22nd May 2007- This weeks grumble....... Politicians!

I can't for the life of me work out why parliament and those who formulate policy on electoral reform can't sort out MMP and differentiate between list MP's and those that are there because enough people voted for them.

Case in point- Gordon Copeland, late of the United Future Party.

He got into parliament as a list MP because United Future won an electoral seat. Presumably he was second or third on the list. He resigned from the party and logically the eraser comes out and he disappears from the party list (thus losing his seat) and the bloke or blokess who missed out should step up and take his place. But no! logic plays no part in politics, and Gordon happily continues to pick up his parliamentary salary and now calls himself an independant even though no one voted for him.

Philip Taito-Field, former member for Mangere on the other hand was voted in by the electorate and forced out of his seat by the labour Party. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the circumstances of his eviction, his choice to remain in parliament as an independant is fair enough as the electorate thought him good enough in the first place and at the next election they can give him the thumbs down and send him to the dole queue or thumb their nose at the Labour Party and endorse him as an Independant.

Is it rocket science?