Up until 1996, our country was a tight little two-party oligarchy, with National and Labour trading government, and everyone else cut out of the political equation. But now we have MMP, a system which gives representation to (almost) everyone. So you'd expect that with an election coming up, we'd be hearing from all those voices in the expected political debates?
Wrong. Instead, National and Labour have colluded to exclude all other parties from the debates, thus denying them coverage - and votes. Its a fine example of their dirty oligarchical tendencies, and why we need to keep them under control.
Both leaders have reasons to favour this arrangement - Key because he looks good next to Goff, and Goff because he's a moron who doesn't understand that he looks bad next to Key. But it's not about them. This is an election, and its about us, the voters; we deserve to see the full range of choices on display so we can decide which we like. Key and Goff are colluding to remove that choice - and our craven media have gone along with it.
Lets be clear: the broadcasters have the upper hand in this. They can lay down the law, and say "no minor parties, no broadcast". The fact that they haven't - even after having gone through this last election - shows that they are weak defenders of our democracy.
