Anti-MMP campaign is still in the stalls

The MMP referendum looks to be shoo-in for the status quo if the forces in favour and those against are any indication.

For a start, Labour and the Greens, along with six unions, have joined the Register of Promoters, giving them the right to spend up to $300,000 each on campaigning.

The National party is sitting on the fence, while Vote For Change is backing the supplementary member system as the favoured alternative to MMP.

The Maxim Institute has provided a useful analysis that sums up the issue as one between the “microcosm” model of representative democracy and the “trustee” one.

The microcosm model assumes that the composition of MPs elected to parliament should mirror the representation of interest groups in society [be they] gender, ethnicity, regional affiliation, social status or a political or religious belief… MPs are delegates who govern according to what the identity group they represent thinks.

By contrast, under the trustee model

MPs use their discernment to make decisions on behalf of the community that they represent, acting for the community as a whole, rather than acting like a delegate for them… Under the trustee model, it is not as important for the composition of parliament to mirror all the interest groups in society. Instead, it is important that a government can be formed which can make decisions that are in everyone’s best interests.

This neatly sums up the difference. I used the Referendum Tool, on Public Address, and unsurprisingly wound up with FPP. Roger Kerr is writing a two-part series on MMP, starting tomorrow in NBR, while the report, Kicking the Tyres: Choosing a voting system for New Zealand, by Maxim’s Steve Thomas is available online.

Christchurch’s future: Keeping up with Jones
Sir Robert Jones’ vision for the future of Christchurch expresses what many have been afraid to say.

His op-ed in the Fairfax papers spells out the business imperatives: the business heart cannot be reconstructed unless the building developers can attract the tenants prepared to pay for it.

My recent visit inside the Red Zone backs up his worst fears that the remaining high-rise buildings will be isolated in a sea of empty sites.

He concludes, from a property owner’s point of view, that the retail heart was already in decline, killed off by the city’s ring of suburban shopping centres. He suggests a model for Christchurch is the once devastated Lebanese capital of Beirut:

Its CBD rebuilding after the civil war offers a potential physical model for Christchurch. Entirely pedestrianised with attractive six to eight-level mixed residential and office buildings and, at street level, shops, cafes, gardens and fountains, Beirut's new centre is a sheer delight.

But, and unfortunately there is a but, it was substantially funded by a successful sentimental appeal to the global Lebanese diaspora, motivated less by immediate financial considerations. Additionally, with no earthquake factor and cheap Syrian and Muslim Lebanese labour abundant, construction costs were a fraction of Christchurch's.

If that is not possible, as would be realistic without a huge amount of state investment, given the Christchurch council’s addiction to holding on to its port and airport, Sir Robert sees a spread-out garden city with an insignificant cbd.

Commercial activity would then be based on what exists now with the focus on the suburbs, as found in many Christchurch-sized American cities.

Getting on and getting off
After my trip to Christchurch I was surveyed by Air New Zealand on how I judged the flight. The only quibble I had was the time it takes packed 737s to load passengers and then disembark.

Air New Zealand has started to use both ends of the aircraft to speed up the process, though it means those sitting at the back no longer have airbridges. I have since discovered experts have applied their minds to this problem.

Jason Steffen’s study has sparked a lively debate in The Economist. He tested various techniques, included the zone/block style, filling it from back to front with large groups, and WilMA (window, middle, aisle in that order).

His solution is a combination of both: boarding passengers by alternatives rows with window passengers first.

But this is so complicated, The Economist suggests, that it is just as quick to let everyone on at the same time.

Air New Zealand says it okay to push past people in the aisle, though this is hard to achieve, while there always seem to be passengers who have exceeded the limits for cabin baggage and waste most of the other passengers’ time looking for a place to store it.

Ryanair and Southwest, of course, have already mastered this by all but banning take-on luggage or not having seat allocations. It’s first in best seated.

Turkey turns feral
Turkey’s decision to go feral on the West has puzzled me for a while. It has turned its back on Israel and has revived delusions of an Islamic caliphate, aka the Ottoman Empire.

Although Turkey sided with history by disowning former cronies Gaddafi in Libya and Assad in Syria, its friendship with Iran and broadsides against Israel are testing its supporters in the West.

The Palmer report largely dismissed Turkey’s case on the intentions of the Mavi Marmara and others have noted Turkey’s continuing occupation of northern Cyprus and war against the Kurds’ nationalistic aspirations.

Middle East analyst Daniel Pipes has provided some background into Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan’s Islamic government. His views differ from the largely supportive coverage that Turkeyhas received from publications such as Newsweek  and this liberal Arab think tank.

Pipes says Turkey is not only risking its credibility as a stable democracy but it has turned Israel toward Turkey’s other foes, Greece, Cyprus and Armenia. On top of this is an economic threat:

Turkey faces a credit crunch, one largely ignored in light of crises in Greece and elsewhere. As analyst David Goldman points out, Erdoğan and the AKP [ruling party] took the country on a financial binge: bank credit ballooned while the current account deficit soared, reaching unsustainable levels.

The party's patronage machine borrowed massive amounts of short-term debt to finance a consumption bubble that effectively bought it the June 2011 elections. Goldman calls Erdoğan a "Third World strongman" and compares Turkey today with Mexico in 1994 or Argentina in 2000, "where a brief boom financed by short-term foreign capital flows led to currency devaluation and a deep economic slump."