Matt Nolan

Why join the Civilian Party?

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I am going to take a brief break from my intense political neutrality, and current unbearably heavy workload, to make the case for people to join (and not necessarily vote for) the Civilian Party.

On Facebook I noticed that the Civilian Party is 55 members short of the 500 it requires to get media funding/time for the 2014 New Zealand general elections.  Without this time, it would be difficult to individuals to make a considered choice about voting for a satire party this election.

At first brush this may seem like no small concern.  We will all sit down and choose the party we are the most comfortable with, or deliver a protest vote to some party that will “never get in”, or even just not vote if we feel disenfranchised.

However, this choice is not sufficient – a satirical party can fill an important role in the political spectrum.  Specifically, a satire party allows us to deliver a true protest vote about the direction ALL political parties are taking.  This thereby promoting entry and competition in the political space, and can help point out that a given governments mandate is weaker than meets the eye.

Think of it this way – without a satire party we have two ways to deliver a “protest vote”, not voting or voting for a party we don’t think will get in (eg Legalise Cannabis).  However, how do people read those two vote types:

  1. If we don’t vote, people just assume we were “too lazy”, so it doesn’t matter.
  2. If we vote for an irrelevant party with actual policies, people assume that we actually supported those policies.

The only way we can show that we are willing to incur the cost of voting (and so are not lazy) and that our views about politics are not being represented by the parties currently wrestling for our vote is through a vote to a satirical party.  There is no “vote of no confidence”, instead within the current system this is as close as we can get.

In that way, I hope you will consider spending the $1 to become a member of the party in order to ensure that this choice is available to people when they are thinking about who they may vote for.  Even if you are happy with the space the political parties hold, and you have a clear preference for one party, the existence of a satire party has value overall.  This isn’t just about entertainment value, it is about having a true protest vote – one that doesn’t involve rubbing the egos of people like Bob Jones, by letting them confuse the idea that people are voting for them out of frustration rather than agreeing with a single thing they have to say.

For way of transparency, I paid to be a member early on, but at present I’m not sure whether I’d vote for them – I need to look at party platforms more closely near the election, and figure out if I’m disenfranchised enough to protest.  I’d say my voting preference currently is (out of the parties that enter my head – not if the parties are together they are currently tied):

  1. Civilian, National, Greens.
  2. Maori
  3. Labour
  4. Internet-Mana, United
  5. NZ First, ACT
  6. Conservative

However, this changes all the time, and any party within the first three tiers could easily end up with my vote.

Matt Nolan

Discussion Tuesday

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And to switch tack …

The role of government is not to redistribute incomes, a process that leads to many with already reasonable claims on resources to simply demand (and be given) more from others.  The government’s redistributionary focus should be on insurance in certain circumstances, helping those trapped in poverty, and those who start life at a significant disadvantage.

Matt Nolan

Quick note: Earnings inequality and aging

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Note:  I know I’m not replying to comments right now, I’m very sorry.  It isn’t you, it is me – this time of year is always pretty full on for me!  Keep an eye out – in the next couple of weeks I will find time to turn around and comment back.  Post will be a touch lighter as well – but I will try to have at least three things up a week!

Via Twitter came this cool graph from Wiki New Zealand.

I’m going to quickly note something from that graph.   Read more

Matt Nolan

Discussion Tuesday

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Similar to last week:

People in society care about absolute differences in income not relative differences.  As a result, in a growing society income inequality measures understate this concern.

jamesz

Football referees aren’t just wrong, they’re biased

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Football penalties are often controversial and the first couple of days of the World Cup have already provided one dubious decision. Luckily for the referee’s personal safety it favoured the hosts, Brazil. But, according to Randal Olson’s fascinating analysis of penalty decisions, there may be more than luck involved:

70.6% of all penalty kicks were awarded to the Home team.

penalty-kicks-team

…

Similarly, if the Away team received the first penalty kick, then the Home team received the second penalty kick 92.5% of the time — an incredible display of referee bias.

Check out the whole post for all the details and a bunch more stats!

Will Taylor

Rates and property values: it’s the relativity that matters

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I have a very minor quibble with today’s article in the herald titled “Higher rates the flipside of soaring house prices“.

The crux of the article is this redacted quote

If you live in Auckland and neighbouring houses have sold for unheard-of prices in the past two months, you can expect your home’s official value to shoot up.

…

The flipside? The new values will be taken into account when setting new rates next year.

While I’m not privy to the precise detail of how rates are calculated (nor do I want to be!), my understanding is that the council sets a fixed amount they want to raise via rates, and then allocates that across houses via relative values.

Because the pot is fixed as such, if all house values increase by the same amount, we would expect the share of rates that each house pays to stay the same (this is where I expect someone with an intricate knowledge of rates calculations to jump in and correct me…).

Therefore it is only if your property value  increases by more than other properties, we would expect your share of rates to increase. So if you own a house in an area that has rapidly gentrified since rates were last set (Guessing places like Onehunga, New Lynn etc…), then the share of rates you pay will probably increase, since your property value has likely increased by more than the city wide average.

The first sentence of the article I have quoted is probably getting at this, but I just thought it was worth making it explicit that the general increase in house prices in Auckland doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to pay more rates.