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Radio NZ supports SM?
By Steven | October 31, 2011
I’ve just listened to all four of Radio NZ’s primers on the various options for the referendum and noticed an interesting thing. (I found them on the Morning Report segments: the Supplementary Member on is here, for example. I couldn’t get the relevant links on the special RNZ election page to work).
They are generally admirably well done: succint, accurate, balanced, and authoritatively sourced. At about 3 minutes long each, they don’t go into all the arguments, but they make a fair fist of the important ones.
But there’s one exception. The item on the Supplementary Member option stands out as surprisingly supportive. SM is introduced as “shaping up as a main contender”. RNZ describes it as “somewhere in between” the proportional systems and the FPP-type ones. Two sources – Jordan Williams and Michael Bassett speak glowingly of its advantages. There’s a good explanation of how the system operates. One source – Teresa Arsenau describes it, not in a derogatory way, as three quarters FPP and one quarter proportional.
Nobody speaks against it. Where’s the bite from someone saying something like, “SM was rejected by the Royal Commission, is basically FPP in drag with most of its attendant disadvantages, and is being used as a stalking horse by the anti-MMP crowd”?
[I’ve changed that from “roundly rejected by the Royal Commission” in response to Graeme’s point below that it’s an overstatement.]
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