Wednesday, May 15, 2013



Bad faith

That's the only way to describe National's actions over the MMP review. Having promised a review, and got 5,000 of us to engage with it, they are now claiming that "there is absolutely no consensus, or even a majority, across Parliament". The latter in particular is an outright lie - the Greens have offered National their 14 votes to enact the changes, and Labour are going to try and enact the most important changes themselves. Either one of those parties provides National with a majority, and together they would have 105 out of 120 seats in the House - an 87.5% supermajority. The only reason there is no majority is because National doesn't want to pass this. But rather than owning up to that fact, they are trying to pretend that it is everybody else's fault. It's Aaron Gilmore writ large, and just as distasteful.

I do not like the changes the Electoral Commission has proposed, and I think they would lead to a less representative Parliament. But I also intensely dislike the sort of political dishonesty we are seeing from National. Behaviour like this is one reason so few people bother to engage with the political process: because when they do, its gets ignored, or thrown back in the face. We deserve better from our MPs.