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Vote for Change Changes Pamphlet
By Steven | November 14, 2011
I complained to the Advertising Standards Authority last week about Vote For Change’s pamphlet advocating SM. I thought it was badly misleading in several respects. Graeme Edgeler explains one problem with it here (where he also has a copy of the one side of the original pamphlet).
Another was that it tried to cash in on voters’ antipathy to 120-MP Parliaments by proclaiming that the other systems “could work with 99 MPs”. But they didn’t tell us that under the referendum legislation, all the systems are based on 120 MPs. They were trying to entice voters with an advantage that wasn’t on the table for the referendum.
Vote For Change has now addressed both of these problems (scroll down here), though there has not yet been any ruling from the Advertising Standards Authority.
I still think it’s misleading to say that under MMP, “Minor parties decide who is PM”. First, it’s not necessarily the case: National and Labour could form a coalition. Second, it’s not really true: if minor parties could decide, why wouldn’t they pick their own leader? It’s really the voters who decide who has the bargaining strength in coalition negotiations.
At the top of Vote for Change’s website, they set out the disadvantages of MMP, including:
MMP allows List MPs who have been voted out by their local electorates to sneak back into Parliament on party lists.
and
We want an electoral system that provides certainty for voters, rather than forcing Kiwis to wait for post-election negotiations.
The pamphlets strongly imply that the system they’re recommending, SM, doesn’t suffer from these flaws. Of course, that’s misleading too, especially with respect to the “sneaking back in” point. Let’s be clear: SM allows people we’ve voted out to “sneak back in” on the list, just (probably) not so many. It’s a difference in degree, not in kind. But because the “sneak back in” argument is such a trump card, the Vote For Change folks seem loathe to admit that their pick suffers from the same problem.
Those are the arguments I’ve put to the Advertising Standards Authority, anyway. It will be interesting to see what they do. But if, as looks likely, the complaint has prompted the changes they’ve already made, I regard it as a success for the ASA system already.
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