That’s interesting — so you can only give your vote (and any you’ve been given) to someone you know personally? Sounds like a fun thought experiment.

First, would you compel people to vote for someone else? How would you prevent people from holding onto votes they’ve been given in the hope that they will get into power based on that?

Second, if you do compel people to transfer their votes to someone, wouldn’t that end up with just one person being given power in the end? How would you set up, say, a 120-seat parliament?

Some of those people affected must have had a horrible time in the coldest parts of the past month or so.

Yes. I am disheartened by the financial support the far right has. I’m surprised Labour hasn’t tried to fight this battle, personally. They can’t think they’d ever attract that funding from those particular funders themselves, so why hold back?

Fair enough. Hence why I’ve been arguing to retain the party vote system under my proposed tinkering rather than moving to electorates only.

I agree that Goldsmith now has too many portfolios and you’re right about how this imperils good governance. It seems to me though that National already has options within its existing caucus and doesn’t need more MPs if the goal is simply to distribute the workload. This is more of a choice from the prime minister about how he delegates work and voters can decide what they think about it, I guess.

Labour was similar, as I recall — there were a few ‘super ministers’ in charge of a lot.

I take your point regarding gerrymandering. It’s not quite the right word. Replace it with a word that means ‘made to vote in elections where my vote will not materially affect the outcome whereas under the current system it can’, if you like.

Kind of. I’m not suggesting a move from MMP.

That’s an interesting perspective given that some parties have held their seats for decades. Do you really think the parties have earned trust or that some people just vote for them out of habit?

I take a ‘build it and they will come’ approach: I think that if it is possible to actually get in, the minor parties will be able to consistently find better candidates who are willing to invest the time. Right now there is often no point, except for the top of the party list.

If you really think that minor parties place the country at risk I guess you’d be in favour of electoral systems that reduce their chances of getting in.

I hadn’t considered that the rising population might be an issue that people would like to address here. I know it’s been a concern in the US in the House. For me I’m comfortable with having 120 MPs as I don’t want to pay more MP salaries. I can understand why other people might think otherwise.

I’m also reluctant to dump the party vote system. I’m in the regions and my politics are out of step with pretty much everyone around me. With the party vote system I can vote for the party of my choice and know that my vote counts towards their final total. If it were done with an electorate only, my voice would be gerrymandered into not being heard at all, even with smaller electorates.

That’s true.

At this rate, I’m grateful for anything that isn’t burning fossil fuels.

I’d rather see solar and wind power though.

That’s hearty National territory there. Be interesting to see if the electorate has slipped further right-wing though; NZ First and ACT might appeal more to any new true believers.

Yeah, that’s where I was going with that. I kind of get it as I’m in the regions and our population is low enough that our roads suck and are expected to suck in perpetuity. Seems the Govt. is mostly fascinated by trying to grow the infrastructure of Hamilton and Auckland.

Reddit has some cool communities that don’t quite exist elsewhere, and even though I’ve found old-school forums for some of them, the vibe is different (usually older people who are often retired and can’t envision not having money or free time).

I used to pay a sub to Reddit but stopped back when they shafted Apollo. I wonder how things might have gone had Reddit focused on its community rather than the sad process of enshitificafion.

I don’t use Amazon anymore. I don’t live in the US so maybe that makes it easier.

How many new motorways has the north island had compared to the South Island?

I haven’t used windows in years except when my mother asks me to help her out occasionally, and I don’t miss it at all.

Yes — I’d say your impression of the situation is right.

I see your library of Alexandria and raise you the Tower of Babel, which as we all know, came crashing down… I wonder for how long society will let the AI companies build their massive edifices.

Edit: upon checking my bible stories, ‘crashing down’ is not quite the right description of what happened with the Tower, but that’s not really the main point.

This is sad. Good on the shopkeeper for cancelling the orders.

It’s also astounding that the quest for information to subsume is so relentless that AI companies are now after niche books about little old NZ.

(Forgive the old news article — it’s just to stir discussion.)

It’s a nice idea. I think the general population doesn’t care enough to make it a political cause, sadly.