by Cimino | 7 Apr 2017 | Local, Representation
On average, each of Auckland region’s part-time local board politicians represents 9500 people. But a report prepared for Auckland Council argues for the number of local boards and local board members to be halved, which would double the number each member...
by Cimino | 7 Jan 2017 | Direct democracy, Global democracy, MMP, STV
Professor David Altman wrote the book on it. Academics know it as direct democracy; Australians, bless ’em, mostly as plebiscites; and mere citizens, as initiatives or referendums. Semantics aside, most democracies allow for direct democracy, to a greater or lesser...
by Cimino | 24 Dec 2016 | Election turnout, Representation, Term of office, Youth voting
The need for Aotearoa to have a codified constitution is self-evident. Despite that, the initiative of constitutional lawyer Dr Andrew Butler and former prime minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer, launched in August, has failed to fire up a nation-wide discussion in the...
by Cimino | 11 Nov 2016 | Election turnout, Regional governance, Youth voting
From Day One he’s wanted a better slogan than ‘the World’s most liveable city.’ For his trouble, and even before hearing what that slogan might be, Mayor Phil Goff is being rubbished and ridiculed for wanting to replace the city’s tragically generic branding, with...
by Cimino | 19 Oct 2016 | Election turnout, Youth voting
Voting in schools works, or would, if more students were involved. With participation rates so low, the only intervention proven to address the worldwide decline in voter turnout is being relegated to little more than tokenism. Of the nearly 500 intermediate and...
by Cimino | 8 Oct 2016 | Concurrent elections, Election turnout, Electoral enrolment, Youth voting
It is difficult to say which is more egregious. The three mayors yearning for the good old days of single-day polling. Or the mainstream media for being equally ill-informed and not pillorying them for their collective abject lack of evidence-based policy responses to...
