proved that the parent spanked the child, the only possible verdict is guilty.

So what we get to address child abuse is an anti-spanking law, to stop us from hitting and beating our children.  The vast majority of parents never would do that.  The kind of mongrel (the Minister’s own term) that would hit and beat a child would not pay a blind bit of attention to any law prohibiting spanking.  No more than a recidivist drinking driver would be deterred by lowering the driving alcohol limit.

How do I know that child-abusers are not deterred by the anti-spanking law?  Results.  Since it was passed in 2007, the rate of child-abuse death has continued.

When a petition in 2009 overwhelmingly called for the repeal of the anti-spanking law, the government did nothing.  No, the law is working, they said, and necessary to prevent child abuse.  And besides, they criticised the wording of the petition!

I have news for you, NZ politicians.  The law is not working.  It is an unjust and ineffective law, and NZ children continue to suffer and die at the hands of those whom it should be their birthright to trust, unprotected by effective laws and failed by NZ social welfare.  Read this, and weep:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10629760

The weka is a native New Zealand bird.  It s a large, brown flightless bird that has a famously feisty and curious personality. These two qualities traditionally made the bird an easy food source for Māori and early European settlers.  The Europeans called them “wood hens”.  By all accounts, they’re damn good eating.

I love free speech.  I am very happy that I live in a society that allows all to hold and communicate their opinions.  For me, free speech is a cornerstone of democracy and vital to its survival.  It is also vital to the growth of human knowledge – remember the difficulties that confronted Galileo?  Censorship, thought control and political correctness are the tools of the forces of darkness.

The world-wide-web with its email facilities, blogs and social-networking systems provides a platform for the whole world to communicate.  So I should rejoice, right?  Well, not entirely, mate!  A platform for learning and enlightenment is also a platform for banality.  A medium for information can also be used for misinformation.  A forum for understanding is also an opportunity to promote bigotry and hatred.  On the Internet, geniuses and halfwits, poets and proselytisers, statesmen and racists, thinkers and wanna-be celebrities, scientists and chicken-lickens, writers and chain-letter zombies, all have the same right to disseminate and promote their views and themselves.  And so, they twitter away.

Blogging provides a wealth of information, entertainment and amusement.  From travel anecdotes to family records to seriously well-informed scientific discussions – whatever, it’s all there.  Some of the forums raise very intriguing questions, inviting replies from interested readers.  The self-promoters butt in in the forum response sections, with mindless gushes like “I just wanted to say Hi”, or “Amazing – keep up the good work”.  Good grief – all to see their “contribution” in a public forum.  It’s a waste of space and time, and the noise makes it more difficult to find the answers from the real contributors to the forums.

You know the chain-email types.  Pass this on to at least 20 people and spread warm fuzzies, raising the total happiness in the world.  Or save a starving child/dolphin/nuclear family/world peace/the Earth.  Break the chain and they are doomed and you will suffer bad karma and die alone.  If you really believe this stuff, don’t saddle me with it.  Keep your fantasies to yourself.

And then there are endless emailed jokes.  It seems that nearly everybody forwards every goddamn joke and cutesy URL link they ever receive, to everybody else.  Is there anything to be said in their defence?  Well, maybe – some are actually funny.  About one in a hundred, that is.  And of the one percent that are funny, one in ten is funny enough to forward on.

That leaves ninety-nine percent that are not funny and a waste of storage space, bandwidth and my time.  That would be bad enough to deserve a good old-fashioned grump, but it’s not the worst of it.  No, the worst of it is that a disturbing percentage are created to promote the bigoted stereotypes of the writers and senders.  Their intention is to promote and maintain hatred or derision of whatever group or groups the writers themselves may despise.  That could be Muslims, Jews, Blacks, Asians, Whiteys, Catholics, Capitalists, Communists, Republicans, Democrats, whomever is blamed by the writer for the ills of the world.

Here are three examples of Internet “jokes”.  I wonder if they will make you laugh:

Scientists are trying to combat crime by combining the DNA of a Maori and a Samoan. The are hoping to come up with a blackie that is too lazy to steal.

The presidential inauguration compared to  Hurricane Katrina:  “How can 2,000,000 blacks get into Washington, D.C., in one day in subzero temps when 200,000 couldn’t get out of New Orleans in 85 degree temps with four days notice?”

“Breaking News!  Playboy just offered Sarah Palin $1 million to pose nude in the January issue.   Michelle Obama got the same offer from National Geographic.”

These examples are not funny, and I am very grumpy about them.  If you are in the habit of passing on stuff like them, please stop it.  There’s enough misery in the world.

P.S.   If you get a one-in-a-hundred joke email that is really funny enough to pass on, send it.  Even grumpy old men need a good laugh.

Bicycles are the best thing about the Netherlands!

Grumpy Old Man and a well parked bike

The country is flat, there are bicycle lanes in and between nearly every street in the cities, between the cities and towns and out in the country through reserves and farmlands.  There are bikes with extended wheelbases and big buckets on the front for carrying up to four children.  There are bikes with extra seats (and sometimes, pedals) for children.  I have seen one young mother on such a bike with two children pedalling away and another in a small seat behind her.

The ease and safety of cycling and the excellence of public transport render cars unnecessary.  For the first time since we were very young parents, my wife and I do not own even one car.  We have bikes!  (And a shopping cart which we take to the supermarket!)

Cars here are actually very careful about bikes – accidents are very rare.  Cars, trucks and even buses patiently follow bikes through the narrow streets in places without bike lanes.  The cars stop and let the bikes in ahead of them.  Signs proclaiming one-way and no-exit streets usually have a picture of a bike with the caption “Uitgezonderd”.  It means “Bicycles excepted”.  The rule does not apply to them.

God help any motorist who has an accident with a bicycle.  Even if the cyclist was completely wrong and the motorist completely in the right, the motorist will be found guilty and punished, and the cyclist will get every assistance.  If the accident was caused by the cyclist, then only if there is incontrovertible evidence that the motorist moved heaven and earth in an attempt to avoid the accident and it was totally unavoidable, will he get off the charge.  Bikes rule, OK!!!   Well…

Bicycles are also the worst thing about the Netherlands!  They give way to nobody, use the footpath as a cycleway if it is more convenient, and as a bike-park if it is ten feet closer to their destination than one of the many bike parks provided free of charge by the authorities.  Usually, pedestrian crossings are placed in the places most convenient to corner bars, railway stations, supermarkets etc.  “How convenient”, think the cyclists.  More often than not, they park their bikes on the footpaths and block entrances to pedestrian crossings completely.  Passing policemen completely ignore this rude, inconsiderate and very dangerous situation.  This forces the pedestrian (often an old man or woman) to step off the footpath into the adjacent bike lane, where naturally the cyclists swear at them for walking on the bike lane (or even run into them).  Bikes rule, not OK!

GRUMP