"If you're only prepared to make popular decisions as a leader though, then what is the point of leadership? It's not really leadership is it. It's just focus-grouping. It's just polling. Instead of laying out a platform, debating its merits, and pursuing a really distinct vision, you might as well just have a smartphone app or a website, on which everyone votes for every little policy."
@strypey and that’s why many Labour voters will punish Hipkins timidity and some of the “small l” urban liberals will return to National due to the lack of differentiation.
@NZedAUS
> that’s why many Labour voters will punish Hipkins timidity
I hope so. The problem is, how? My concern is that you're right about the swinging centre drifting back to the Nats and thus into the mandibles of ACT. Then as that shows in the polls, heaps of people will be demoralized by the grand coalition of the LabNatACTs, and just fail to vote at all.
I guess that would be a less bad outcome than people holding their nose and voting for Labour anyway. But TBH, in their current form the Greens deserve the weak polling they've been getting despite Labour's cynical populism. I doubt their vote will grow much from this latest round. But we'll see.
@NZedAUS
After all, what options do they have? Vote for the Greens, who at best will only end up a spare leg propping up a lame duck, rightward-drifting Lab govt? Vote for TOP or NZ First to create some opposition in Parliament to the LabNatACT grand coalition? A vote that could be wasted if the party that can't break the 5% threshold that everyone (except the LabNatACT grand coalition) agrees needs to 1-2% lower. Not exactly inspiring?
@strypey if Labour somehow manage to retain Gvt it’ll be off the back of an increased Greens vote - rather than a spare leg, it’ll be more like half the table.
@NZedAUS
The only light I can see at the end of the tunnel is Te Pāti Māori doing well out of Labour's relentless self-punching, winning some more of the Māori electorates, and upping their party vote too. Which would be a good way to show the Stop Co-Governance reactionaries that they have no influence beyond senile white-bread Boomers and crypto-fascists.
FWIW I say that as a longtime friend and ally of many Greens activists, including former and current MPs. I've spoken to a lot of good activists who have been alienated by careerist apparachiks, who have come to dominate Greens processes over the last decade or so.
@strypey@NZedAUS But to be fair to the ‘careerists’ - the people who hold the reins of power don’t tend to give a shit what activists think. If you want change, you have to get the people in charge to agree with you. This means compromise: something most activists are not very good at, by definition.
@strypey@NZedAUS You just have to look at results: in the last two terms, working with the govt., we got the clean car scheme and the climate change commission. Did we get everything? No, of course not. Would we have gotten those sitting on the sidelines? No, we would not. Neither major party wants to rock the boat.
@Salty
> You just have to look at results: in the last two terms, working with the govt., we got
... nothing more impressive than you got working with Key's NatACTs from the cross-benches. With the added advantage of not being seen as complicit in their betrayals. Arguably still the case 2017-20 due to NZ First filling that role. Not so this term.
@Salty
If you think a clear majority Labour govt gave Greens anything they didn't want to do anyway, in exchange for their reputational damage, you're kidding yourself. Like you say, look at results, ie your polling, which has never recovered to the levels achieved during Metiria's co-leadership.
Labour used you as a PR bodyshield for policies they knew would alienate the swinging centre. Thus freeing them up to swing to the right and appeal to them, as they're now doing.
@strypey@NZedAUS "Labour used you as a PR bodyshield for policies they knew would alienate the swinging centre." Preferable that than getting nothing at all. National would never cave to a Climate Change Commission.
@Salty
> Preferable that than getting nothing at all. National would never cave to a Climate Change Commission.
You're missing the point. The Climate Change Commission is something Ardern would have done with or without the Greens in their Cabinet. But if you weren't, they would have had to own it. They wouldn't have been able to lump you with full responsibility, in the eyes of the selfish right-wingers they're now trying to appeal to.
@Salty
Also the actual achievements of the CCC are... ? A bunch of paperwork? Has there been any substantial change to NZ's carbon emissions resulting for anything they've done? I see this as pretty much equivalent to the Families Commission the Nats set up to appease United Future, or the development QUANGO Clark set up to appease the Jim Anderton fandom. Where are they now?
@strypey@NZedAUS I think its unfair to claim that the Greens can do no more than prop up Labour when they've never had more than a small percentage of votes to work with.
@strypey@NZedAUS my belief is that the more votes that go to the Greens or TPM, the more bargaining power they have. The reductio ad adsurdum of the position that minor parties make no difference is that we should all vote labour/national or not at all, and I don't believe that.
@kaffiene
> the more votes that go to the Greens or TPM, the more bargaining power they have
On this, we agree. I think TPM will have significantly more seats after October, and thus more influence, as I mentioned in the third of the string of posts starting here:
> a smartphone app or a website, on which everyone votes for every little policy
Sounds good to me. We could eliminate an expensive layer of besuited spokesmodels and PR spindoctors, who provide no real value to anyone but themselves. Instead, public servants could carry out whatever policies get a supermajority in a weekly of monthly batch of digital referenda.
@strypey but that means I have to be on top of every issue all the time, or let the issue-specific lunatics overrule me in everything.
I actually thought that was what I sent an MP to parliament for, to be on top of the issues and know what their electorate wanted.
(I know in the real world, thats so funny, hahaha, but, honestly, I have a dayjob already. Why do I have to do theirs too?)
If you want democracy, you have to participate. Otherwise you're relying on benevolent dictatorship as a substitute. The failure modes of that form of governance are pretty obvious, and have been playing out in anglophone countries since the neoliberal coups of the 1980s. Key, Ardern, Hipkins and Luxon are all products of this rot.
@strypey
I fear that what would happen is it would be like election time all the time.
Instead of lobbyists approaching the government, it would be full on advertising to us, all the time. #dislike
@leadegroot
> Instead of lobbyists approaching the government, it would be full on advertising to us, all the time
I see no downside to this. This would spread them much thinner, and make their job much harder.
Of course, making it work would require us to succeed in abolishing DataFarming, and decentralising all social media. But IMHO I think democracy is over anyway if we can't.
@strypey
Yes, well, as every day passes I become more and more cynical if this whole mess is fixable :(
It won't stop me trying it will only kill my optimism.
(Until one day I discover myself running the guillotine and wondering how it came to this... :( )
@strypey What I would like to see (and I realise you are in .nz and I am in .au and you have that interesting proportional system already, so its different...)
is an MP elected on the basis of "these 10K (pick a number) people voted for me" not "the most people in this electorate voted for me".
(Lots of details to be worked out. Does it need to be "you can only vote for people within (pick a number) 1000km of you"?)
but actual representation!
@strypey yes, we do, but, for example, given I never vote for the MP we have had in local electorate for most of 20 years - I have effectively been unrepresented in all that time.
(God knows, the potato is a very rude man, although his staff are ok)
I think this would still require ranked voting (because if my #1 choice only gets 5 votes he's obviously not going to Canberra, so the electoral commission should count my #2 vote, etc)
@leadegroot
> the software to do what you are describing
A whole bunch of digital decision-making software was written over the last decade, by groups inspired by Occupy (eg Loomio, DemocracyOS). Also for use in the Pirate Party moment, such as LiquidFeedback. One cool thing about LF is that it allows you to nominate someone to proxy vote for you. Either in general, or by portfolio (your proxy on transport issues to one person, on conservation issues to someone else).
@leadegroot@strypey
> proxy vote for portfolio of issues
There is an algorithmic alternative based on pairwise choice, which interested me. https://allourideas.org/
Threw up interesting patterns (just a few people voted)
@tetrislife
> There is an algorithmic alternative based on pairwise choice
I'm not familiar with "pairwise choice" but I'll have a look. I like what g0v did with Pol.is for vTaiwan too. So many intriguing models out there to learn from.
@ensslen
> We closer to having a perfect voting system now than we are to being able to have a functional internet voting system
I agree with everything you say here. But I also note that the one problem that underlies all of these is centralisation of all political power in one body. Which makes it a juicy target for adversaries. Radical devolution of most decision-making to the smallest practical scale would spread the risk considerably.
@ensslen
> We closer to having a perfect voting system now than we are to being able to have a functional internet voting system
Do you agree that secure digital voting is a worthy goal though? Given that the postal system is on its last legs, on a long enough timescale, it seems unavoidable for local government elections to go digital.
@strypey
OMG I categorically reject the notion that voting over the internet has even the potential to be good for democracy or our communities.
Elections over the internet result in a government controlled by hackers. That either results in control of government by organised crime or by our spies. I'm not sure which is worse.
I mean, we're so far away from being able to meet the basic preconditions. We need a sci-fi future to even build secure devices or give them to people.
@ensslen
> I categorically reject the notion that voting over the internet has even the potential to be good for democracy
So what's your solution for running local government elections, once the legacy postal system finally falls over? Pay courier companies to deliver voting papers? Or to run polling booths at Council service centres that everyone has to vote at? Who's going to pay for that?
I understand your concerns, but you might be making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Suggesting internet voting because postal voting may someday cease to be an option is inventing a problem in order to propose a "solution" which we know to be unworkable.
@ensslen
> postal voting may someday cease to be an option is inventing a problem
It's a real and imminent problem. if you can't see that, I respectfully suggest you haven't been paying attention to the fortunes of NZ Post over the last few years.
A few of the more obvious red flags;
dropping mail delivery to 3 days a week
massive increases in stamp prices
utility bills and public service mail shifting to digital delivery
@ensslen
> The best solution is to run polling booths
OK, so who pays for that? General elections cost a lot more to run than local body elections for a reason. Meanwhile, councils are desperately trying to cut spending and avoid ramping up rates.
Your solutions?
Also, let's not pretend that the existing local body election system is working particularly well. It's widely acknowledged that turnout is low and results seldom represent the will of local populations.
No. Secure digital voting is not a worthy goal. It will never provide for the physical security of the voter, and therefore makes a mockery of ballot secrecy.
I categorically reject the "inevitability" of all techsolutionism. We can, and should, just chose to run proper, in person elections. I'm not aware of any good reasons not to. The cost argument is anti-democratic and counter to good government not matter how you spin it.
@ensslen
> Secure digital voting is not a worthy goal. It will never provide for the physical security of the voter, and therefore makes a mockery of ballot secrecy
I can see why this matters a lot in electing officials. Given this only happens infrequently, the huge cost of running an in-person election may be justified.
@ensslen But what about voting in non-binding referenda, say on a weekly basis? Interested parties would have to manually intimidate a lot of people, a lot of the time, to have any significant influence on the outcome of such votes. If the results are indicative only, and non-binding, it seems unlikely anyone would consider it worth the effort. Yet the ability of decision-makers to get regular, representative snapshots of public opinion could add considerably to our democracy, a la g0v.
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