Small on SM

In his Stuff blog today, Vernon Small eviscerates the "Vote for Change" clique's preferred "Supplementary Member" system:

[W]hile SM can claim to be a partly proportional, the proportionality is a fig leaf on a FPP system. It is a counterfeit, four-flushing, phoney option for a true proportional system.

Under the proposed SM system, there would be 90 electorate seats and 30 list seats. Only the list seats are distributed according to the party vote – or support a party gets in an election.

As the table [offline] shows, the net effect in 2008 would have been to give National a huge boost; and for this reason SM is known around the world as a "winner's bonus system".

Assuming voting patterns were the same, National would have ended up with 57.5 per cent of the seats for its 45 per cent of the vote. Labour would have won 33 per cent of the seats for its 34 per cent of the vote and the Greens would have won just two seats; 1.6 per cent of the 120 seats for 6.72 per cent of the vote. On the other side of the ledger, the Maori Party would have won 5 per cent of the seats against a party vote of just 2.39 per cent.

That's an obviously unfair outcome, and one which would return government to being an unaccountable elected dictatorship. But that's precisely what Peter Shirtcliffe wants - because a properly democratic government (as we have now) simply cannot impose the radical policies he favours.