Why are the Greens attempting to gerrymander MMP legislation to benefit them?

ByMartyn Bradbury

Gimmie change for ME and MY mates!

Sensing their slip to under 5%, the Greens seem to have decided that gerrymandering MMP for their benefit in time for the 2020 Election is preferable to dumping the Middle Class Woke Identity Politics that is making them so alienating and unelectable in the first place.

Great strategy, refuse to compromise on fringe ideology that makes the People’s Front of Judea look popular…

…and then just change the voting system to only benefit them.

I expect this kind of ruthless corruption of the electoral system from National or ACT (and MANA on a good day when undermining neoliberalism), but from the Greens it’s inspirational stuff that sings to the anarchistic hate spider of nihilism that slowly envelops my once optimistic heart.

Note that it’s not 1%, 2%  or 3% which would be an honest solution to the issue of MMP not allowing enough voices and different ideas getting democratic traction, oh no, it’s 4%, the threshold that would most benefit the Greens while killing off any other proto-political movement.

What is most galling is the Greens seem to want to pass this in time for the 2020 election. Now put aside the naked self interest on display here, but such a decision, even if it happened, should require a 75% supermajority of Parliament, not just a basic 51%.

Why should the threshold be set at 4%? I don’t give two shits what the Royal Commission had to say in 1986 and I give even less weight to the Electoral Commission’s worthless nothings mouthed in 2012, if the argument is about giving proto political movements more chance of representation and a more democratic environment, why not 3% or 2%?

Why is it the threshold that will only serve the Greens & NZ First and why does it need to be rammed through by 2020?

Now, for the record, I completely agree Prisoners should be able to vote and foreign donations stopped.

I also believe the threshold should be lowered to 3% so that new political movements can gain representation, and I think the threshold changes need to be a supermajority or by referendum.

Those changes however are ones that would benefit the entire democratic eco-system, not just the Greens and NZ First.

Watch the Greens argue for a change that nakedly benefits them while trampling every other value is proof positive our Millennial Greens have come of age and are now as politically venal as everyone else.

My blackened heart swells with pride.

This is pretty ugly, and if it were the Right pulling these sorts of tactics we would be eviscerating them.

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54 Comments

  2. Could backfire on them BIG Time. The MMP threshold should probably be decided at a general election?

    National are likely deluded enough to believe they can magically bring in a support partner with a 4% threshold, and therefore be supportive of such legislation pre-election.

    I’m neither for nor against this so called ‘gerrymandering’ but I would laugh if the Greens fail to get back in – then again, Chlöe Swarbrick seems to be working out well.

    This is a tough one.

    1. Yes as someone who voted MANA/Internet Party not so long ago and had my vote completely discounted because this Party did not reach the threshold ( in fact much to my complete rage I think it went to the jonkey Nacts somehow )…I am inclined to think the threshold should be lowered

      On the other hand if it were to help the Nacts in for another nine years of self- interested devastation…then absolutely NO !

      1. +1 Red Buzzard

        Think if Mana came back and there was a lower threshold we might have ourselves a third left party…

        1. Or depending how far you see labour and greens as being left, with Mana returning, one left party…

          2. Dotcom is anti corporate interests if that is what you are alluding too, Sam.

            I believe $100k can buy you onto the party list, but it’s not the Mana party…

  3. In that case you could similarly argue that transNational were doing their own gerrymander by not taking up the recommendations of the Electoral Commission 2012 MMP Review as it was in their best interests to retain coat-tailing and a 5% threshold.
    Not quite sure why that Electoral Commission review is characterised as “worthless nothings mouthed in 2012”. They had over 5,000 submissions and, I thought, made a fair summary of those submissions despite my own preference being for a 3% threshold.
    In my view, the real distortion (gerrymander?) in MMP that needs to be dealt with is wasted votes. Where a voter votes for a party that fails to reach the threshold and gets their vote allocated to parties according to how other people voted. This is akin to pulling a voting papers out of the ballot box and changing the votes to other (more mainstream) parties. If that happened in a third-world country we’d call it vote rigging but we blithely accept it here as normal process.
    If you want voters to vote for smaller, newer parties without fear of those votes being allocated elsewhere then the wasted vote matter needs urgent attention.
    The solution: you vote for parties by preference nominating your preferential order. If your first preference party doesn’t meet the threshold then your second is counted, if that also fails look at the next preference and so on and stops as soon as your preference is for a party that meets the threshold.

    And, why do we still have FPP for electorate seats?

    1. Yes I agree the best reform would be to have preferential voting in the electorates (thus the winner gets to 50% first) and those who vote on the party list for parties below the threshold have their second preference counted instead.

      1. Excellent point SPC. That would make the system even fairer than it currently is!!

  4. We do not require any threshold at all, it’s only there to protect the main parties who are scared of the fringe. It would still require 20,000 votes to get a party into parliament and that is enough people to form a small city – hardly.

    Any other argument is a sign that the person involved doesn’t truly believe in representation

    I’ve always wondered what people think will happen if a party of one person got into parliament anyway – it’s not like they actually have a lot of effective power.

  5. Martyn, 3% would probably scare the voters too much. Anyway, because of the Green party, any other remotely credible left-wing party simply isn’t viable.

    I wish more left wing people would stop bleating from the sidelines and get involved in creating Green policy, there are definitely a few areas where we should be more progressive.

    1. It’s pretty obvious some want the Green Party removed because they imagine they can get a party in their own image policy and personality profile to replace it.

      Then there are those of Labour who resent the left having another party platform in parliament, and those on the right who fear the votes of liberals and environmentalists having a vehuicle for being permanentlky added to that of Labour.

      And the media is a vessel of corporate fear of social justice, support for workers and environment regulation.

      So they are a bit like the Kurds in our political landscape.

  6. The Greens are the Kurds of New Zealand politics. Attacked from all sides and their only friend are the mountains

    2. Ha, ha, at least the Greens have ended the high country sells offs and are banning the bag, apart from all the exceptions. Their hearts in the right place but maybe not up to the calibre of past Green leaders and MPs.

  7. The party of principles who gave their questions to National to beat them with, protecting our water by giving it to the Chinese now bravely championing MMP changes to solely benefit themselves.
    You have to question their leadership.
    Mad mad mad

    1. The greens aren’t giving our water to the Chinese….they are apposed to that. Dont let the facts get in the way whatever you do

  8. We should have lowered the threshold as recommended by the review on MMP in 2012?

  9. Just what did Mana do that was corrupt…. ?

    I expect this kind of ruthless corruption of the electoral system from National, ACT and MANA on

  10. In our current political climate the most likely beneficiary of lowering the threshold would be a socially conservative/Christian based party. Even though it would not be in the interests of those of us on the left in this specific climate, I nevertheless support abolishing the threshold altogether. I am prepared to tolerate 1 or 2 Destiny Church members or even joke parties.

  11. If the voting public number one and a half million?? Then 3% of that is 75,000. Shouldnt that kind of support be entitled to representation in parliament and isn’t it plainly unreasonable for it to be disallowed.

  13. Used to vote for the Greens all the time. To me they now they simply look embarrassing. This is unacceptable and not only stands to benefit the Greens but its alliance partners too.

  14. Sadly, the Greens have been sliding into political irrelevance for well over a decade because the party abandoned the core policies necessary to be genuinely green, instead promoting slight tweaking of business-as-usual as the way forward when slight tweaking of business-as-usual actually kept us on the path to collective ruination.

    We know it has been all about not scaring the voters by mentioning unpleasant facts, but decades of not scaring voters has put us in the collective situation of there now being a lot to be thoroughly scared about. And the bulk of the population remains unaware.

    In recent weeks record temperatures in NZ and elsewhere indicate we are on the cusp of dramatic changes to the environment (and therefore changes to the way we live) that nobody is prepared for, as the oceans heat up like never before in human history.

    Where are the Greens on this?

    ‘Heatwaves sweeping oceans ‘like wildfires’, scientists reveal
    Extreme temperatures destroy kelp, seagrass and corals – with alarming impacts for humanity’

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/04/heatwaves-sweeping-oceans-like-wildfires-scientists-reveal

  15. And by the way the word, gerrrymander, has nothing to do with threshhold levels, and where this is set has nothing to do with unfair electoral rules and practice.

  16. Sensible changes to the electoral system can only be made if the parties vote in a disinterested manner. Since the parliamentary parties seem to vote venally where electoral issues are concerned, I’m inclined to think the GG, in consultation with a committee of experts, should make these decisions without being bound by Parliament.

  17. Lower the threshold to 4%.

    Simple.

    Recommended.

    Political biases to one side.

    Representation will be increased in quality.

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