But the Greens did one hell of a lot better than Nader. What makes you think I voted for Labour and not the Greens? If you have anything to do with the Bill & Ben Party then you deserve to be congratulated for doing so well.

Interesting revelation Pete. How were they “socialized”, and by whom??

Socialisation simply refers to the “process whereby an individual acquires the modifications of behaviour and the values necessary for the stability of the social group of which he is or becomes a member.” (OED) In this case I’m referring to the inculcation of feminist values and ideas by educated women in particular at this time. And some men such as myself who associated with women who were feminists. In the seventies ‘consciousness raising groups’ were popular, there were books like The Women’s Room, feminist organizations, etc. It was a good thing of course — don’t get me wrong.

Yeah the witch is dead

This is spot-on. Time and time again I hear exactly these words from former Labour voters. In my view it’s time to get rid of a leader, any leader, any party, once they start acting like they are born to rule.

And that’s the problem. Clark, Cullen, Tizard amongst others were all starting to look and sound more like royalty than the representatives of ordinary people.

I wonder how long it takes National’s caucus to start behaving the same way…

The problem was especially so in the safe seats. In Remuera, for example, Allan Highet (and I think Doug Graham) never held constituencies. When I once wanted to discuss an issue with my MP Highet, it took weeks just to get a “no”. Bob Chapman claimed that the most that an individual could add to the total by being a popular MP was 1.5% in consecutive elections, but I think that Peter Dunne outdid that in Karori by being egregiously sedulous.

All MPs, whether electorate or list, are accountable to their party. If they under perform, the party risks losing public support, so will drop them. So they are also therefore accountable to the people, albeit not directly.

If you want sour, try Rush Limbaugh. He told his radio audience last Thursday, “The Obama recession is in full swing, ladies and gentlemen. Stocks are dying, which is a precursor of things to come. This is an Obama recession. Might turn into a depression.”

And yet electorate seats are the only way you can directly vote for a candidate. By abandoning the threshold without protecting the electorate seats (as in SM) you effectively discount their value, taking away the only direct vote that we have.

You can, of course, hold separate, FPP style votes for each party list, like the Greens. But this involves only party members, thus essentially disenfranchising the majority of New Zealanders who are not members of a political party.

As I have said above, SM does not lower the value of the small party vote significantly, if the number of proportional seats is about 2/3rds of parliament.

Of course ditching the threshold would be messy, allowing several small parties into parliament, which could make coalitions unworkable. But votes would not be wasted. I’m no supporter of Peters, but it is not right that whilst more people support his party than others, they have seats and he doesn’t. Surely that should be rectified.