Your article raises a real conundrum that most parties must face when accepting candidates for the list, certainly the centre and right leaning ones anyway.
Consider the Nash affair. I feel, as despicable as I believe Finlayson is, he did NZF a favour by exposing Nash. Peters selection of him I believe was a brain fade moment, he had far too much baggage from the past.
Although MMP is IMHO not the ideal system we are stuck with it for the foreseeable future and must rely on the party hierarchy to make wise choices.
Yeah we want a system where we get " the slow cultivation of institutions, of manners, and of a political class that takes its trust seriously" but the speaker needs to uphold these standards. And he does not. The parties need to as well - but they don't for the most part, going for populists over genuinely good people. The system is fkd.
I suggest a one year course ( available online) in civics, economics, finance and so on that a candidate has to pass to be eligible for selection. That would weed out the truly thick (esp many in greens Maori party and Labour) and improve the skills and knowledge of those that have half a brain so that they might do better. Bonus that anyone could do the course snd the population might become better electors. They could even teach it in early high school!
Fascinating exposition, thank you. What we actually have in all parties is "Loyalty, factional service, years on the party executive and inoffensiveness to the leadership become the currencies of advancement". (The possible exception is the Greens who seem to operate on a rainbow box-ticking system.) I live in a central NI constituency which has returned National for every election in living memory. I once asked a friend what the current incumbent had ever done for the region and she said absolutely nothing but she's National so I'll vote for her. So safe seats still exist! What can now be added to the list of qualities for an MP is their suitability to survive the relentless scrutiny by the pervasive, often pernicious, public media, much of which has extremely low ethical constraints in spite of what they so-loudly proclaim. I went through the interesting exercise of what could get dredged up out of my past and the sort of spin that could be applied to it and shuddered. Nothing illegal you understand but much could be made of it. Thank heavens my days of political office are way over in my past.
Thanks for such a detailed/very comprehensive analysis David.
I don't think you (diplomatically) concluded with your view of Paul Henry's appointment, did you?
I hear he's now conducting a road-show around parts of the country...
I'm not sure that we replaced FPP with a better system being MMP. As you point out, it can enable a lot of MPs not accountable to an electorate (only to the party).
Given our MMP environment, and experiences with recent elections, I think the solution has to be multiple key issue referendums, that citizens get to vote (viz have the final say on) at the time of each election. So whatever party/coalition succeeds, they must implement the decisions of the majority of voters.
I say this after experiencing extreme disappointment with the last 2 elections in particular:
1. Labour's hidden/secret HePuapua agenda (if not in your manifesto, then unless we're into a war situation, a fresh election sb mandatory)
2. National's commitments (but failure) to address some of the worst race-related policies inherited from Labour.
In our current environment, I suggest Burke was wrong to reject the notion that Members should act as mere delegates carrying “authoritative instructions” or “mandates” from their voters.....
Your article raises a real conundrum that most parties must face when accepting candidates for the list, certainly the centre and right leaning ones anyway.
Consider the Nash affair. I feel, as despicable as I believe Finlayson is, he did NZF a favour by exposing Nash. Peters selection of him I believe was a brain fade moment, he had far too much baggage from the past.
Although MMP is IMHO not the ideal system we are stuck with it for the foreseeable future and must rely on the party hierarchy to make wise choices.
Yeah we want a system where we get " the slow cultivation of institutions, of manners, and of a political class that takes its trust seriously" but the speaker needs to uphold these standards. And he does not. The parties need to as well - but they don't for the most part, going for populists over genuinely good people. The system is fkd.
I suggest a one year course ( available online) in civics, economics, finance and so on that a candidate has to pass to be eligible for selection. That would weed out the truly thick (esp many in greens Maori party and Labour) and improve the skills and knowledge of those that have half a brain so that they might do better. Bonus that anyone could do the course snd the population might become better electors. They could even teach it in early high school!
Fascinating exposition, thank you. What we actually have in all parties is "Loyalty, factional service, years on the party executive and inoffensiveness to the leadership become the currencies of advancement". (The possible exception is the Greens who seem to operate on a rainbow box-ticking system.) I live in a central NI constituency which has returned National for every election in living memory. I once asked a friend what the current incumbent had ever done for the region and she said absolutely nothing but she's National so I'll vote for her. So safe seats still exist! What can now be added to the list of qualities for an MP is their suitability to survive the relentless scrutiny by the pervasive, often pernicious, public media, much of which has extremely low ethical constraints in spite of what they so-loudly proclaim. I went through the interesting exercise of what could get dredged up out of my past and the sort of spin that could be applied to it and shuddered. Nothing illegal you understand but much could be made of it. Thank heavens my days of political office are way over in my past.
Thanks for such a detailed/very comprehensive analysis David.
I don't think you (diplomatically) concluded with your view of Paul Henry's appointment, did you?
I hear he's now conducting a road-show around parts of the country...
I'm not sure that we replaced FPP with a better system being MMP. As you point out, it can enable a lot of MPs not accountable to an electorate (only to the party).
Given our MMP environment, and experiences with recent elections, I think the solution has to be multiple key issue referendums, that citizens get to vote (viz have the final say on) at the time of each election. So whatever party/coalition succeeds, they must implement the decisions of the majority of voters.
I say this after experiencing extreme disappointment with the last 2 elections in particular:
1. Labour's hidden/secret HePuapua agenda (if not in your manifesto, then unless we're into a war situation, a fresh election sb mandatory)
2. National's commitments (but failure) to address some of the worst race-related policies inherited from Labour.
In our current environment, I suggest Burke was wrong to reject the notion that Members should act as mere delegates carrying “authoritative instructions” or “mandates” from their voters.....