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Election turnout

Declining voter turnout is a worldwide trend that can only be turned around by young people
Compulsory voting cart before smarter-democracy horse

Compulsory voting cart before smarter-democracy horse

Big business would be the biggest loser, was a Labour-led government to legislate to prosecute non-voters. Currently, unlike Australians, New Zealanders are legally allowed to abstain from voting. But with global voter turnout in determined decline, New Zealand’s lack…

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Climate and democracy at the mercy of plutocracy

Climate and democracy at the mercy of plutocracy

Epically ironically, salvaging a survivable climate and a free society possibly now depends upon a one plutocrat deposing another plutocrat, turned dictator. Far preferably, Republican Party senators would suspend self-interest for the survival and dignity of their once…

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You say you want a constitution and less democracy

You say you want a constitution and less democracy

What’s good for doctors of medicine, it would appear, doesn’t apply to doctors of law. The imperative to first do no harm is being violated in the latest proposal by Dr Andrew Butler and Sir Geoffrey Palmer qc, for a codified constitution for Aotearoa. In their second book together…

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Just when Jacinda needed Germany most

Just when Jacinda needed Germany most

When Jacinda Ardern stepped up, Labour was on 24% and National was at 47%. Once the special votes are counted, which include whatever youthquake or youth-tremor has occurred, the New Zealand National Party share will be lucky to be 45%…

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Jacindaquake and Kids Voting curtain-raiser

Jacindaquake and Kids Voting curtain-raiser

There’s no reason to imagine Aotearoa will be spared its youthquake. In the United Kingdom, it was a 68-year-old Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who triggered the tremor. The quake unleashed by the youth-adjacent Jacinda Ardern, who has just rocked…

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Four-year term terminal for turnout long-term

Four-year term terminal for turnout long-term

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 mainstream…

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If it’s democracy that’s broke, fix it

If it’s democracy that’s broke, fix it

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…

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Kids Voting curtain-raiser could electrify elections

Kids Voting curtain-raiser could electrify elections

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…

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Hear no evidence see no evidence speak no…

Hear no evidence see no evidence speak no…

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…

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Health boards and the triennial panning of STV

Health boards and the triennial panning of STV

Every local-body election since its introduction, sees the same disinformation. The rock-solid single-transferable-vote system, first computerised in Aotearoa and used by her for 12 years, is set to endure its triennial onslaught of…

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Only council candidate to score straight-a pluses

Only council candidate to score straight-a pluses

Warkworth from 4000 to 20 000 by 2040. That would be a five-fold increase in less than half the 50 years it took the region to treble to today’s population, of about 1.5 million. With this planned growth-rate of more than three times the regional average…

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Polling patch-up for flawed first-past-the-post

Polling patch-up for flawed first-past-the-post

Polling gets blamed for a lot of things. For starters, for influencing folk into voting for the winning side. Or, conversely, for influencing folk into voting for the underdog. Whereas, in an ideal world, voters would express their honestly held preference…

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Bugger evidence-based policymaking – buy a Kombi

Bugger evidence-based policymaking – buy a Kombi

After three decades of Kids Voting, there is ample evidence to back it up. And for half that time, after it was imported from the United States by the then Auckland City Council, kids in Aotearoa have been at it. This year, a record 11 730 students in the…

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Web Magna Carta and better democracy for half the price

Web Magna Carta and better democracy for half the price

It is possible to put a price on better democracy. At least to the extent that combining local and general elections would nearly halve the cost of holding them, and massively improve local-body turnout to boot. Extensive experience elsewhere suggests that…

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Mahurangi Magazine reprints the New Lynn speech

Mahurangi Magazine reprints the New Lynn speech

You know that at the last election, the one that we lost so badly, nearly one million people didn’t vote; more than 800 000 people—a fifth of the population—didn’t vote. Now you know, there are lots of reasons that people didn’t vote, and there were…

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