Dear Editor:
Minister Gould, people are not fixated on the method that is used to account and assign votes.
What they are fixated on is that we need a paradigm shift in the way you conduct our politics.
They think that you as a group conduct our business in an asinine and unproductive way, and that does not rise even anywhere near mediocrity. It is old, corrupt and misguided in this current world.
It was clear from that peculiar quiz your predecessor conducted that they public wants more constructiveness, less consumptive partisanship, genuine representation of constituents in Parliament, and a much more cooperative and innovative system.
And they are well aware that will not be forthcoming under this system.
It is the basic driving forces of the existing system they want radically changed, to a system that will make change possible.
This is the electoral reform they look for.
Your leader decided to run game on the subject because he wanted to back out of his promise, stiffed you with a phoney excuse saying there had been an amazing public transformation on the subject since his promise.
We are stuck with a system that presides over a voter decline from apathy (in the fifth decile), that is universally disliked and disrespected, and that is unable to solve the most tractable problems of this country.
It is shamefully old, decrepit, and an embarrassment to the country.
Quick, name another developed country that still has the same old voting stations as the only way to vote, unchanged in the last 100 years. That should tell you something.
Why you as a group don’t have more pride in your institution is beyond me.
You rank next to the bottom of professions in public esteem and trust, but you are insular, shameless and indeed inert, when it comes to this subject.
This system demands this of you, and making comprehensive change is just too much for you to contemplate.
You are stuck in your rut and can’t come up with the vision, initiative and collective wisdom to get you out.
The system has been corrupted so as to make all real power to be held by one person. In that process your system has methodically crushed democracy to a very low level.
Lastly, I can’t get over the feeling of being ruled. You see yourself as the landlords of the country and we are the tenants. It must have been what the Brits felt 200 years ago.
And I can’t help feeling that I am probably wasting my time writing this letter.
Roy Roope
Summerland
