Colin Espiner, discussing the return of Roger Douglas (and his attempt to recruit Don Brash back to ACT) demonstrates an all-too-common misunderstanding of MMP:
To me this demonstrates the problem with the party list system. There isn’t an electorate in the country that either Sir Roger or Brash could win, and yet if ACT is silly enough to place them high enough on the party list, then they may soon be back in Parliament.Indeed they might. But while I loathe either prospect, I would have to accept it as the legitimate democratic choice of ACT voters, in the same way that I accept the election of John Key and Burqua Bob as the legitimate democratic choices of the voters of Helensville and Tauranga respectively. These people aren't there to represent me, they're there to represent their constituents. And if those constituents make what is IMHO a "silly" choice, I just have to lump it.
Espiner would no doubt object that both Key and Clarkson are electorate MPs. But so what? There's nothing special about electorates - unless you count their propensity to produce distorted and undemocratic outcomes. List MPs, particularly those of small parties where there are no electorates to confuse things, are directly elected by their voters. If you vote for a party, you are endorsing their list. When I voted for the Greens last election, I did so because I wanted to see Rod Donald, Jeanette Fitzsimons, Sue Bradford, Keith Locke, Metiria Turei and Nandor Tanczos in Parliament (Sue Kedgeley I can live without, but she wasn't a deal breaker). And if I didn't like their list, I would have voted for someone else. The same is likely to be true of those who voted for ACT, United Future and NZ First - they cast their votes that way because they wanted Rodney Hide, Peter Dunne, Winston Peters, and their respective friends in Parliament.
I loathe Roger Douglas and Don Brash with a passion, but I recognise the pair of them perfectly exemplify the selfish inhumanity ACT stands for. But if enough people vote for them to get them elected to Parliament - either by beating the undemocratic 5% threshold, or by winning an electorate somewhere, I just have to accept that. People are entitled to have the representative of their choice represent them in Parliament. It's called "democracy", and maybe Espiner should remember that we live in one.
