Why always Politicians ?

One of the reasons why I was happy to leave New Zealand was the political climate. It wasn't the major reason, but it certainly wasn't motivation to stay. Over the years I had becoming increasingly disappointed in the direction the country was heading, and in the system of governance. This second point in particular was really irritating me. New Zealand had a system of "First Past the Post" governance. We each voted for a particular person who we wanted to represent our region in Parliament. The person who received the most votes became the representative for that region. The ruling party became the party who had the most elected representatives. Simple stuff. It wasn't perfect, but no system is. It wasn't so straight forward when voting, however. Many people, myself included, didn't look so much at the person we were voting for, but which party they represented. Basically we voted for for the person who was a member of the political party who's leader we liked the most. And then that leader would be the leader of the country for the next 3 years. The actual person we voted for was merely an afterthought.

No one is ever happy with a voting system. There was a major flaw in the existing plan. For example, the Left Party might win 10 seats, each with a majority of 1,000 votes. The Right Party wins 11 seats, but with a majority of only 1 vote per seat. Despite the Left Party receiving more votes by the population, the Right Party becomes the government. 11 seats versus 10 seats. The Center Party might come second in each seat by one vote and, despite receiving the most votes from people, have no one in government. This was annoying people and was killing off smaller parties who were starting to give up trying. So we decided to have a change.

A former Prime Minister of NZ once said that if people were going to vote for a change, they needed to clearly understand exactly what the change was that they were voting for. Change for change sake is not always good.

About 10 or 15 years ago, NZ changed it's voting system to a Mixed Member Proportional, or MMP, voting system. With MMP, you get 2 votes. First you vote for your local representative in parliament, just like before. Then you get to cast your vote again, for a particular political party. So if you like the local representative for the Left Party, you could vote for that person, but if you like the policies of the Right Party, you could also cast a vote for the Right Party.

With all the votes counted, the people who won the vote from each region are elected to parliament to represent the people of that region. They make up about half of the total number of politicians. Then we look at the second vote, the Party Vote. The Left Party received 40% of the total Party Votes, so they get to have an additional 4 (hypothetically) people in Parliament. The Right Party received 30% of the total vote, so they get to have an extra 3 politicians. The Center Party who, despite not winning a single seat, received also 30% of the total vote. Because of their nationwide public support, they get to have 3 politicians sitting in Parliament. Previously they would have had none. There is no Upper or Lower House, all politicians sit together and vote together. That is bascally how it works.

If only life were that simple. The problem is that the general population has no say over who those additional politicians are. Each political party prepares their own list of people they would like to have in parliament, ranked in order of preference. In the example above, the first 4 names who appear on the Left Party list, are the people who instantly become politicians. Some parties publicise their list prior to voting, some parties do not. These people can be a real gamble as they have no loyalty towards any particular group or region of the country. No one has voted for them. We have had Prime Ministers, leading the country, who were not voted in by anyone. These List Members are sworn in as Members of Parliament. As such, they get to be politicians for 3 years through until the next election. They can't be fired by their political party as it's not the Party who employs them and they can't be fired by the governance authority as each political party has responsibility for their members.

This is where it can and does get really messy. A List MP, who got in by virtue of the number of votes their Party received, can decide to quit their party once in Parliament. So they are now not a member of a political party. They are, however, still employed as a Member of Parliament and continue to remain employed through until the next election. You now have a person sitting in Parliament who does not represent a region of the country, and does not represent a political party. The represent no one, and are responsible to no one. The party they USED to represent can't promote another person from their list into Parliament, as all seats have been taken. I remember there was a woman "politician" who only turned up to Parliament once, and that was to be officially appointed. She then promptly quit her Party and never showed herself in parliament for the remainder of her 3 years term. That would almost be tolerable if she hadn't been receiving a salary more than double the national average, together with taxpayer funded accomodation and free air travel. Ridiculous.

There is currently a situation in NZ surrounding a litle shit of a List MP by the name of Aaron Gilmore. Aaron Gilmore is a member of the National (Right) Party. No one in the party really liked him, so he was placed so far down the list that there was very little likelihood that he would ever be called upon to enter Parliament. Unfortunately a number of MPs retired during the term and that allowed for them to be replaced by people on the Party List. Suddenly the nightmare became a reality and this dropkick of an individual was suddenly a politician. A couple of weekends back, Aaron Gilmore attended a Party conference. Most likely sensing that no one wanted to sit with him, he decided to have his own private party in another hotel. True to form, he ended up as drunk as a skunk. After being refused further drinks by the responsible hotel staff, Aaron Gilmore decided to play the "Do You Know How Important I am ?" card, in order to get even more rat-arsed. When that didn't work, he tried the "I'll have the Prime Minister fire you" threat. Getting a picture of the Dumb Shit in question ? Fortunately, a member of Aaron Gilmore's group had a a few traits of decency, and outed the little shit's tirade.

So what happens to the leaches of society such as Aaron Gilmore ? Stuff all, seems to be the answer. The Prime Minister could chuck him out of the Party. Which he should do if he had the balls or moral fibre to do so. But that doesn't get Aaron Gilmore fired. He still sits in Parliament drawing a fat and grossly under deserved salary, without having to do one single thing. It's now been revealed that he is also a bit of a sleaze when it comes to drawing extra entitlements which, while legal, are considered to be immoral by the other Members of Parliament. His parents must be so proud. If the Party does fire him, they lose one of their votes in Parliament, as they can't replace a List MP. So they are screwed.

The only way this can be resolved in any positive manner is for Aaron Gilmore to resign from Parliament. But, if you were Aaron Gilmore and could cream your employer for all you could without having to lift a finger, would you be in a hurry to go anywhere ?

(Footnote: Despite there being no mention of Sweden anywhere in this post, apparently I need to point out that I am not referring to the Swedish electoral system in any way, shape, or form. Must be a translation issue)