General Election

Press, 4 December 1981, Page 12

General Election

Sir,—Would not your editorials (December 3) be better employed campaigning for electoral justice for the people of New Zealand than indulging in banal, jocular diversions one associates with timid mothers attempting to maintain the family status quo when some controversial disturbance arises. When you do refer to alternative electoral methods (“The Press,” November 30) it is to divert attention from the appalling faults in our method to the unsubstantiated possible faults of those being recommended. It is not good enough—Yours, etc., L. J. ROBINSON. December 3, 1981. Sir,—Brian Wilson (December 1) misunderstands the function of Parliament.lt is supposed to be a forum for representatives of individual electorates to voice the opinion of taxpayers and voters. In each electorate we vote for a man or woman to go and represent us. We should vote for someone who is known to us, and we should vote for someone who has integrity and will act truthfully and honestly in our place. The “first-past-the-post” system is the best and fairest method of ensuring that this occurs. Proportional representation does not allow this to happen. It means the voters in each electorate have not really got any control over who represents them. Proportional representation is a tool of party politics, not of electoral representation. With the proportional system, the numbers of votes for a party is the criterion for election, whereas we should not be voting for parties at all!—Yours, etc., ROBIN WILLIAMS. December 2, 1981. Sir,—Dr Barry Gustafson (“The Press,” December 2) is not quite right in blaming Mr Anderton for antagonising monetary reformers. It is a wonder any remained there at all. In 1935 these people left their traditional parties for Labour which promised monetary reform, a move later scrapped, chiefly by Sir Walter Nash. This resulted in the formation of the Social Credit Political League, causing a move of some votes from Labour. Mr Anderton does deserve criticism for his intemperate statements since the election. Will he please tell us why Labour was right in the twenties taking votes from the Liberals and accidentaly helping Massey and Coates, while Social Credit, now the third party, is wrong for using Labour’s old recipe? Surely he knows his party’s past or is this a skeleton he prefers hidden? To an onlooker, his present attitude screams: “Do as we say, not what we did.”— Yours, etc., A. M. COATES. December 2, 1981. Sir,—Perhaps someone could answer for me; who is the leader of the Labour Party — Mr Anderton or Mr Rowling? To me, it looks as though

Mr Anderton thinks he is the leader overall by the statments he has been making lately to the press. Mr Anderton is saying the opposite to Mr Rowling in a few cases. It sounds like a party not in control of itself and hence not in a slate to govern New Zealand; that is why they lost on Saturday.— Yours, etc., A. J. SHARR. December 2, 1981.