NZ General Election

[ora_wai]

I have 6 days in which to finish my thesis (breathe! breathe!), but what am I doing instead? Following the NZ General Election. It only just closed for peets sake, and yet I'm checking on all the electorates to see which way they are going. For what it's worth, I voted Maori Party as my party vote and National (Jackie Blue) as my electoral rep. So

Comments

[ankai]

Looks like the Centre-Right got it.

I don't suppose that there was any talk of any candidate being radical, was there?

[ora_wai]

Radical? I don't think that we really do radical here, although I guess you could say that Key (National) is radical, having only been in Parliament for 6 years and changing a lot of their policies - for the better.

[omoo]

How does your party vote differ from your rep? Do you have porportional reprensentation? Or does your party vote determine who your prime minister will be?

Good luck with the breathing and writing.

[ora_wai]

We use MMP, which is a form of proportional voting that allows 63 electorates (which we vote for the member to represent our area) and 50 list seats (which is what our party vote is for) and 7 Maori seats (which is only for those on the Maori Electoral roll to vote for).
The Prime Minister is determined by the Party vote, as he is the number one on their list. However, he can still contest a seat (John Key is National member for Helensville, as well as being Number 1 and Prime Minster), and I think (!) that his list seat goes to the next person in the list who doesn't have an electoral seat. I think. Like if Key had lost his Helensville seat, because he's still Number 1 for National, he's still get a seat. If National only managed to get 5% of the vote, he'd be that one seat.

Politics is hard, yo. Howgoes your thesis writing?

[omoo]

I don't think I completely understood that, but I'll think about it. I wish we had some porportional reprensentation. I'm surprised every election that the party I feel closest to (it switches between far right and center right) does badly. I keep forgetting that most people don't think like me. Well they do in my immediate community but not across the country.

My thesis writing is suffereing, because I took on too much teaching work and am burried in marking.

I hope things go well for you in the next few days.

[ora_wai]

We used to have First Past the Post, which I do not understand - plus I think that this way is better. Voters can punish electoral candiadates if they haven't been serving the electoral. Judith Tizard was the Labour member for Labour in Auckland Central, but she was ousted by the new National member and because Tizard isn't high enough on Labour's list, she is no longer in government.
How far right is Canada's Right? From what I've heard, it isn't that far right - at least not like America (Republicans) or UK (Tories).

That sucks about the teaching and marking rubbish. When does semester end?