There is no doubt that democracy as we know it is under serious threat here in New Zealand.
Over recent years we have been given the choice to vote on three significant matters – all of which have a direct affect on our lives.
We could vote for members of our District Health Board so that provision of health services had some local flavour. And what’s happened? A corrupt government sacked our locally and democratically elected members and has replaced them with a commissioner. Everyone knows, that commissioner has that many other jobs – some government appointed – that he will be a figurehead in Hawkes Bay only. Despite his undoubted talents he will be a puppet whose strings are pulled in Wellington.
We could vote for up to 12 people to represent us on our local Napier City Council. Some boof-headed bureaucrats in Wellington forced a ridiculous partial ward system on us and we can now only vote for 7 or 8. This half-baked system is already causing tension in council and it simply has to go. As I have said so often – you can drive from one side of Napier to the other in 10 minutes, we are one big ward. Wards, or even worse, a partial ward system is simply devisive in such a compact electorate.
We could vote for the political party we wanted to run the country and have some idea what sort of government we could get.
Under MMP we could end up with one of the major parties getting more than 50 per cent of the party vote and yet have a government that doesn’t include that party and is controlled by the Maori Party. In fact that is what the polls are suggesting right now.
I wonder if the poor misguided sods who voted for MMP ever thought they would end up with a government which is controlled by a party whose candidates are selected on a racial basis.
I bet they did not.
Peter Dunne of the United Future Party is calling for a referendum in 2010 to determine our future voting system.
I for one will be supporting that call and continuing to show how stupid the MMP system is in such a tiny country.
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