N.Z. Party pledged to electoral reform

Press, 24 December 1986, Page 7

N.Z. Party pledged to electoral reform

PA Wellington All New Zealand Party candidates at the next election will be pledged to support electoral reform, said the chairman of the party’s steering commitee, Mr Stephen Greenfield. "Despite its pledge of electoral reform, the Labour Government has shown itself unwilling even to tether the goose of party privilege, much less consider slaying the bird on whose eggs the old parties feed,” he said. “The National Party will never willingly abandon the system which allowed it to retain power in 1981, even though

Labour received more votes. “Election of members from both a constituency and a party list has superficial appeal, but needs further examination to determine if this mixed- • member, two-vote scheme is actually preferable to the single transferable vote system which we proposed in our submission. “Even so, the New Zealand Party can only welcome any move towards proportional representation and we applaud this endorsement of our longstanding policies which call for a longer Parlia-

mentary term and the abolition of Maori seats.” Mr Greenfield said the party could not support the proposed prohibition on paid political broadcast advertising. This concept isolated broadcasting from all other forms of political promotion. “It would be fair only if all paid political advertising, direct mail pamphlets, hoardings, newspapers, magazines, theatres, and so on, were similarly restricted.

“As this is neither practical nor desirable, we cannot agree with the broadcasting prohibition.”