ooo_shiny

u/ooo_shiny@lemmy.nz
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That’s interesting — so you can only give your vote (and any you’ve been given) to someone you know personally? Sounds like a fun thought experiment.

First, would you compel people to vote for someone else? How would you prevent people from holding onto votes they’ve been given in the hope that they will get into power based on that?

Second, if you do compel people to transfer their votes to someone, wouldn’t that end up with just one person being given power in the end? How would you set up, say, a 120-seat parliament?

The ones I’m most annoyed by are the pay equity cuts, the ferries, and the Lake Onslow battery. The general attitude towards environmental concerns also sucks, as does their attitude towards Maori.

Stuns me that people actually think that all the parties are the same because actually no, not all parties do this sort of thing.

Edit: forgot to mention completely f***ing up the health system.

I agree that Goldsmith now has too many portfolios and you’re right about how this imperils good governance. It seems to me though that National already has options within its existing caucus and doesn’t need more MPs if the goal is simply to distribute the workload. This is more of a choice from the prime minister about how he delegates work and voters can decide what they think about it, I guess.

Labour was similar, as I recall — there were a few ‘super ministers’ in charge of a lot.

I take your point regarding gerrymandering. It’s not quite the right word. Replace it with a word that means ‘made to vote in elections where my vote will not materially affect the outcome whereas under the current system it can’, if you like.

That’s an interesting perspective given that some parties have held their seats for decades. Do you really think the parties have earned trust or that some people just vote for them out of habit?

I take a ‘build it and they will come’ approach: I think that if it is possible to actually get in, the minor parties will be able to consistently find better candidates who are willing to invest the time. Right now there is often no point, except for the top of the party list.

If you really think that minor parties place the country at risk I guess you’d be in favour of electoral systems that reduce their chances of getting in.

I hadn’t considered that the rising population might be an issue that people would like to address here. I know it’s been a concern in the US in the House. For me I’m comfortable with having 120 MPs as I don’t want to pay more MP salaries. I can understand why other people might think otherwise.

I’m also reluctant to dump the party vote system. I’m in the regions and my politics are out of step with pretty much everyone around me. With the party vote system I can vote for the party of my choice and know that my vote counts towards their final total. If it were done with an electorate only, my voice would be gerrymandered into not being heard at all, even with smaller electorates.

That’s hearty National territory there. Be interesting to see if the electorate has slipped further right-wing though; NZ First and ACT might appeal more to any new true believers.

Reddit has some cool communities that don’t quite exist elsewhere, and even though I’ve found old-school forums for some of them, the vibe is different (usually older people who are often retired and can’t envision not having money or free time).

I used to pay a sub to Reddit but stopped back when they shafted Apollo. I wonder how things might have gone had Reddit focused on its community rather than the sad process of enshitificafion.

That’s interesting about Taupo. The demand must get pretty high around holiday season! I wonder what the threshold is for setting up air traffic control.

Edit: this was meant to be a reply to Dave, but I must have pushed the wrong button. Lemmy has been acting a little strange for me tonight though…