Goodbye Jim

Via DPF, it seems that Jim Anderton's Progressive party is no more, having been deregistered at its own request [PDF, p. 1009]. The party was only ever a vehicle for Anderton after he left the Alliance, but its demise marks the end of a chapter in our political history.

It also means there are now only five extra-Parliamentary registered parties. While these parties never get elected (thanks in part to the undemocratic 5% threshold), their number is a rough measure of the health of our democracy, of how involved and willing to participate people are. In the past year we've seen four deregistrations - the Worker's Party, Kiwi Party, New Citizen Party and Progressives - and only one new party (the Conservatives) gain registration. And with the Alliance and Democrats likely to disappear soon, that number will probably shrink further.

Anderton's response: Threats and bluster

Jim Anderton has lashed out at the Electoral Commission over their referring him to the police for violating electoral advertising law, blustering that

"I'm authorised to send my constituents any message I damn well like. This is my electorate.

"And if the Commission wants to start stopping electorate MPs from communicating with their electorate, they'd better get prepared for a breach of privilege complaint, because that's what it amounts to.

They are interfering with the regular work of an MP."

On the first point, Anderton is just wrong. He has to obey the law like everyone else. That law provides for an exemption for regular parliamentary funded communications such as constituent newsletters and contact information, but Anderton's letter did not fall into that category (its not a regular newsletter and stated that it was not funded by Parliament).

As for the threats, Parliament has made it clear that it is not part of an MP's regular work to solicit for votes. It may be what they do, but its not protected by Parliamentary privilege.

Yesterday, I was willing to attribute Anderton's crime to (unforgivable) ignorance. Today, its clear that its one of arrogance. And he needs to be held to account for it.

A bad way to end a political career

DPF reports that Jim Anderton has been referred to police for violating electoral advertising laws over a letter he sent to everyone in his constituents urging them to vote for Labour candidate Megan Woods. Such a letter is clearly an election advertisement, meaning that it can only be promoted by a party secretary, a candidate, a registered promoter, or an unregistered promoter. Anderton isn't any of the first three, and as a person involved in the administration of a party, he's ineligible to be the fourth. Which puts him on the hook for an illegal practice and a fine of $40,000. Not a good way to end your political career.

(I'm assuming Anderton's endorsement was also authorised by Woods. Otherwise he's also on the hook for illegally endorsing a candidate and illegally incurring election expenses. The latter is potentially a corrupt practice, an even worse way to end your political career)

Some could characterise this as a technical offence. Anderton's advertisement would have been perfectly legal if he was running as a candidate, or if he'd had the brains to have it sent by his party rather than himself. But that doesn't wash. A politician as experienced as Anderton has no excuse for being ignorant of electoral law. And he should suffer the full weight of the law as a result.

Meanwhile, DPF also disturbingly reports that the police are refusing to progress any of the cases forwarded to them by the Electoral Commission until after the election, effectively allowing electoral criminals to be advantaged by their crimes. Nice to know that they're taking electoral crime seriously.

Jim Anderton plans his legacy

Jim Anderton is retiring at the election, but he's just posted the policy he hopes will be his legacy: a plan for free, universal dental care in New Zealand. Currently, 44% of us never see a dentist, and there are significant access problems for pensioners and the poor. Meanwhile, increased rates of obesity and diabetes - both of which are linked to dental decay - mean that these problems are likely to increase.

Anderton estimates the total cost of free universal dental care at between $670 million and $1 billion per year. He proposes several options for financing it: a levy on soft-drinks (a primary cause of dental harm), a dedicated levy similar to ACC, or rolling back tax cuts for the rich. To make it more affordable, he also proposes a staged implementation over 10 years, first targeting vulnerable groups such as pensioners and then gradually extending to cover everyone, in a similar manner to Labour's extension of primary health care. This would keep the annual cost increase manageable, effectively turning a big expensive policy initiative into a series of smaller, cheaper ones.

In short, its a good, progressive policy for New Zealand, something which will benefit all of us. I guess National will be opposing it then.

As for Labour, they've agreed to take this on after Anderton's retirement. So while Anderton may not get to do it himself, we will hopefully see it eventually from a future Labour government.

Jim Anderton doesn't understand MMP

Progressive party leader Jim Anderton has a bold piece in the New Zealand Herald today, declaring that History shows a change of government is on the cards. Despite polls showing National and its allies consistently polling above 50%, Anderton thinks Labour can do it. How?

Marginal seats are often pivotal to election victory and that's where New Zealand's election next year will be won or lost. Currently, the National-led coalition Government of four parties has 16 more seats in Parliament than the Labour-led opposition of three parties. How many more seats does Labour have to win to be in a position to form the next government by having more seats than National?

The answer is only nine seats - if the nine seats are won by Labour off National and Labour wins all its current seats.

In Labour's favour, National has nine "marginal" seats which would be lost to Labour with a swing of less than 3 per cent.

Which may very well be true, but at the same time it is totally irrelevant to the question of who forms the next government. Under MMP, electorates don't matter, except around the margins of low-polling parties and overhangs. What decides governments is the party vote and coalition formation. Rather than showing how Labour can win the next election, all Anderton has shown is that he doesn't understand MMP.

So how can Labour win? Firstly, by boosting their party vote, something which requires them to campaign nationwide rather than just in a few marginal seats. That sounds hard, but they'll have inertia on their side; incumbent governments rarely get more popular, especially in a recession. National is unlikely to improve on its result from last election, and those votes will have to go somewhere. Labour needs to make sure they go to them.

Secondly, there's the coalition process. If National's vote drops by only a few percent, they face the prospect of being reliant on the Māori Party, either in an ungainly three-way coalition with ACT (assuming they stay in Parliament), or alone. In either case, that opens the way for Labour to form an alternative government by wooing the Māori Party away from National and into coalition with them and the Greens. And that's their real challenge. As for whether they can do it, given their legacy of bad blood and the current way they're treating them, I'm doubtful.

The right decision

Back in May, I criticised Jim Anderton for announcing that he would remain as an MP if elected mayor of Christchurch. So I'm pleased to see that over the weekend he reversed this position, announcing that he would stand down as an MP if elected. Good. The people of Christchurch deserve a full-time mayor, and the people of Wigram deserve a full-time MP. It shouldn't have needed an earthquake (and the threat of a drop in support) for Anderton to see that.

Anderton and earthquakes

On Sunday morning, in the wake of the Christchurch earthquake, the Herlad reported that

Christchurch mayoral aspirant Jim Anderton told CTV on Friday that it would take an earthquake for him to lose the election race against incumbent mayor Bob Parker.

Like many people, I spread the news over twitter, amused at the cosmic irony. But it turns out it was a fabrication. According to the actual interview [video, 54s in], Anderton actually said:

There was a long history with the Labour Party. It would have taken a pretty earthquake, seismic shift to get me to move. And the seismic shift was Rogernomics...

So, I apologise for spreading the misquote or misleading anyone. Meanwhile, I'm wondering: what sort of person edits together a video like this in an effort to make someone "say" something they clearly didn't? Its dishonest, not to mention just a bit weird. But that seems to be par for the course down there in the sewer.

Labour's hypocrisy on Anderton

In 2008, the people of Maungakiekie elected Sam Lotu-Iiga as their local MP. But Lotu-Iiga was already serving on the Auckland City Council. Labour MP's denounced this as double dipping, and called on Lotu-Iiga to resign:

People of the Tamaki Maungakiekie deserve better representation than a sometime City Councillor, says locally based Labour MP Carol Beaumont.

“The people of Maungakiekie deserve a fulltime MP to represent their views; likewise the people of the Tamaki Maungakiekie ward of the Auckland City Council deserve a fulltime City Councillor – at the moment they are being short-changed by Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga.

[...]

“Members of Parliament are required to be in Wellington when the House sits on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, it is unacceptable that the people of Tamaki Maungakiekie do not have councillor representing them on these days.

(That press release also quotes Carmel Sepuloni and Su'a William Sio on the difficulty of juggling both jobs as well).

Fast forward to 2010. Progressive leader and Labour ally Jim Anderton has just announced that he will stand for the Christchurch mayoralty, and that he will not resign if he wins. Labour's response? Silence.

This is simply hypocrisy. Everything Mallard, Beaumont, Sepuloni and Sio said is applicable to Anderton - moreso because being mayor is a more time-consuming role than councillor. But apparently, what was unacceptable from a National MP is acceptable from a Progressive one. Such obvious double standards do us no favours whatsoever.

(Yes, I understand that Labour isn't responsible for Anderton. But they weren't responsible for Lotu-iiga either. If they denounce one, they should denounce the other. Otherwise, they're just hypocrites).

Jim Anderton: Wrong and stupid

Today, Jim Anderton formally announced his bid for the Christchurch mayoralty. That's good for Christchurch - their current mayor, Sideshow Bob, is in bed with developers and backed the overthrow of ECan. But Anderton spoiled his announcement with this:

Anderton said he wasn't going to resign his seat if he was elected mayor because he didn't want to cause a by-election that would cost about $600,000 and wouldn't be held until early next year anyway.

"A few months of parliamentary representation is not worth $600,000 of public money," he said.

"I would not accept two salaries and would donate the higher mayoral salary to local voluntary organisations."

This is simply wrong, and Anderton's offer to donate his salary doesn't make it any less so. The people of Christchurch deserve their mayor's full attention. Likewise, the people of Wigram and those who voted Progressive last election deserve their MP's full attention. While Anderton says he can cope with both jobs, no-one will believe that, and if he is elected, someone will feel shortchanged. As for his misplaced sense of frugality, screw the money. It's democracy, and you pay whatever it costs to deliver it.

But in addition to being wrong, its also stupid. Who wants half a mayor, or one with an eye on Wellington as well as Christchurch? Anderton has just given people a solid reason not to vote for him. And in an election where its so vital to unseat the incumbent, that is a mistake the left cannot afford to make.

In the ballot XXXII

Another batch of Member's Bills currently in the ballot. Previous batches are indexed here:

Electoral (Disqualification of Sitting Members in By-elections) Amendment Bill (Jim Anderton): This bill would amend the Electoral Act 1993 to stop current Members of Parliament from standing for election in by-elections. The aim is to avoid the absurd situation seen in the recent Mount Albert by-election, where all but one of the main candidates was already an MP, meaning that electors were effectively voting for the next person on the respective party lists, rather than who was actually on the ballot. If the bill passed, sitting MPs would be required to resign their seat to contest a by-election, facing a real risk and giving voters a real choice.

I have said before that I strongly support dual-candidacy, but the arguments for it (avoiding local vetoes, allowing parties to field high-quality candidates in electorate races) apply strongly to general elections but are utterly irrelevant in a by-election. I think this proposal is worth a look, and deserves to be sent to select committee.

Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill (Winnie Laban): Amends the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992 to clarify the rights of families of those seeking or receiving treatment. Currently the Act imposes a duty on clinicians to consult families. The bill expands on this to reflect and incorporate the SF New Zealand Code of Family Rights [PDF], while protecting the privacy rights of patients.

New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Change of Electoral System for District Health Boards) Amendment Bill (Michael Woodhouse): This bill would repeal the existing Single-Transferable Vote system used for DHB elections and replace it with FPP (or technically, the block vote). Ostensibly this is done to prevent voter "confusion", but it misses the target: the problem with DHB elections isn't the voting system, but the use of at-large election. This leads to a large field of candidates (14 for MidCentral, 21 for Capital & Coast, 27 for Auckland, and an astonishing 32 for Counties-Manukau - in each case for seven positions), saturating the decision-space, and reducing the task of making a decision essentially to one of random choice. Changing the voting system won't fix this - it will simply lead to less fair results, giving total control to a very narrow plurality.

As usual, I'll have more bills as I acquire them.

Anderton against dual candidacy in by-elections

Yesterday, The Press's Colin Espiner pointed out some of the oddities resulting from the Mt Albert by-election. In the case of three of the candidates, a victory in the by-election will effectively result in someone entirely different from the person being voted on entering Parliament. Now Jim Anderton is planning to do something about it, with a member's bill to force sitting MPs to resign from Parliament if they wish to stand as a candidate in a by-election.

As I noted yesterday, I strongly support dual candidacy in general elections. But it does seem absurd in by-elections, and as Anderton points out, it results in candidates facing no real risk. His bill would be a minor tweak, and would not undermine the principle of dual candidacy generally. It is at least worth a look by a select committee.

Election08 interviews Jim Anderton

Over on Election08, Scoop's Gordon Campbell interviews Progressive leader Jim Anderton. It's a pretty interesting interview, about Anderton's history with the Labour party and the future of the Progressives (he doesn't think it has one. Progressive Party members may be annoyed about that), but for me there were two highly interesting bits: firstly, that despite it being contrary to all their values, and despite Matt Robson having campaigned strongly in defence of Ahmed Zaoui, Anderton doesn't see any problems with the Immigration Bill. And secondly, Anderton gives a window into the current state of negotiations on the ETS, hinting at an earlier entry for fertiliser. This is important because it is key to getting the Greens on board - they want something tangible for their support, rather than just being treated as a doormat again - but the sticking point is getting it past Anderton, NZ First, and of course the farm lobby, who are still trapped in deep denial. It almost makes you wish for an EU border tax, just to kick the farmers onto the right side of the argument...

A hypocritical approach

So, the government wants to ban party pills on the basis of their health effects. But while the government's expert committee found that a number of studies had showed "potential for serious harm in some individuals" due to side effects, they also noted that

there have been no recorded deaths attributed solely to the use of BZP

Meanwhile, according to a study commissioned by ALAC, alcohol directly kills over a thousand people a year [PDF]. By any reasonable standard, we're banning the wrong drug.

Before anyone gets the wrong end of the stick, I do not want to see alcohol prohibition. Rather, I want to see some consistency. If we're happy for people to drink booze at such an enormous cost in human life, then we should be happy for them to take party pills at a far lower cost. And if we're concerned about medical costs or use by children, we should adopt the same approach of excise taxes and age limits. If we think adults are free to fuck up their own lives with the odd drink, then we have to also grant them the right to fuck up their own lives with the odd party pill. Anything else is pure hypocrisy.

Unfortunately, "pure hypocrisy" describes the government's approach to a T - a fact which is unlikely to go unnoticed by party pill poppers. And rather than engendering respect for the law, it is likely to result in their concluding that it, and Anderton, is an ass.

On voting for Jim

Thinking more about not voting for Jim, I'd just like to say that I dislike Jim Anderton and will never really forgive him for what he did to the Alliance. That said, I can think of two reasons for voting for him:

1. To give Matt Robson a chance. Sure, he's trying to stop 18 year olds from drinking, but other than that he's a decent guy, and he has been a consistent voice for human rights. I'd much rather have him in the House than out of it.
2. In an election this close, we can't afford to lose even 1% of the left vote to the stupid and undemocratic threshold. Jim winning Wigram would stop that from happening - and depending on how well the Progressives campaign, could result in 1 or possibly even 2 other MPs who will vote for a Labour- rather than National-led government.

Obviously whether or not to vote for Jim will depend on how highly you value those outcomes, compared to how intensely you dislike him. Speaking for myself, I think that working for a left-wing government and more liberal MPs who respect human rights is more important than my hatred. I don't live in Wigram anymore, but if I did, I'd hold my nose and vote for Jim - and then give my party vote to someone who actually deserved it.