Th Greens are getting quite a taste for bully-boy tactics. During the general election campaign they threatened to collapse a future Labour-Green coalition government if their larger partner lifted the ban on field trials of genetically modified crops.
Now they're trying to bully North Shore City into adopting a new voting
system for the 2004 local elections.
If North Shore doesn't buckle, Green co-leader Rod Donald is threatening to force the council to hold a referendum on the issue, a poll which would cost ratepayers $220,000.
Mr Donald says the single transferable vote system (STV) is "fairer and much better" than the present system and the council "has until September 12 to see reason".
Under the 2001 Local Government Act, a petition of just 5 per cent of local voters is enough to force a local authority to hold a referendum on the issue.
The act also requires all councils to decide by September 12 to either: (a) publicly consult over which electoral system to use in 2004; (b) decide whether to retain the existing first-past-the-post system or change to STV; (c) hold a referendum on the issue; or (d) do nothing.
Councils are also required to publicly notify their decision by September 19 and to inform citizens of their right to a referendum if 5 per cent request one.
Mr Donald says he will "easily" get enough signatures to force a poll and warns: "I hope the council makes the right decision."
Word is that North Shore is not the only target. The Greens apparently also have their sights on Auckland City and Christchurch City, although so far there's been no sign of them at the Auckland City headquarters.
Officials there calculate a referendum would cost Auckland City ratepayers more than $300,000. In addition, they say that running a STV election would cost 25 per cent more than the present system, increasing the cost from $740,000 (last year's cost) to $925,000.
STV is the voting system for experts with too much time on their hands. Proponents say it comes up with a fairer, more proportional outcome than any other - and for all I know it does.
Its fatal flaw is that its workings are fiendishly difficult to fathom. On the comprehensibility to the ordinary bloke scale, it sits comfortably alongside the economic theories of Social Credit and why women go to the toilet in pairs.
Given the difficulty of getting people to the polling booths using systems we do understand - first-past-the-post and MMP - I find it hard to believe there'll be a sudden rush of people wanting to trust their vote to a counting system which is gobbledegook to anyone but a doctor of mathematics. And Rod Donald.
The first hurdle is the voting. Proponents salivate over the chance to grade each candidate on the list, recording a 1 against your favourite person, then moving through, scattering a 2 here and 3 there and so on until you run out of steam.
You can do a 1 and stop if you like, or soldier on to the bitter end. In the case of the Canterbury District Health Board last year, that would have taken you through 75 names.
Compared with Canterbury, we in Auckland had it easy with just 25 candidates. Though in my case - and I suspect I was not alone - that was 24 unknowns and one with a family name I recognised. Confronted with such incomprehensible lists, the result is going to be random, regardless of whether we use FPP, MMP or STV.
STV is about recycling the wasted votes of the no-hopers at the back end of the field along with the excess votes received by the front-runners. This is done by adding these votes to the tally of the candidate marked 2. If No 2 gets too many votes, his or her surplus is passed on to No 3 and so on.
That's the simplified version. Parliament in 2000 adopted a highly refined, computerised version of this. Every vote has to be fed through a sophisticated computer programme, the preferences fractionalised and bounced around from one candidate to another until the winner - or winners - emerges.
Two years ago, Mr Donald got a first reading for his private member's bill pushing STV for local government. He wanted it as the voting system for the new district health boards from 2001 and for other local authorities from 2004. Months of horse-trading ensued.
The compromise was that STV would be compulsory for health boards, and possible for local authorities, from 2004. The present activities within councils are part of that process.
On the Shore, the council has voted for a low-cost $20,000 round of consultation. Auckland City has opted to stay with FPP. Across the country, it seems councils are splitting about 50:50 for these two options. The experts tell me that so far, no council has gone for STV. Not yet anyway.
The Greens are obviously displeased and are waving the big stick by threatening to force a referendum on the North Shore. They only need 5 per cent of electors - about the size of their general election support - to get their way.
If they do, it will be the North Shore - and if they ramp the campaign up, Auckland City ratepayers as well - who will be left to pay the bill.
Very grumpy ratepayers, I should think.
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Th Greens are getting quite a taste for bully-boy tactics. During the general election campaign they threatened to collapse a future Labour-Green coalition government if their larger partner lifted the ban on field trials of genetically modified crops.
Now they're trying to bully North Shore City into adopting a new voting
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