I am delighted that the government has announced that there will be a referendum on MMP although it appears to me that the long drawn out process is planned to fail.
No one likes change and the whole MMP process has been managed to give it time to be accepted before the question of its future as an electoral system is challenged.
But whilst I appear to be increasingly in the minority, I am still of the opinion that MMP is a ridiculous system.
Take the Napier electorate as an example – and I stress I am not critical of the people involved – I am strongly critical of the system.
We had an elected Labour MP – Russell Fairbrother. Along came the National candidate, Chris Tremain and he beat Russell fair and square. The people of Napier said “We want Chris Tremain to be our representative in the House of Representatives”. So off Chris went to Wellington but so did Russell. He was high enough on the list to get back in.
Then in to town on his big red charger rode Stuart Nash. He challenged Russell Fairbrother for the Labour nomination and lost. The Labour party said we don’t want you Stuart, we want Russell, so Stuart went off and began the restructure of the Art Deco Trust.
At the next election Chris Tremain trounced Russell Fairbrother and Russell went back to the private sector feeling like the lucky lion who had escaped from the zoo.
Then the odd Labour member decided to go and do something else and a vacancy occurred in Wellington. So they rang Stuart and said “How would you like a seat in the House of Representatives?”, and off Stuart went to Wellington.
Who is he representing? Chris Tremain is our elected representative – the Labour Party rejected Stuart – how can we possibly accept a system that has people sitting in our House of Representatives who represent no-one?
And what does an opposition list MP do all day? They’ve got no constituents, can achieve nothing in Wellington – frankly they are just a spare part – a spare part in an electoral machine that needs a full overhaul.
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