Well, well, well – look how quickly the hypocritical Right abandon ‘one person one vote’ when it’s politically inconvenient

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The saddest boy in the world with the loneliest robot

The bastardisation of ‘one person one vote’ that the Right have used to unleash a tsunami of racist anger towards co-governance is not only disgraceful, it’s also a total misrepresentation of democracy!

‘One person one vote’ isn’t the only value in Democracy, there are plenty of different values created within various democratic structures in countries we would absolutely recognise as a Democracy!

‘One person one vote’ has been twisted into the battlecry for the tyranny of the majority without even understanding the democratic structures they claim to be defending!

It’s like book burners demanding to know why their children can’t read.

There are numerous examples around the world of Democratic structures within a Democracy that aren’t just ‘one person one vote’. The Electoral College isn’t set up like that, neither is the Senate, nor the House of Lords and in NZ it is one person two votes, so the entire ‘one person one vote’ sanctimony is made even more outrageous by the speed with which the right flip flop ‘One person one vote’ the moment it comes to people with multiple properties voting in multiple local council elections…

MPs’ views on multiple property-owners getting extra local votes

New Zealand has a rule where some ratepayers who own property and pay rates in different local body areas can have additional votes at the local body elections.

…oh don’t National and ACT change their tune the millisecond their privileges are highlighted?

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

The moment it’s about them and their rich mates who own multiple properties around the country and who get to vote in multiple elections, suddenly ‘One person one vote’ gets thrown under an unsubsidised Bus route that’s running late, yet when it’s co-governance with Māori, they morph into the saviour defenders of the true Western Democratic Faith?

It’s like Brian Tamaki championing freedom of autonomy (except when it comes to drugs, abortion and anal sex). It’s not really freedom of autonomy if you have to get permission from the Bish first.

The naked hypocrisy of the right to twist ‘One person One Vote’ into a negative egalitarian garrotte around the throat of Democracy while screaming ‘we-are-saving-democracy’ is performative art for Fascists.

ACT are on 11% despite promising to implement hard right conflict policy that could implode into a race war by Māori refusing point blank to allow hard won rights to simply be stripped from them because Chris Luxon is too stupid to stop David Seymour.

The counter backlash to this vast polarisation is a huge jump in non-voting Māori stepping back into the universal suffrage because of the shrillness of the Right’s anti-Māori tactics.

TDB has been arguing for some time that 2023 will be one of our most polarised, it will be won and lost on who Kiwis are most frightened by, an ACT/National Government or a Labour/Green/Māori Party Government.

As more non-voting Māori step back into voting, their numbers will grow, making a Labour/Green/Māori Party Government more likely, which will terrify the Right and cause them to become even more extreme in their racism.

Each side will enflame the other.

In ever increasing and alarmingly violent rhetoric.

Because MMP has always brought in moderating forces like NZ First, the pent up political expression of the Right and the Left has been building for almost a quarter of a century and will finally be expressed next year and with the amplification of anger will result in an election that will see resentment whichever side wins.

When you dog whistle up the worst angels of our nature by manufacturing existential threats to democracy, you generate a confrontation that you are ultimately responsible for.

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55 COMMENTS

  1. For the 1st time ever considering not voting because the self-serving ratfuckers on the right or the woke useless losers on the left are equally abhorrent.
    Is it too much to ask for a new socialist party that isn’t up to the eyeballs in woke bullshit and just flat out incompetent?

      • Definitely the best option for anyone considering not voting due to all sides being rotten is to make a protest vote. If nothing else it sends a message that X number of people care more about weed law reform than anything else being offered by the main parties. Hopefully this may encourage them to act on the issue.

        Besides I just love seeing a weed leaf on ballot papers each time I vote. Reminds me of what I need to do once I,m finished voting.

  2. I would have thought that the concept of multiple property owners being permitted multiple votes is NOT democratic. Rather this approach is the exact type of tyranny that democracy was seeking to usurp.

  3. If you have properties in multiple regions, you should be able to vote in those local body elections as you are a rate payer in that area & the delivery of core council services (water, sewerage, rubbish, roads etc) in that area is of direct concern to you.

    Voting only in your primary residence area, won’t fix the issues with rating costs or rubbish collection for your holiday home in another region. If you are a rate payer in an area, you should be able to influence how those rates are spent. This is democracy.

    • Exactly. Unfortunately it’s unsurprising how many people wilfully choose to distort the truth to suit their political purposes.

      • No point in paying rates on your bach in Wanaka, if you have no influence on how that money is spent or what services are provided. Isn’t democracy wonderful, you get to vote for your representatives, instead of having political appointees forced on you.

  4. I agree that we have different political values in a democratic society and not simply a ‘one person, one vote’ mentality.

  5. Of course, if you donate $100000 to both major parties, it doesn’t matter how many votes you have or even who you vote for, you’ll still have considerably more influence & political access than someone whose only political action is to tick two boxes every three years.

  6. In your ‘MPs’ Views’ attachment, Nicola Willis talks hypocritical gobbledegook.
    No surprises there!

  7. Comparing NZ’s Westminster based democracy system to the USA republic is evidence of your total lack of understanding of our unique Democracy. There is no tyranny of the majority, there was under first past the post.Which was used as a gerrymander by National. We have MMP which has removed that. The issue with multiple property owners being able to vote across local elections is a symptom of our poorly organized and resourced electoral office.Cross referencing and specific legislation to prevent multiple voting is not complicated. But it is WORK. There it is again that alien concept. We have a bunch of self serving twats running our country regardless of which party is in power. And a greedy pack of mongrels in the public service. No one gives a fuck.
    Using this idiotic anomaly as an example for the instating the backward/destructive step change of elitist ethno -nationalism / tribalism speaks more of the shallow deceitful greedy and opportunistic putsch for power by the useless troughers behind Ardern than anything of real substance that would progress our nation. You really do not understand what you are talking about when it comes to NZ’s democracy .

    • In 1984-1990. If folks can remember. NZ wasn’t a democracy.

      Have a watch of this!
      Roger, Lange, Goff, Trotter, Myers etc… all at the trough.

      Someone Else’s Country looks critically at the radical economic changes implemented by the 1984 Labour Government — where privatisation of state assets was part of a wider agenda that sought to remake New Zealand as a model free-market state. The trickle-down ‘Rogernomics’ rhetoric warned of no gain without pain, and here the theory is counterpointed by the social effects (redundant workers, Post Office closures).

      https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/someone-elses-country-1996

    • ‘Using this idiotic anomaly as an example for the instating the backward/destructive step change of elitist ethno -nationalism / tribalism’ Is there any Pakeha elites in NZ?

    • Agree Shona. Local Govt representation is one thing but garnering further General Election votes through different property holdings is a whole nother kettle of fish. However most NZers (and some here) dont realise how loose our electoral processes have been allowed to become. Why else are we seeing electoral reform bills and electoral funding issues? They have been getting away with it for years and they are all doing it.

      Labour pushes for 16 yr olds to vote having captured the school curriculum and academic training of teachers and for crims to get the vote – all for their advantage. If the Nats then push for extra votes for property holders at the General Election, it is pretty much the same thing. As is tampering with electorate boundaries and Maori wards.

      Martyn knows this puts the boot into the other side when he sees it and fair enough (They are a deliciously ineffective target) but he is just muddying the water. We live in an imperfect system but it doesnt mean that democracy should be changed up in favour of minority causes. Equality of opportunity is almost doable but equity of outcome is an impossibility so the more money we throw at it, the more the majority of NZers suffer.

  8. Liberal democracies globally are on a decline By 2019, it was clear
    that the liberal international order was in deep trouble. The tectonic plates that
    underpin it are shifting, and little can be done to repair and rescue it. Indeed,
    that order was destined to fail from the start, as it contained the seeds of its
    own destruction.

    The fall of the liberal international order horrifies the Western elites who
    built it and who have benefited from it in many ways. These elites fervently
    believe that this order was and remains an important force for promoting
    peace and prosperity around the globe yet these same individuals help promote war and tyranny.

    The West is fucked!!!

  9. Yes agree yet another example of more hypocrisy from Seemore just like his recent trip to Samoa with him talking about the importance of relationships when he doesn’t value relationships with Tangata Whenua in his own country. And Seemore is quick to put the boot into our TOW and wants to get rid of our Maori seats (not created by us but by past governments to keep power and control over us as a people) Now in my view his attendance was a waste of my taxes.

  10. Yes agree yet another example of more hypocrisy from Seemore just like his recent trip to Samoa with him talking about the importance of relationships when he doesn’t value relationships with Tangata Whenua in his own country. And Seemore is quick to put the boot into our TOW and wants to get rid of our Maori seats (not created by us but by past governments to keep power and control over us as a people) Now in my view his attendance was a waste of my taxes.

  11. If you wish to fundamentally change the way democracy works in NZ you should seek the peoples consent
    What we have instead is middle class woke virtue signalling
    I agree we may be heading for a violent reaction
    . Maybe you should blame the people that are trying to tweak democracy

  12. I… I can’t do it. I’m trying, I really am. But I just can’t keep looking at that innocent little heater, standing there doing its very best beside that furniture upholstery. I mean, just look at it? What colour is that? Is that colour somewhere between a post curry vomit and diarrhoea session? That ‘occasional’ table..? Is that a repurposed Elephant IUD? And that colour scheme on the walls… OMG. Beige on beige on beige.
    The bleak austerity infused tacky and gag worthy 1980’s anti-Christ-like decorative theme is why I’m so thankful I’ve aged beyond that period. That room is a vacuum within which all taste, style and panache disappears into a feeling similar to that of when you’re drunk and you’re just about to fall over in front of virgins and their fathers at the wedding reception for the rebellious one who flew the coup to dabble in diddles.
    Thankfully, just like the 1980’s, all that tacky, nasty shit will become an ever unwanted memory of a dreadful, deceitful time that makes all other times both past and no doubt in the future seem wonderful by comparison. Ick,ick,ick.
    The Guardian.
    “Got the ick? When a sudden pang of disgust ruins your romance”
    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jul/31/got-the-ick-when-a-pang-of-disgust-ruins-your-romance

    • Nailed it CB, that tacky futuristis retro throwback heater has also captured my imagination for weeks!!!

  13. I agree that all this wanking on about local bodies and democracy by the right for things like water infrastructure is laughable because you will find the entity approach can be traced back to National anyway.

    That being said isn’t this issue about being able to vote in local elections as a rate payer if you own property in that particular area? It’s not like if you own 4 houses in central Auckland you get four votes in central Auckland. You still only get one. If you also own in Rotorua then you could vote in that local election as a non resident ratepayer as well. Does that matter? I guess if you somehow vote in candidates in both locations that get access to government funding for projects you could argue its like two bites, but really?

  14. Does it also mean one set of rates? I mean what is good for the goose is good for the gander right?

  15. 1 person one vote isn’t the only democratic value but without it none of the other democratic values are possible..sorry to rain on your parade martyn

  16. An autocratic regime that doesn’t allow voting can be democratic if the ruler heeds public opinion and acts accordingly.

    • Stretching Mike, who decides who and what the leader decides is important? What about freedom of speech and expression? An autocratic regime will always be tyrannical on some level .

  17. This is not just an issue for rich bach owners. What about the many owners of communally owned Maori land? Surely the same voting principle applies to them as well and can’t imagine they will be too pleased if they can’t vote in local body elections where they have ownership.

  18. Two questions

    1. What other form of democracy has been established and consistently more successful than one person, one vote?

    2. Where has a Tribal / Clan based governance model been more successful than a democratic one person, one vote model?

  19. This whole thread is can only be one of 2 things. A good old school wind up or ‘grasping at straws’.

  20. All an election seems to be is a shuffle of seats and the same old tired faces with no new ideas.
    National always come to power and make life for the rich easier while imposing restrictions on the poor.
    Undercutting employees ability to save and get ahead while charging an absolute fortune for products.
    Labour makes huge promises to fix such things but all they seem to acheive is a bunch of long winded reviews which results in fuck all change, the lack of rebalance taken over 30 odd years of this crap and its no wonder we’re all basically earning the minimum wage and half of us living in rentals.
    It doesnt matter who you vote for here, they are only going to help rich people.
    If there were a check box on voting papers for a vote of no confidence in all politicians, I would tick that box.

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