Please think very carefully before you waste your vote voting for a local constituent MP who is a candidate from a minor party, writes Steve Baron.
Please think very carefully before you waste your vote voting for a local constituent MP who is a candidate from a minor party, writes Steve Baron.
Two-horse race
Even though MMP 100 per cent decides what proportion of seats a political party will get in Parliament (so long as any particular party gets 5 per cent of the vote), when it comes to electing a local constituent Member of Parliament, our system still operates, sadly, underfirst-past-the-post.
Therefore, in my opinion, anyone voting for a minor party candidate is effectively wasting their vote or supporting the incumbent National Party MP for Whanganui. If you are happy with that then no problem, but, if you are not happy to re-elect the National Party candidate then you need to vote strategically.
For example, a vote for the Greens, NZ First, New Conservatives, etc. is actually a vote for the National candidate because it is a two-horse race in Whanganui and no minor party candidates can possibly win the Whanganui seat.
That's not a philosophical argument, it's a plain simple fact about first-past-the-post and the Whanganui electorate. So, if you are indeed a minor party voter, by all means, give your party vote to the party of your choice, but please think very carefully before you waste your vote voting for a local constituent MP who is a candidate from a minor party.
Paul Baber's letter (Chronicle, July 15) is the traditional Trojan Horse calculated to appeal to common sense while tacitly supporting the Labour Party's support of abortion, assisted suicide and legalising cannabis. You could not get more trojan than that to destroy a country.
A reader may hark back to John Malcolm's letter (Chronicle, June 27) pointing out the same frame of mind of Labour in the 30s and 40s condemning the loss of an innocent in crime or betrayal of country yet encouraging inhumanities listed above that are the mark of the left wing.
It's just come to my notice, teachers at secondary schools in this country are encouraging pupils to call the Prime Minister "Aunty", the same ploy used by Stalin encouraging Russia to call him "Uncle". Would you know Stalin executed and worked to death millions of Orthodox Christians to no advantage?
Yes, you're right [D. Partner (Letters, July 17)], the BLM movement is important, not just to me, but should be so for all of us.
If it's not, there will always be a place for it to combat the kind of attitudes displayed by yourself and the other two gentlemen who have contributed to this dialogue.
Of course, all lives matter and white lives matter Mr Partner but any movement protesting the fact would be campaigning on an issue where there is no issue.
It is because there is an issue around systemic racism towards black people within police departments, particularly in the US, that BLM rightly and necessarily came into being.
The movement is just as relevant here in New Zealand as it is in other parts of the world ... [Abridged]
