Wednesday, June 14, 2006



What are the odds?

In her piece in the Herald on the failure of National to gain leave to advance its Broadcasting (2005 Election Broadcasting Reimbursement) Amendment Bill, reporter Ruth Berry notes that the bill will now have to go in the ballot, and that

There is about a 3 per cent chance of a successful draw.

Not exactly. While there are about thirty bills in the ballot at any one time, giving a 3% chance of being drawn, there are usually several bills drawn (I'm expecting them to pull three or even four tomorrow, for example). And of course, there are multiple draws. The real odds can be seen in the ballot statistics: so far this year, 46 bills have been placed in the ballot, and 15 have been drawn - odds of about one in three.

(In case anyone is wondering, the odds of a bill having been covered by an In the ballot post are also good - 34 bills out of 46).

4 comments:

And an even better chance of a successful draw if every member of the National Party (and any member of the Labour party feeling charitable) who doesn't already have a bill in the ballot puts a copy of this one in.

Posted by Graeme Edgeler : 6/14/2006 01:45:00 PM

I expect Brash will be putting it in tomorrow - and if he doesn't, then he only has himself to blame.

The minor parties (with the exception of the Maori Party) all seem to use their allocations to the maximum.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 6/14/2006 01:57:00 PM

Even the Progs?

Posted by Anonymous : 6/14/2006 05:45:00 PM

I don't believe Anderton, as a Minister, gets to have a bill in the ballot. So yes, their full allocation of zero.

Posted by Anonymous : 6/14/2006 07:09:00 PM