Hard to have faith in farce of politics

Mark Dawson, Editor of Wanganui Chronicle

There has been a groundswell of concern about the declining number of Kiwis seizing their democratic option and casting a vote at election time.

Many pundits are already predicting a miserable turnout for September's general election, and there is plenty of head-scratching going on about ways to increase participation at the ballot box.

Well, here's one idea. Perhaps if politicians conducted themselves in a more seemly manner, the good folk might be more ready to put a cross against one of their names.

The flirtation between those most unlikely of bedfellows, Hone Harawira and Kim Dotcom, has resulted in a shotgun wedding that fair takes the breath away.

Harawira's electorate seat of Te Tai Tokerau for Dotcom's millions is the kind of horse trading that would delight Francis Underwood, the double-dealing Congressman from TV's House of Cards, so ably rendered by Kevin Spacey.

"Ruthless pragmatism" is Francis' slogan, and certainly principles seem to have been relegated down the list of priorities.

How long will the honeymoon period last should the newly conjoined Internet-Mana Party get some heft in Parliament? Probably not long - put your money on a quickie divorce.

If the Hone and Kim show has put a stake in the ground (or even through the heart of political credibility), John Banks would be one of the few who could step beyond it.

Busted for filing false electoral returns, an offence serious enough to disbar the former ACT leader from Parliament, Banksy will remain an MP because the conviction has not yet been formally entered against his name. That will happen when he is sentenced in August.

This clearly tops his dodgy cup of tea deal with John Key prior to the last election.

Even Winston Peters declaring he would not be tempted by "the baubles of office" before being tempted by one of the bigger baubles, the globe-trotting Foreign Affairs portfolio, has been put in the shade by these recent shenanigans.

This is very much the icing on a distasteful cake of general bad-mouthing and rubbishing among our power players.

At least in Wanganui this week we got the more respectable end of the political spectrum, with big guns Bill English and David Cunliffe in town.

Finance Minister English showed the Whanganui Employers' Chamber of Commerce that he has a whole deck of cards and he's been playing them pretty astutely. A failure as National Party leader, he has become the ideal number two.

Labour leader Cunliffe knows the denigration of the regions in favour of Auckland offers Labour one of its best vote-pulling opportunities.

He also unveiled a piece of policy that would help clean up MMP's besmirched reputation.

Labour would end the "coat-tailing" rule that sees one popular MP win an electorate seat (Winston in Tauranga; Rodney Hide in Epsom, Peter Dunne in Ohariu) and then bring in a ragtag of nobodies off the party list.

The Electoral Commission recommended this change and public polls suggest broad support for it.

Then all we'd need would be a serious review of the acceptable conduct of our elected representatives. Plenty of people would vote for that.