Alternate title: wealthy git does wealthy git things.
This guy is in for a rude awakening, we have a long history of telling rich pricks to fuck off out of our political system. Kim dotcom, Bob Jones, arguably Gareth Morgan. I don’t think we will be any kinder to this guy.
His interpretation that the votes are wasted is perhaps true, but the accusation that voters won’t get what they voted for is not. Seats are split by proportion of votes, splitting votes to get an overhang is not getting what they vote for, it’s manipulating the system.
I admit I said this was smart when Te Pati Māori suggested it, but for a party that small it didn’t matter. It’s no less smart here but this guy is looking to do widescale vote manipulation.
The supplementary member system he wants he has only chosen because he’s calculated that minor parties would get a smaller share and have less influence. But arguably this is less fair as minor parties would also have fewer seats than their share of the vote.
I think overhangs are inevitable if you’re going to combine electorates with a party vote, and until now they’ve been accepted fairly gracefully as a natural byproduct of the system we have.
I think people can try to engineer an overhang but it’s a double-edged sword: National now seems to regret the Epsom arrangement and in general the current possibility of an arrangement where they get many electorates but not much party vote means that they have to contend with the rise of Act and NZ First as significant right wing parties.
Any change towards a system that favours a two-party arrangement is one I’m not in favour of — it is good that we have representation of many perspectives in parliament, even if I disagree with at least half of them.
I’m still okay with the current system (though I want ranked choice voting rather than FPP) and I resent having to argue to defend it simply because this guy is splashing his money around.
