A danger for democracy

Last night, TVNZ’s Q+A programme posted the above report on how the New Zealand National Party has suddenly changed its online advertising to something much more aggressive, and highly targeted. Much of it is also very misleading. This same problem is happening in democracies throughout the developed world, and it poses a serious threat to democracy itself.

We all know how the Russian government used propaganda and deliberately deceptive messaging to help elected their chosen candidate, who went on to become the current occupant of the White House. While the 2018 Midterm Elections saw less of that, we can expect to see it return in force in 2020, especially if it looks like the Republican candidate is heading for defeat.

As it happens, the next New Zealand general election is also in later 2020, most likely a few days after the US election. Because New Zealand elections are every three years, this will be the first time the two countries’ elections have happened in the same month/week since 2008 (the US election was November 4, and the NZ election was held the following Saturday, November 8). Both countries' fair and free elections are at risk.

The problem is that ordinary people will have a hard time telling if some political messaging that they see on social media is true or not, especially if the message is steered to them because the person has been targeted. In a fast-paced campaign, deliberate disinformation can take hold—and sway elections.

We’ve seen in the past how this worked in New Zealand, because the NZ National Party has used deceptive techniques before. Investigative journalist Nicky Hager detailed the party’s deeds in the 2005 NZ elections in his book Hollow Men, and he wrote about the secret tactics (allegedly coordinated with the party) used as far back as the 2011 election. That book, Dirty Politics was released on August 13, 2014, about five weeks before that year’s general election. National won re-election in 2014 despite the book, though then Prime Minister John Key’s integrity was called into question, and he never really recovered from that. [Full disclosure: I bought and read both books when they were released.]

This time, it looks like National intends to be more open about its deception. Its ads so far have copied successful ads used by Australia’s rightwing Liberal Party, among others, which wouldn’t be of much interest if so much of their messaging wasn’t deliberately deceptive.

And that’s the bottom line: The issue isn’t that rightwing political parties (or leftwing ones, for that matter) might copy ads used by counterparts in other parts of the world. Instead, the issue is that they’re cynically using messaging—propaganda—to deceive and mislead voters without them having much hope of knowing it’s happening. Just like the USA in 2016.

It seems that much of electoral politics in Western Democracies, especially the marketing tactics used by the Right, has now become about deception and manipulation. That can’t be a good thing for a healthy, functioning democracy, but is there anything we can do about it? With the public having so much distrust of the newsmedia, deliberately curated by those who stand to gain the most from that distrust, who will be able to expose deceptive messaging and tactics? And if there is no one, what hope do we have of countering it?

Right now, we have only one option: To learn to recognise attempts at manipulation. The video above is part of that effort here in New Zealand. We need more of that everywhere, and often. It may be our only hope.

Vote for Change

The video above, “A flag by New Zealand, for New Zealand” is the long version ad made by Change The Flag NZ, which is, as far as I know, the only campaign in favour of changing the New Zealand flag in next month’s referendum. Neither it nor the shorter versions have been on TV yet, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be.

The ad features some well-known New Zealanders from various walks of life, including journalists, two former Prime Ministers (from the National Party), two Mayors of Wellington, the former Mayor of Christchurch, former All Black Dan Carter, among others. A much shortened television-friendly 15-second version, "Vote For Change", is below, and another 15-second version is on their Facebook Page, but not on YouTube yet.

As such commercials go, I think these are pretty good, though this sort of thing doesn’t usually persuade anyone. Instead, they tend to rally people who already feel inclined to do the thing asked, in this case, voting for change. Even so, there’s value in that.

The mockery of the new flag and those who support change has been pretty relentless on social media, so ads like this may help rally some of the pro-change vote, something that almost certainly will be higher than polls indicate at the moment. Right now, polls are showing the existing flag with overwhelming support, but much of that looks to be soft support from people who intend to use the referendum to “send a message to John Key” (more about that tomorrow).

I’m voting for change, of course, but if the pro-existing flag side makes ads, I’ll share them, too, if possible. That figures, of course: I’m a political junkie and politics nerd WAY more than I’m a partisan in elections or referenda. Even so, because we’ll only have about three weeks of campaigning, there aren’t likely to be a lot of ads for either side.

There’s one thing I do agree with the majority about, though: Whatever happens, I’ll be glad when this is all over.

‘Only person responsible is John Key’

The video above is a statement from Labour Leader Andrew Little on the Gwyn report on the political use of the NZ Security Intelligence Service by Prime Minister John Key’s office. Andrew Little nails it: "I think that this points to the sleaze and sludge out of the Prime Minister's office and it's high time this was addressed."

The posting of the video on Labour’s Facebook Page sums it up the whole sorry mess:

“An inquiry into allegations the SIS was used for political gain in 2011 has found that there was a smear machine running out of the Prime Minister's Office, designed to attack and undermine National's opponents. There's only one person responsible for this – John Key himself.”

Predictably, John Key has switched to attack mode, using his usual dirty politics modes of deflection and denial to try and shift focus off of the wrongdoings of his office and himself. I wonder if he’ll get away with it this time?

The deed is done

Yesterday, the New Zealand Parliament did as expected and passed the National Party-led government’s bill to sell state-owned assets. In the end, a proxy gave National 61 votes to the total opposition’s 60. This was always a given in a Parliamentary system in which nearly all votes are dictated by the party which votes as one.

Labour campaigned on this issue in the last election and lost, so National claimed a “mandate” to sell assets. They’re wrong. EVERY public opinion poll shows that mainstream New Zealanders oppose these asset sales by huge margins. The opponents of asset sales released the graphic above showing how parties that opposed these asset sales actually won more votes that the parties supporting asset sales—not that any of this mattered in the end.

I think Labour lost this issue when National Party Leader John Key claimed in debates with then-Labour Party Leader Phil Goff that what National was proposing was similar to the way in which Air New Zealand is owned. Key pointed out that Labour wasn’t proposing that the government buy back the shares it didn’t already own. Goff never answered that, never had a retort or even an explanation, and he lost the ideological battle through that failure.

But Labour, together with the Greens, mounted a valiant fight. A hopeless fight, maybe, quixotic, even, but valiant. What they didn’t count on was that the one-man “party” Peter Dunne would vote with the government. But he, like the lone Act “party" MP, are Tories at heart, so there was never any real question of how they’d vote. Added to National’s 59 MPs, the result was always a foregone conclusion.

In any case, that’s all over now. Labour can pledge to repeal the law if they win government, they can even pledge to buy back whatever state-owned assets have been sold by then, but ultimately voters will decide if they still care about it then, and I’m not sure they will: The election is in 2014.

National is playing a weird game now. Still claiming their non-existent mandate, they’re also saying, essentially, that mainstream New Zealanders are too stupid to understand the scheme (which is why we opposed it). Maybe they’re just too arrogant.

Democracy means, first, winning elections. Then, it should mean doing what you say you’ll do. National has done both. Now it’s up to Labour and the Greens to do the same, or else, get ready for more assets sales in a third National term.

Elections have consequences.

Primary elections explained

Here’s something for my non-American friends (and probably a few American ones, too…): In this video, my favourite YouTube explainer, C.G.P. Grey, explains how the US presidential selection process works, including the differences between caucuses and primaries, and so much more.

Long-time readers may recall that in the run up to the New Zealand elections last November, I posted several of C.G.P. Grey’s videos explaining the various election systems we were presented with as part of our referendum on MMP. They were all very helpful.

But he does so much more than explain voting systems: Recent videos have talked about the end of the world, death to pennies, the real history of Santa Claus, and so much more. I love his videos. You can check them all out on his YouTube Channel.

2011 Marriage Equality Year in Review

In this video, Matt Baume of the American Foundation for Equal Rights—who are leading the fight to have California’s Proposition 8 declared unconstitutional—lays out what was a busy year in the fight for marriage equality. And it certainly was a busy year.

The thing that struck me is how the momentum of the fight has clearly shifted in our direction, further evidence of which can be found in the increasingly shrill and strident tone of our opponents. The fact that polls are now in our favour bodes well for the future, and our success will come sooner, rather than later.

I think the struggle in Australia is a long way from success, however. The move by the Australian Labor Party to endorse marriage equality will go nowhere as long as the anti-gay Julia Gillard is Prime Minister or if Tony Abbott defeats her and the ALP in the next election as everyone expects. It will take a true Labor Prime Minister—or a Greens Prime Minister—for marriage equality to happen in Australia.

Meanwhile, here in New Zealand, we have only one party—the Greens—who have full marriage equality as party policy. In the last election, the New Zealand Labour Party promised a “review” of relationship laws, but only a partisan could see that as being anything other than small movement in the right direction.

So, in a sense, New Zealand is behind Australia on full marriage equality because our Labour Party doesn’t yet back full equality. It’s not yet known if the new Labour Leader, David Shearer, supports equality or not. For progress to be made, both the party and its leader must be pro-equality, and they must be in government. Yes, New Zealand has civil unions and Australia doesn’t, but separate is never equal.

Still, I like the optimism of this video, the assuredness that victory is inevitable. That’s what I believe, too.

Keeping friends closer

There’s that old expression, “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” In politics, that often means doing deals with one’s enemies to keep them from causing trouble. But what about when your “friends” are sometimes the biggest threat?

After the election, John Key stitched-up deals with the lone MP from the Act “Party”, John Banks, and the lone MP from the United Future “Party”, along with the 3 MPs left in the Maori Party Caucus. He needed to do deals since, with only 59 seats, he needed three more seats in order to form government.

John Banks is an ex-National Party MP and former National government cabinet minister. He’s a Nat through and through, so I predict that sometime in the next three years he’ll defect to the National Party—unless some other former National Party “leader” steps forward to “save” the party again. Whatever happens, Banks’ will be John Key’s poodle—safe and reliable.

The same is true with Peter Dunne. The conventional wisdom often repeated by pundits is that Dunne is a Nat, but avoids joining the party because his wife is Labour. His support is almost as rock-solid as Banks, though he’s been known to dig his heals in sometimes.

The Maori Party’s natural home is in coalition with National because they are a conservative party. That’s a problem for them, because Maori voters are not typically supporters of National. If Hone Harawera’s Mana Party ever becomes more than a one-man band or, far more likely, Labour gets its act together, the Maori Party faces extinction, particularly with both its co-leaders leaving next election. Because their hopes for survival will rest on mostly untested candidates, the party isn’t a reliable partner for Key, no matter how friendly and pro-National they may be.

Things aren’t so very different on the left, with the two main parties often seeming to forget that one day they’ll probably need each other to form government. During the election campaign, there was far too much sniping between Labour and the Greens over "stealing" policies. It seems to me a good idea is a good idea and if both parties back a policy, that's twice as good. Who "owns" the policy only interests partisans—it bores voters.

Both parties also need to stop being so precious about their supposed political purity and embrace strategic voting as National has done so effectively, with National voters casting their ballots for non-National candidates to help their party. In Epsom, for example, 60 percent of National voters voted for Banks. 54% of Green voters voted for the National candidate in an attempt to get rid of Banks and Act, but a disgusting 35% of Labour voters did that. Put the other way round, 46% of Greens and 65% of Labour voters in Epsom helped John Banks win that seat. Smart—real smart.

Green voters also got it wrong in Waitakere where 13% voted for National’s Paula Bennett (a higher percentage than in 2008), handing her the win over Labour’s Carmel Sepuloni. Bennett was assured of a seat regardless, but by losing the seat Sepuloni was out of Parliament. No matter how much the left disliked Sepuloni, helping elect Bennett was just stupid.

Still, in general, Green Party voters were clearly smarter about tactical voting than were Labour voters, possibly because they were told the party was only seeking their Party Vote, leaving them free to vote for whoever they wanted to. But I wonder how much of the animus between the two parties affected Green supporters’ votes.

The bottom line, really, is this: A centre-left government will almost certainly require a coalition between Labour and the Greens. They don’t have to like each other, and they certainly don’t need to subsume their separate identities into one. But they do need to learn to work with each other, and especially to act more like friends than adversaries—even though that will probably keep each other closer than they would enemies.

MMP was the winner

Today the final election results were announced, and MMP received 57.77% support, so it will be retained. I hope that this is the last time that the rightwing tries to dump MMP, because this is a pretty resounding defeat for the anti-democracy forces.

Still, it didn’t stop the public face of the rightwing coalition fighting to dump MMP from saying that if the vote had been held after the election—after people saw that Winston Peters and his motley band of misfits got into Parliament—the results might have been different. What a stupid thing to say—pure speculative nonsense, no more valid than any other “what if” scenarios one could think of.

Some people have noted with alarm that among those voting in Part B of the referendum, 42.23 percent voted for the anti-democratic First Past the Post system. There are several reasons for that. First, many people had no idea what those other systems were and chose the alternative they recognised. But a number of people who supported MMP also chose FPP because they felt it would be the easiest to defeat if there was another referendum. Apparently, a lot of people cast no vote at all in Part B.

One criticism of the referendum was that there wasn’t enough information, particularly about the alernatives. That’s one of the reasons I spent so much space talking about them. But, to be honest, if people didn’t understand the alternatives—and why, precisely, MMP was the best of all the systems—it’s their own fault. The information was readily available if they spent a couple minutes looking for it, as I did. Democracy, in my opinion, imposes certain obligations upon citizens, and among them is the necessity that voters inform themselves and not wait around for someone to spoon-feed information to them. I know that’s harsh, but really, people need to take some responsibility for themselves and their democracy.

In any case, MMP won, and I'm very happy about that.

The way forward

I’ve had more than my share of election losses. In New Zealand, my side won the first three elections I could vote in, and it’s now lost two in a row. At the electorate level, it’s worse: My side won the first two times I could vote, then lost the next three.

Add to that my experience in the US, where I can count my victories on one hand and still have fingers left over for jewellery. Okay, slight exaggeration, but not by much.

The point is, I’ve known victory and defeat and, if I’m truly honest, the thrill of the first doesn’t ease the pain of the second. But it’s in defeat that I rediscover both my energy and my determination. That’s a common thing.

When the National Party went down to its biggest defeat ever in 2002, it returned to its roots and re-emerged stronger than ever in 2005. It went too far to the right and scared voters, but if it hadn’t veered so far right, it would’ve won that year.

I think Labour needs to return to its social democratic roots to fight again in 2014. We saw glimpses of that this year, but the public perception of Labour as too similar too National persisted. It needs to stand for something.

It’s not enough for folks to carp from the sidelines, either. Folks who care passionately about New Zealand and about Labour working for us all cannot sit on the sidelines and moan that the party isn’t one thing or another, or that it should do this or that. Instead, they must roll up their sleeves and get to work.

Toward that end, I’m going to try doing exactly that at the local level of the Labour Party. I have no idea whether I’ll be welcome, let alone whether my ideas will be embraced, but if I don’t try, who then can I blame?

This may be my last gasp with the Labour Party, or it could be the start of something else. In either case, I have to try.

I challenge every other disappointed centre-left voter to do the same, whatever their party. Together, we can win—literally, for a change.

Election this and that

One of my biggest sources of laughter—and some anger—has been the rightwing spin on the election results. I think that they actually do know what the truth is, but they’re in perpetual campaign mode and maybe can’t help themselves.

National Party pundits have claimed that the Conservative Party denied John Key an outright majority, but that’s old-fashioned First Past the Post thinking (maybe that’s all their pundits, being old timers, are capable of). National got less than 50% of the vote, so under MMP they should have less than 50% of the seats in Parliament. Colin Craig being there or not doesn’t change that in the least—particularly because there’s no reason to think all those votes would have gone to National. Not every conservative is a Tory, after all.

And, if you want to be technical about it—Tories love facts and figures, right?—roughly one third of eligible voters supported National. So, if only one third of eligible voters backed National, why is it again they should be able to govern alone? LOL, as they say.

Tories hate MMP—they can’t help it, it’s in their DNA. They can’t accept that people unlike themselves should have a voice, or that the majority should rule if it disagrees with them. They believe we’d all be better off if we just shut up and did as they say. So the fact that MMP did exactly as it was supposed to do makes me as happy as it makes Tories grumpy (which makes me happier still). MMP governments are always coalitions, so far, and the power of the largest party is checked by smaller parties. But, then, having read my posts on the electoral system, you already know the inherent superiority of MMP, right?

The bottom line is that I was ecstatic to see the New Zealand public support MMP, even as it handed power to its most strident enemies. There’s a justice in that.

However, since they won, the Nats weren’t my source of happiness this year. Instead, it was the teacup caper. Months ago, when the hapless has-been, Don Brash, took over the Act Party in a coup, he declared that the party would win 15 MPs. Never has schadenfreude been filled with more freude (joy) than this, seeing Don Brash crash in flames. He deserves it. One of the most reviled men in New Zealand politics is now gone—surely one of the best results of the night. Sadly, though, it could be three years until we’re rid of loopy John Banks, but by then not even a cup of tea will save him.

For 2014, I think that Green and Labour voters have to get over themselves and not be so friggin’ prissy about strategic voting. Together they could have rid New Zealand of both the useless “Act Party” (which is, honestly, dead) or the insufferably pompous Peter Dunne. But they were far too pure to be sullied in that way. Whatever, tossers: It’s you’re fault those has-beens are in Parliament.

Okay, those are my random thoughts for this year. We’ve had enough of this campaign—or, I have, anyway. Now it’s time to look forward.

Thresholds

The one thing that’s clear about this year’s election is that MMP was the victor: It worked as it’s designed to and delivered what it always does: Governments with shared power. This is all very good news, indeed.

But once again the five percent threshold came up for debate. In 2008, it was New Zealand First, which got more Party Votes than Act, but still didn't get any seats because it didn’t get 5% of the Party Vote and didn't win an electorate as Act did. This year, it was two other parties who were left out of Parliament. Again pundits are asking, should the threshold be eliminated so there are almost no “wasted” votes?

As things stand at the moment, subject to change when the special votes are counted, the NZ National Party only needs the two one-person rightwing parties (United Future and Act) to have a majority. If they lose a seat after the specials, they’ll need the Maori Party’s three seats more than they do now, but in the unlikely event they lose two seats, they’ll need the Maori Party to govern.

The “Act Party” is only in Parliament because John Banks won Epsom. Banks is not an Act Party person (he’s a dyed-in-the-wool Nat) and, like Peter Dunne, he isn't a party any more than Jim Anderton’s Progressive Party was in the last Parliament. Yet they all received seats in Parliament because they won electorates.

At Public Address, Graeme Edgeler has crunched the numbers and worked out what Parliament would look like if there was no threshold (apart, I’m guessing, from having enough support for one whole MP). Here are his results (keep in mind that all these numbers will almost certainly change once the special votes are counted):

National would have 57 seats (instead of the 60 they appear to have won), United Future and Act would both still have one seat and the Maori Party would still have 3 (because they all won electorates, but their Party Vote wasn't high enough for any more MPs), for a total of 62 seats for the government in a 121-seat Parliament. That’s a bare majority, but a majority.

The Opposition would be Labour 33 (down one), while the Greens would still have 13, New Zealand First would still have 8 (both won no electorate seats) and Mana would still have one (they did win an electorate seat, but had low Party Vote).

Those four seats taken off the two main parties would go to Colin “God Bless” Craig’s Conservative Party (3) and the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party (or ALCP, 1).

Would we want that? On the one hand, if enough people vote for a party that their share of the Party Vote would entitle them to one MP, why shouldn’t they be in Parliament? MMP is about proportionality, ensuring that Parliament matches the support parties have. As things are, the 5% threshold—which is an entirely arbitrary number—means thousands of voters are effectively disenfranchised.

On the other hand, entertaining though it might be, clearly the vast majority of New Zealanders don’t want the ALCP in Parliament, so maybe it’s not so unfair to have a threshold. If MMP, and it’s encouragement of coalition government, works to put a brake on the party that forms government, should we not have a brake at the other end—stopping single-issue or activist parties?

I simply don’t know; in fact, I can see merit in both arguments. But the system the way it is not only disenfranchises those who vote for tiny-to-small parties, it also effectively suppresses their support because voters won’t want to waste their vote on a party they perceive as not being able to win a seat in Parliament (usually due to public opinion polling). Who’s to say that Act and United Future wouldn’t have had more Party Votes if those votes weren’t wasted? And National’s self-interested deals in Ohariu, Epsom, New Plymouth, and so on wouldn’t have been needed.

Also, much as I am totally opposed to Colin Craig’s fundamentalist Christian-aligned Conservative Party, if they can win so many votes, do they not deserve to be represented in “the people’s house”? Doesn’t the ALCP? Is democracy not better served by more democracy, more representation, not less? Or, is a “gatekeeper” function also important? Honestly, I’m not sure.

Assuming that MMP’s lead holds and it is retained, as seems likely, then the independent review that follows may help us work out what’s best. I can’t decide how I feel about the threshold; I hope the review helps us all clarify our thinking about it.

Not surprised

I’m not surprised by the election results—not really, anyway. The result was tighter than the polls indicated, as I said it would be. I hadn’t counted on such a low voter turnout, which will be maybe 68% at most, when all is said and done. Apparently it’s the lowest since the 1880s. That’s disgusting in its own right, but it’s probable that most of the voters who stayed home were Labour’s. Just like 2008.

In fact, the results overall are very similar to 2008: The split between the centre-left and the centre-right was pretty much the same, but the resurrection of Winston Peters and his New Zealand First Party, along with the surge of the Green Party, rearranged things.

The important thing is that National did not get enough seats to govern alone, and there’s a huge part of Parliament that opposes National’s plans to sell state-owned assets to foreigners. Whether the opposing parties can collectively stop National or not can’t be known right now, but it’s at least possible; if National had won enough seats to govern alone, there would have been no chance of stopping them.

Tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep, I’ll offer my full take on the results, along with a more in-depth discussion of what the results mean. I’ll also talk about what the centre-left, Labour in particular, needs to do over the next three years.

But tonight there are some sad people, some happy people and—apparently—a huge number of people who just don’t give a shit. That’s the nature of democracy.

To comply with the law

I have temporarily turned on comment moderation on this blog. You can still leave a comment, but it won’t be posted until after 7pm Saturday NZDT (1AM Saturday EST), after the polls have closed. I’m doing this to comply with New Zealand election law, which apparently mandates that I turn off comments (even though the law was enacted in 1993…). I’ll update this post after I’ve re-enabled un-moderated comments.

Also, I won't be posting anything here until after 7pm tomorrow. Apparently a new post might draw eyes to my previous election posts. Or something.

P.S. Two ticks Labour and vote to Keep MMP!! (I can say that because I’m posting this before midnight…)

Update 26/11/11: Now that polls have closed, comments are once again unmoderated, so they will post immediately. Thank you for your patience.

How I will vote

After months of thinking about the election, hours reading party policies and no small amount of agonising over my vote, I’ve reached my final decision for election day: I’ll be giving Two Ticks to Labour.

When I say I was agonising, I’m not kidding in the least. As I said yesterday, “I’ve been voting for 34 years, and I have never been this conflicted.” In the end, it all came down to one basic point: The purpose of the Party Vote is to vote for the party I want to form government, and that is and always has been, Labour.

I admire the Greens—a lot. I want them to be part of Government—a Labour Government. I considered giving them my Party Vote because of how well they ran their campaign, but that was only possible because they—from my point of view—have matured as a party, drafting policies that middle New Zealand can support. Their party list includes many capable and talented people who would be a credit to Parliament.

But my “home”, if you will, is Labour: I’ve voted “Two Ticks Labour” since 1999, the first New Zealand election in which I was eligible to vote. But my support, while probable, is never a certainty and Labour has to continue earning my vote. I’ll admit that there have been times over the past three years when they really pissed me off. At other times I’ve cheered them. Those times have been more frequent.

Labour has, on the whole, run a good campaign. If we’d seen the Phil Goff of the last few weeks during the past three years, I think the poll numbers would be very different. New Zealanders agree with me on that, too: Goff’s polling as preferred prime minister has been rising steadily in recent weeks.

National never had a chance of getting my vote. There is a fundamental divide between us that I just can’t see being bridged (I don’t say “never”, but the phrase “highly unlikely” springs to mind). I don’t like John Key and I can’t understand why anybody else does (apart from Tories). On this blog, I’ve highlighted many of the things I vehemently disagree with Key about (my opposition to his idiotic plan to sell off state owned assets to foreigners is probably the most widely shared), but the one thing I can’t get past is him telling GLBT voters that National is “pro-gay” because they didn’t take away any of our rights in their first term. Gee, thanks, John.

GLBT issues are not my sole criteria, or even my main ones, but I certainly take then very seriously. I’m keenly aware that nearly all of the legal progress for GLBT New Zealanders has happened during Labour governments. Labour brought many GLBT people into their Parliamentary caucus. Labour Leader Phill Goff—unlike Key—is a clear supporter of fairness and justice. While both Labour and the Greens support adoption reform, only the Greens clearly support marriage equality. As I said a long time ago, this is not a deal-breaker for me, and I will continue to urge Labour to take a clear, unequivocal stand in favour of marriage equality. They eventually will, and we all know it.

So why did I consider the Greens? It wasn’t just an effective campaign or good party leaders and candidates. Part of it was that I wanted a strong Green caucus to pull Labour back leftward after years of the party crossing the centre line to the rightwing side too often. In recent weeks, with the poll numbers looking so abysmal, I looked to the Greens as the best shot at stopping National’s insane plans to sell off state owned assets. But this only works if National has trouble getting the numbers to form government. Also, it means, ultimately, supporting a National-led government, and I do not want that at all.

A quick aside on polls: The final election results are unlikely to mirror the polls. I’ve never seen an election campaign where poll numbers haven’t moved: The breathless, incompetent reporting of the newsmedia aside, support levels have all been pretty much within the margin of error all along, meaning little or no movement. Either something is wrong with the polls this year, or this is something I’ve never seen before. I’m betting on the former.

My electorate vote for the Labour candidate was decided a long time ago, not coincidentally because it’s also my only vote that doesn’t matter: National will win this electorate easily, probably with a large majority. If we could vote for our electorate MP using Preferential Voting, as I think we should do, it might be different. But, for now, this is a very Tory electorate.

I’m not going to rehash all the things I oppose about National, or the things that I support in Labour, though many of both are highlighted in the Labour videos I’ve posted on this blog. We had a whole campaign season to talk about those issues.

In the end, it all came down to the same thing I started out with: I want to change the government and I want a Labour-led Government. That’s what matters to me, and that’s why I’m going to Party Vote Labour.

Still an undecided voter

Above is the closing broadcast for the New Zealand Labour Party, and below is the closing broadcast for the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand. Both of these, along with the closing broadcasts of other parties, will be shown on television tomorrow night.

These are the only two parties that could get my Party Vote. Both have run strong campaigns. Which one should I choose?

During the course of this election campaign I’ve swung back and forth between the two parties, sometimes sure I’d party vote one, other times certain it would be for the other. This is why I haven’t posted anything about how I’m voting in the general election: I simply can’t make up my mind.

I’ve been voting for 34 years, and I have never been this conflicted before. Nevertheless, time’s running out and I need to decide—somehow—how to cast the most important of my two votes in the general election.

And so I remain stuck: These are the only two parties that could get my Party Vote. Which one should I choose?

Final thoughts on the referendum

Just over a month ago, I wrote that I was going to vote to keep MMP. I said:

“Of all the decisions I’ve had to make about voting in the election this year, one was never in doubt: I’ll be voting to keep MMP. Naturally, I hope all other New Zealanders will, too.”

Since then, my desire to see MMP retained has only strengthened aided, if I’m honest, by more in depth study of the proposed alternatives. I basically knew how they all operated, but after looking into them more deeply, I became not just committed to keeping MMP, but an ardent advocate. I know I convinced at least one other person to change their position and support MMP.

All the NZ elections I’ve personally seen have been under MMP. The last one under the old First Past the Post system was in 1993—18 years ago. MMP was selected because of the huge unfairness of FPP, that it delivered minority governments, like the autocratic rule of Robert Muldoon, which was replaced by the only alternative, Labour, which itself had been taken over by neoconservatives because they couldn’t take over National under Muldoon.

Meanwhile, third parties got nowhere, and ordinary New Zealand voters were unrepresented, frustrated and often disenfranchised. MMP was the antidote.

MMP is the most fair and democratic voting system I’ve seen. Its proportionality ensures that the make-up of Parliament mirrors the will of the people. It has encouraged the growth of many smaller parties, increasing the representativeness of Parliament. That’s been strengthened even more by the huge increase in diversity: More woman, more Maori, Pacific Islanders and other ethnic minorities, more GLBT representation—in short, it’s created a Parliament that looks much more like New Zealand than anything FPP would ever have delivered.

No system is perfect, of course, and if MMP is retained, an independent review will look at ways of improving it. So, if we vote to keep MMP, we can make it even better.

I wrote a lot about the alternative voting systems because I think it’s important to explain fully why I support MMP and reject the alternatives (also, I did spend a lot of time studying them…). Here’s a reminder of what I think about the alternatives, along with links to the complete posts:

First Past the Post – it’s unfair, undemocratic and unrepresentative. It’s a total non-starter. MMP is vastly superior.

Supplementary Member – It’s just FPP in fancy-dress: It has all the problems of FPP, with none of the benefits of MMP, the truly proportional system.

Preferential Voting – This is a good alternative to FPP, but only for electorate votes. Because it’s not proportional, it’s not any more representative than FPP. When it comes to deciding the make-up of Parliament, it pales in comparison to MMP.

Single Transferable Vote – While it’s somewhat proportional, it’s far less so than MMP, and it tends to concentrate power in the hands of the main parties. So, STV is far less representative than MMP. It’s also really complicated. MMP beats it easily.

There is a discussion among some of my leftie friends about how to vote in Part B of the referendum: “If New Zealand were to change to another voting system, which voting system would you choose?” Some lefties are saying we should vote for FPP because MMP already beat it and would easily do so again. I’m not convinced. After 18 years, do people remember how undemocratic FPP is? I’d guess not, because it’s polling highest among the alternatives; maybe voters just don’t know what the other systems are.

The government has produced some brilliant resources for explaining the alternatives, but most voters have no idea they’re there, because the public awareness part of the campaign hasn’t been big enough. So, maybe people choose an alternative they already know.

If voters vote to keep MMP, the alternative chosen won’t matter, of course. And even if MMP loses, there may not be a second referendum, anyway. Still, I’m not sure that it’s a good idea to take the chance that a non-proportional system might win.

For me, as I’ve said all along, STV is my very distant second choice. I will probably select it in Part B, unless between now and Saturday I see a really convincing argument to do otherwise. That doesn’t seem likely.

The bottom line is, as I said in my post about STV, “For me, the best system is one that’s democratic, proportional, representative, fair and easy to use and understand. MMP ticks all those boxes.”

Indeed it does. I hope we all vote to Keep MMP and make it even better.

For official information on the referendum, go to www.referendum.org.nz
For information from the campaign to Keep MMP, go to www.keepmmp.org.nz

STV is a distant second choice

The final MMP alternative Kiwi voters will be offered on Saturday is Single Transferable Vote, or STV (the official video is above). It’s the only one of the alternatives that’s a proportional system, but it’s vastly inferior to MMP. It’s also inarguably the most complicated of all the systems, and difficult for most voters to fully understand.

Like Preferential Voting (PV), STV has voters rank candidates, but there are a lot more to contend with than in any of the other systems. Rather than having many single-member electorates, STV has fewer electorates, each of which would have between 3 and 7 MPs.

Voters would rank individual candidates in their order of preference, like in PV, and could choose them from among many parties. Or, they could vote for the ranking chosen (and published in advance) by their party. In Australian Senate elections, they call this voting “above-the-line”.

To be elected, a candidate needs to win a certain minimum number of votes, but unlike PV, this won’t be a majority. The threshold is called the “Drood quota” and is determined by taking the number of voters in the electorate and dividing that by the number of seats plus one. One is then added to the result and that number is the quota.

So, for example, take an imaginary electorate with 100 votes and three candidates. It would be 100 divided by 3+1 (four), which is 25. Add one to that, and the quota is 26—the number of votes a candidate must win to be elected. Eyes glazed over yet? Any candidate who had 26 votes as first preference would be elected. If not, or if there are more candidates to elect, they eliminate the lowest polling candidate and that candidate’s votes are redistributed to the candidate ranked second by each voter of the removed candidate. This continues until all the available seats are filled by candidates who reach the quota.

I did say it was complicated!

In places where STV is used, the number of seats a party ultimately wins in Parliament are usually similar to their share of first preference votes, that is, the people who rank them number one, which is why this is a proportional system. However, this is not guaranteed, and it tends to encourage dominance by the larger parties, which is also a weakness of PV. Also, it’s not necessary for any candidate to have majority support, or even for them to be anywhere near majority support.

In its favour, the multi-member electorates means specific geographic regions have several advocates, which can be good for regional representation. However, under our version of MMP, parties usually try and balance their party lists not just geographically, but also including many other factors. So, MMP party caucuses end up more representative of the country as a whole, and in far more ways than by geography alone. People who value regional representation more highly than representativeness overall would prefer STV. Those who want a Parliament that looks like the people who elected it would prefer MMP.

I truly believe that the greatest drawback to STV is its complexity. I have a bachelor’s degree in political science and I only now understand how it works, after studying it intensely as I considered my vote in the referendum. Because of my educational background, I’m probably more inclined to want to study the system and to have the patience to learn how it works. If after 15 years many Kiwi voters still claim that they still don’t know how the much simpler MMP works, how likely is it that they’ll understand STV?

For me, the best system is one that’s democratic, proportional, representative, fair and easy to use and understand. MMP ticks all those boxes, STV only a few. So if, under pain of death, I was forced to choose an alternative to MMP, it would be STV, but it such a distant second choice as to not really be a choice at all.

I’m voting to Keep MMP.

For official information on the referendum, go to www.referendum.org.nz
For information from the campaign to Keep MMP, go to www.keepmmp.org.nz

PV has some merit

Yesterday I talked about the two worst alternatives to MMP in Saturday’s referendum: First Past the Post (FPP) and FPP’s fancy-dress cousin, Supplementary Member (SM). Today, in separate posts, I’ll talk about the two alternatives that have some merit. First up, Preferential Voting (PV).

The video above is the official explanatory video for the Preferential Voting system, also known as “Alternative Voting” and “Instant Run-Off Voting.” The video at bottom is CGPGrey’s explanation.

Preferential Voting is a vast improvement on FPP, but unlike SM, there’s no proportionality at all. The two main ways PV improves on FPP are that winners have majority support and it removes the spoiler effect. However, it’s only somewhat more likely to elect small party or independent candidates than is FPP.

It’s important to remember that PV is not intended to be proportional, but merely a fairer way of electing representatives. As such, it is a good replacement for FPP in places where proportional representation can’t be implemented, like the United States. If the US were to switch to PV, it’s probable that over time small party candidates could be elected, and it’s also likely that even candidates of the two main parties would be more representative and would pander less to their party base (this is especially true for Republicans).

By eliminating the spoiler effect, voters in PV can vote for the candidate they really want in their first preference without worrying that doing so might accidentally elect the candidate they least want. In PV, no vote is truly “wasted”, which is again different from FPP in which votes for minor party candidate are usually wasted votes.

Here in New Zealand, PV is no substitute for MMP—but they’re apples and oranges. In my perfect world, we would elect our electorate MPs using PV, while Parliament as a whole would be elected under MMP. To me, that would play to the strengths of both systems: The improvements PV makes to FPP are significant, and when combined with the proportionality of MMP, it would be a hugely fair, representative and democratic system.

But that’s not the question before us, and, dealing only with the one that is, I would not choose PV to replace MMP, which is a vastly superior system because of its proportionality. That leaves only one other possible alternative, and that’s in my next post on voting systems.

But, still, I’m voting to Keep MMP.



For official information on the referendum, go to www.referendum.org.nz
For information from the campaign to Keep MMP, go to www.keepmmp.org.nz

Election bites

There are always things that I want to comment on that don’t warrant a full blog post. Elections have such things in abundance. Here are a few.

Journos should go back to school

I know I harp on this a lot, but that’s because it annoys me so much: Journalists should not report on poll results unless they understand elementary statistics. Here’s an example from today: Tracy Watkins, reporting a new poll from Fairfax Media, opened her story with: “National has soared over the teapot tape saga and strengthened its grip on the election in the final days of the campaign.” Only trouble with that is that it’s utter bullshit.

National’s polling went up 1.5 percentage points, which is well within the margin of error. Put another way, National is still polling in the same range as it was in the last poll. National didn’t “strengthen its grip” and they certainly didn’t “soar”—in fact, it could be said that not only did they not go up, they may very well actually have gone down.

I’m not saying that Tracy Watkins deliberately misled readers in a way that would benefit National (because of the bandwagon effect, among or things)—even though that’s what she did. Instead, I’m saying that she doesn’t have even the most basic understanding of statistics and so isn’t qualified to report on opinion polls. She needs to go back to school, or at least start with Marcus Wilson’s post on poll statistics. Or, she could always cover garden tours or other less challenging topics.

Another debate: New Zealanders lost

TVNZ’s One News held their last leaders’ debate tonight. Smug Mr. Key showed up again. He looked irritated that he was even there. His answers were more slogan than anything else, but part of the blame for that lies with the open-ended questions that didn’t challenge either party leader.

The two most shocking bits were John Key being forced to admit that if re-elected, National would put a freeze on police recruiting—something they hadn’t planned on telling New Zealanders until after the election. John also expressed support for Supplementary Member voting system. As I said earlier today, it’s the system Tories think they could get (they won’t), so this wasn’t a surprise. But he outrageously claimed that SM would lead to more women and minorities!! How, exactly, would that even be possible in a system designed to stifle proportionate representation and so, diversity?

The losers were New Zealanders who had to endure the hapless and hopeless moderating of Guyon Espiner and frequent long commercial breaks (including the extended one for the Lotto draw!). We need a public service broadcaster, but we’ll never get that while National is in power.

Put out the Feelers

This is totally unimportant, but it’s something that baffles me. A segment of the active left seems to absolutely loathe The Feelers, the band whose song “Stand Up” National uses in their campaign ads, and the use of the song stiffens their dislike for the Tories. The thing is, I have no idea why people seem to hate the group so much. Okay, their song “Venus” is pretty vile (you’d be forgiven for thinking the refrain is “cum my little penis”), but most of their music is just bland and largely forgettable, so why the hatred?

Supplementary Member is FPP dressed up

Another voting system proposed as an alternative to MMP is Supplementary Member, or SM (official explanatory video above). It’s nothing more than First Past the Post (FPP) dressed up to look like a proportional system. It isn’t.

Under SM, the two main parties, Labour and National would dominate Parliament, almost always governing alone, just like FPP. Unlike FPP, small parties would have some representation in Parliament, but it would be a tiny fraction of their level of support among voters.

SM’s party vote would go to determine a party’s share of the 30 seats in Parliament (one quarter of all seats) set aside for that—regardless of how many electorate seats they’d won. So, if a party won 10% of the party vote, but no electorate seats, they’d get only three seats. That’s only 2.5% of the seats in Parliament, despite having 10% support of the voters. That’s just nuts.

Under MMP, the proportion of seats in Parliament is determined by the party vote. If a party has 10% of the party vote, it has 10% of the seats, and any electorate seats won are included in that total.

So, SM is slightly more democratic than FPP, but it is a pale, pale imitation of the real proportionality of MMP.

Pragmatic rightwingers like National Party leader John Key favour SM because it would give them one-party rule, which they want, while keeping a thin veneer of proportionality so as to sneak it by ordinary voters. The rightwing hopes that ordinary voters won’t notice that the Parliaments SM would deliver would be about as unrepresentative as the ones under FPP were. Basically, Key and the other conservatives know that the public doesn’t want FPP, so hope they’ll go for the FPP-lite that is SM.

So, just like FPP, I completely reject SM as an option. That leaves two other options, both of which have some merit, but I’ll discuss them in another post. Regardless, I’m voting to Keep MMP.

For official information on the referendum, go to www.referendum.org.nz
For information from the campaign to Keep MMP, go to www.keepmmp.org.nz