This is not your typical political post. I will not be telling you who *I* am voting for, and I actually don’t particularly care who you are voting for (as long as you vote!), but it is an election year here in Aotearoa so of course voting is on some of the public’s mind.
The reason for this post is mainly the On The Fence website. I did it when I saw people tweeting/facebooking about it. The results weren’t particularly surprising to me but then I consider myself fairly politically savvy and I know some of most of the main parties policies.
What I did think of as a bit of a brainwave (in my humble opinion) is that, wouldn’t it be great if on election day you had questions on policies instead of boxes for people/parties?
Stay with me here.
I’m not even proposing an overhaul of our system, I’m saying keep on with everything, the parties, the leaders, the MPs. They all come out with their policies as they do. They campaign as they do. However, on election day, you are merely given a list of categories (like the On The Fence website) and asked your opinion for each. Of course, at the other end, each “answer” is a political party but this would take the personalities out of the question!
We will no longer have arguments and media commentary about how “nice” someone is, or how someone “lied” to someone else. Each party would be proportionally picked purely based on the work they propose they will do.
Of course, all the ‘savvy’ will roughly know which answer corresponds to which party, but I’m guessing here that the majority of the voting public who are currently angry and cynical and hate Mr/Ms Politician and is disillusioned with XYZ party can now vote exactly what they want to happen for Aotearoa, not for some politician or their party.
It will also, ultimately, make each party much more accountable for their policies. If we know that 50% of New Zealand voted for something and that was why XYZ party got in, then they better do what they said they were going to do. Instead of now, where it becomes a vague past memory of *something* that nice Mr Politician said two weeks before election day.
What do you think? comment below?
DISCLAIMER: I’m not a political science student, or have never done political science. Just an average kiwi who always votes and despairs at low voter turnout.
Vivian Chandra 