We here at "Don't Be A Rodney, John Key" reckon that you should ask for a large select committee, rather than a small one.
Select Committees are groups of MPs who get together to work through particular issues. There are rules in place about the size of the SC and which parties the members are from. There are some tricks to this though...
As far as possible, the SC membership must be in proportion to the House, but this counts across all the various SCs, not in each one. So if we get a small committee (7 members), it will be possible to stack it in an uneven way, perhaps to keep another small party away from the table.
If we get a large committee (12 members), though, we get representation from every party. That will make sure that everyone has their say, in particular the Greens, who you can count on to say "stop wasting time on this nonsense, let's save the planet already!"
And that's why we want a large committee.
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2 comments:
Hallo Morgue, here via Jenni :).
-Go you, for creating a blog to support an issue in which you believe!
-less cool is that the title is negative. You couldn't have found a positive way to promote your position? Seems like there's enough negative campaigning in politics already.
"It's time for the 96% of us who didn't vote for Rodney to speak up."
Cool. Nice number. What about the 92%+ of us who didn't vote Green? A mass stat like that makes your "Don't be a Rodney" position sound very gutsy, but isn't terribly informative.
Just, blargh - the negative title here is kinda tainting the whole site for me - the title provides a filter, and it's not "fight climate change" or whatever, which is an apolitical issue, it's pulling it wholly back into the irrelevant realm of party politics.
It's also weird, because I'd always thought you'd be someone to take a positive position rather than a negative one.
Hi Rachel,
You make a good point here; my biases are definitely showing.
However, I don't agree that climate change in this instance is an apolitical issue - it is, very specifically, politicised, and that's what is driving the site. In what was a political calculation, John Key has conceded to Rodney Hide and put NZ out of step with the majority of New Zealanders, with global politics, and even with the global economy.
That said, I take your point that this could have been phrased positively. For the moment I'm comfortable with the framing I'm using here but you are quite correct that it is in a negative style and that may not have been necessary.
I don't know if this really addresses any of your concerns, but thanks for giving me cause to reflect.
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