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Supplementary Member’s backers need to come clean
Supplementary Member’s backers need to come clean on their con job
Advocacy of the Supplementary Member voting system is the biggest con job of this referendum, and anyone promoting it needs to be exposed for this, Keep MMP said today.
TVNZ’s poll last night http://tvnz.co.nz had SM as the least favoured voting system among alternatives to MMP, the same result in Friday’s Fairfax poll and a Herald on Sunday poll a fortnight ago. It came last in the 1992 referendum also.
Yet SM continues to be heavily promoted by a small number in the anti MMP lobby, and Keep MMP spokesperson Sandra Grey said that they were trying to hide the fact that a vote for change at the referendum would pit MMP against First Past the Post, the only other voting system with any real support.
“New Zealanders have rejected the First Past the Post as an unfair system, and that view has not changed.”
“But make no mistake, if there is a vote for change on November 26, all we will be doing is asking ourselves in three years time whether or not we want to go backwards to First Past the Post.”
“Why take the risk of giving up a system that gives every voter a fair go and has delivered stable governments of left and right, to return to a system that allowed parties to take charge of the country with little more than a third of the popular vote?
Sandra Grey said that SM was an unwanted system that would deliver First Past the Post style election results.
“Under MMP you are always sure that your party vote will count even if you don’t support the winning candidate in your electorate. Under SM you can lose out in a choice of electorate MP and have a devalued party vote to boot.”
“Those who advocate SM need to come clean on this con job now, and tell us why they are wasting our time with their advocacy of an FPP lookalike system that has such little public support, and who are in reality attempting to take the country backwards to the First Past the Post we've already rejected,” she said.
Keep MMP’s analysis of SM is here: http://campaignformmp.org.nz/sm
Ends.
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