General Election

Press, 30 November 1978, Page 16

General Election

Sir, — Shona McFarlane, the wife of a Cabinet Minister, showed moral courage by suggesting proportional representation on TV2’s Election Night Special. First past the post worked better when people attended all candidates’ meetings. Radio and television with emphasis on leaders and parties, have made it obsolete. Norway, with the same party in power for 40 years, disposes of the instability argument. The “Democracy in Decline?” table published in “The Press,” on November 22 indicates that proportional representation increases voting turn-out. Britain, with 72.8 per cent and the United States with a 1978 estimate of 37, do nothing for our present system. This election we have only National members of Parliament for the whole of Northland where 52 per cent are either Labour or Social Credit. Only one National member of Parliament has been returned in Christchurch. Proportional representation gives a better party representation spread and therefore kindles more interest in the local area. — Yours, A. M. COATES. November 29, 1978.

Sir, — Cedric Mentiplay (November 28) cannot dismiss calls for a return to proportional representation in New Zealand so smugly. Where is the stability in our present system with its violent anti-Government swings which this time have left National the Government although 60 per cent of voters rejected it? Is not the individual voter rendered powerless in “safe seats” now by an all-powerful party machine which ensures that

the only real “election” is the selection of the entrenched party’s candidate? Surely New Zealanders have the wit and competence to put the “democratic” back into our democracy by drawing up an electoral system best suited for New Zealand’s conditions which incorporates the best features of both a plurality system and proportional representation, as in West Germany and Sweden. The people’s will is denied only at a grave risk to democracy. — Yours, etc.,