Mike's Minute: More MP's? What on Earth are they thinking?

For a group that normally seems to nail ideas and present them well, the New Zealand Initiative this week went off-piste with their "MMP After 30 Years" report.  

Smaller cabinet - good idea.

Get rid of the overhang - good idea!

But more MP's? What on Earth are they thinking?

The main point they make is that it has provided a fairer, more representative Parliament and I think, even for those of us that didn’t vote for MMP, we pretty much would all need to conceed that.

The question I would have is, is that what we actually want?

The base level argument over representation is, do some of the lesser lights represent a sector of lesser lights in the wider community?

If the community has got its collection of halfwits and buffoons, do we want a slice of that in the nation's Parliament because that is a version of representation?

I would argue no.

I would argue that I'd far rather have a selection of highly qualified, dedicated, hard-working professionals.

But if a cross section is what we voted for, then a cross section is what we have received.

The great fraud of MMP has been the oft-used line by people like the Green's Rod Donald that the tail would not wag the dog.

The tail has most certainly wagged the dog, many times over.

If the circumstances are right, and they have been more than once, a very small percentage of the vote can wield an astonishing and destructive amount of power.

Then of course if we are marking 30 years, we can also relitigate the issue of knowledge at the time.

MMP won not because it was better, or the best, but because MMP had the best run anti-FPP campaign and too many New Zealanders couldn’t be bothered educating themselves about the alternatives.

So MMP had the biggest headlines and enough people were fed up with Muldoon and Lange and scraps and bulldozing Governments so they threw out the current, in the hope the new was better.

We will not change the system again. Those days are gone and I doubt we will ever even tinker with it.

But if we do, more MP's will not be top of our wishlist.  

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