So, National has made its election strategy clear - it's going to once again try and grub an electorate victory with an Epsom cup-of-tea deal.
That's the only analysis to take away from National's decision to ignore the MMP review.
The review was clear - ditch the 'coat-tailing' clause.
That's otherwise known as the 'cup of tea clause' - if a party misses out on the 5 percent threshold, but wins an electorate seat and gets a smidgen of the party vote, it gets to bring a couple of MPs in with it.
It is in my opinion a dodgy back-door entry to Parliament.
It enables 'dirty deals' like in Epsom, where the National MP stands to lose so a coalition partner can get a leg-up.
And the National Government, no doubt in cahoots with John Banks/ACT and Peter Dunne are preserving it - with their own self-preservation in mind.
All New Zealanders got to vote on whether MMP should stay or go at the last election.
The majority of Kiwis voted for it to stay - with the implication there would be changes.
The coat-tailing clause, after the debacle in Epsom, was obviously the main target for change.
But, after all the money spent on the review - we get nothing, zero, zilch.
It was left up to Judith Collins to reveal National was ditching the review in a symbolically underhand off-the-cuff announcement in Parliament yesterday.
Collins has been saying she couldn't get a political consensus about the review, and also that she couldn't get the 61 votes needed to pass it.
Collins must make National's position on the coat-tailing rule clear - did National want it to stay?
Because, if National did (which we surely only presume is the case), then of course getting a majority to change it was going to be difficult for Labour and the Greens.
Labour and Greens were against the coat-tailing clause - but that's just because of self-interest too. They know this will hurt the centre-right.
The Labour-Greens are just as dirty as National - they've done dirty deals themselves in the past. It's just that the coat-tailing clause is not required by them at the moment (and we know they still do filthy deals where the Green candidate stands but tells voters to give electorate vote to Labour, but that's another story).
It's important to for me stand outside politics on this one.
I've long been on record that I don't like electorate deals and that I don't like politicians who stand to deliberately lose.
This latest instalment feels dirty to me. Collins and National must come clean.
I'm picking the National strategists would like a dirty deal in Epsom again.
They know ACT only needs to pick up a little bit in the polls to get the 1.5% or so needed to get a bonus seat - a two-for-one deal.
The National strategists once again do not want those votes of hardcore libertarians to go missing.
The National strategists once again want a party to its right.
Contrary to popular opinion, ACT is still alive. It may not be a 5% party by 2014 - but it could be a 2% party by 2014.
Maybe Banks won't stand again - and the clean-skin Chris Simmons comes in.
People say Epsom voters can't take another deal - I think they can, and National's strategists do too.
The deal might yield another ACT MP - and that's of course the one seat National could need to get a majority at the next election.
There will probably not be a cup-of-tea this time around though - my advice to John Key and Steven Joyce is just send a pamphlet out saying he thinks the ACT representative is OK.
Same goes with Peter Dunne. If he sticks around, it looks like the National candidate won't be trying again. It gives an outside chance that Dunne might fluke an extra MP.
The Conservatives? I'm pretty sure that Key and Joyce don't like Colin Craig. But let's wait-and-see. A dirty electorate deal might be open to the Conservatives yet too.
So the back-door entry to Parliament is set to be controversial again in 2014.
But if you, the public, don't like it - it's too late for it to be changed. And if you feel dirty about that - fair enough.
source: newshub archive
