Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Andrew Dickens: Split voting is undemocratic

Transcript

Andrew Dickens: Split voting is undemocratic · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: To the split voting thing. In the weekend, papers were
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: full of full-page ads paid for by a group called RCR. Now,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: this appears to be the vessel for Don Brash and
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Nick Mowbray to promote their tactical voting tactic to create
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: an overhang that could benefit the centre-right. I've already said
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I don't like it. The same way Don Brash doesn't
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: like John Key telling people how to vote, I don't
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: like people telling people how to vote. And, of course,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: their platform, this is Don and Nick, benefits in that
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: they have the money to buy the ads, so they're
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: out there trying to influence voters. Now, people have accused
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: me of not liking it because Don and Nick are
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: trying to benefit the centre-right. No, I don't like the
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: way Te Pāti Māori are doing it either. And if
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: the left were to do it, I wouldn't like it
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: as well. If, say, Jim Anderton, who was a multimillionaire socialist,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: had tried it back in the day, I would have
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: called that out as well. And now, of course, National
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: has said the sweetheart deal with ACT in Ebsen is over. Again,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: they're telling people how to vote. And they have been
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: telling people to vote for David Seymour for ages now.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: So they're all as bad as each other. And the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: problem with MMP is that we have two votes. So
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: we use our first and then we actually play around
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: with the second. So I actually looked over the weekend
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: at what might happen if we had just one vote
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: that counted for both the electorate MPs and the list MPs.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: to create a proportional parliament. Could it work? Will there
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: have been studies? Yes, it could. It's not as subtle.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: It's a bit simplistic. And it could still cause an
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: overhang if parties win more electorates than their national voting
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: share entitles them to. But not having the second vote
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: would certainly stop all this jiggery-pokery and attempts to game
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: the system, which seems somewhat undemocratic to me. For more
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Talk ZB from 5 a.m. weekdays or follow the podcast
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio.