yes, i am the right person

in a post on my blog, i wrote some tales from my experiences as a sign-waver. i had another go on friday, waving labour signs in the morning and MMP signs in the afternoon. the morning session was great, but the afternoon one not so much.

we were at the corner of morrinsville rd & cambridge rd in hamilton, known by the burger king right on the corner and the big new world store behind that. i got quite a bit of positive support and of course, a few negative ones. mostly the negative stuff doesn't bother me. people have a right to express their dissension to a political statement after all. and if their expression of dissent involves a raised finger or a "f**k MMP", then so be it.

but i really did mind the middle-aged white male who yelled at me "are you the right person to be holding that?". the tone was offensive, but the implication much more so. he questioned my right to be holding an MMP sign on the basis of what? he doesn't know me from a bar of soap, so he was making that judgement solely on my physical appearance.

so basically, he's saying that because i'm a brown muslim woman, i don't have the right to express a political view on the electoral system of this country. that right is apparently to be restricted to people who look and sound like him. i didn't give him the response he deserved, but instead yelled out "absolutely! and we're going to win. have a nice weekend!"

i had a few other negative reactions but not too many. not surprising given the majority of people support MMP. but this is what i noticed. when i started the sign waving, there was an older white woman on the other side of the road, also waving an MMP sign. she left about 20 minutes before i did, and there was a noticeable increase in negative comments/reactions after she left.

this is something i'm having real difficulty in dealing with. and it manifests itself in so many small ways, a lot of which i can't speak about publicly. (well, i could but i'm not prepared to deal with the consequences or in some cases to breach confidentiality.) but they add up to a feeling of being unwanted, of not belonging. and i just can't pretend that it doesn't hurt. it does hurt, terribly.

even though i know that the majority don't feel this way. even though i know that the positive responses far outweighed the negative ones. knowing the logic of a situation doesn't always help.

here's something else. by far, the majority of negative responses were by white males, and they were generally in nice vehicles. this is no doubt because of the types of issues i've been advocating. MMP is something that benefits minority communities so they are less likely to respond negatively to it. labour policy is more likely to appeal to the less affluent. so it's probably no surprise that the pierced, the tatooed, the drivers of older & poorer looking cars, & even young brown males were giving me some pretty positive responses or no response at all.

so it wouldn't be fair to say that the more affluent people are, the less manners they tend to show. but it certainly did feel that way. maybe i should have tried waving paul goldsmith signs in the epsom electorate to see if i got a different reaction. or nz first signs in tauranga - actually, that sounds like a hilarious experiment which i could try in a year when they really look certain to lose.

i do want to reiterate what i said on my own blog: this stuff isn't going to stop me from participating in visible political activities. if anything, it shows that i need to be doing more of it, not less. the only problem is that it somehow is a huge drain on my energy. even though i try to not let it affect me, it does. there's only so much mental fortitude i can draw on.

MMP and diversity

People who support MMP say it has increased the diversity of our parliament like that's a good thing.

Now there are arguments here, about what "representative" means, and whether you believe diverse views are valuable and important. And there are also arguments about whether you believe parliament looking more like Aotearoa's demographics means parliament is more likely to approach political issues in ways which are mindful of all Aotearoa's people, or if that requires policy and engagement with community as well as MPs in parliament. Then there's the oft squaring off from the right of "diversity" and "competence", like they are two different things, really just code for "white, middle-class, heterosexual men know what's best for everyone."

I'm not debating those points this post, but I am going to explore diversity by looking at parliamentary make-up pre and post the first MMP election in 1996. I've struggled to get good data on this, so it's a bit of a patchwork of different sources, not all of which compare well. Feel free to follow the links and let me know if I'm wrong.

Pre 1996 we'd had:

• 44 women MPs over 25 elections (women could only be elected to parliament after 1919. The first women MP, Elizabeth McComb, was elected in 1933). Collectively those 44 women served 125 terms or 2.84 terms each on average. Just four of these women were Maori (Parekura Horomia's speech names three Maori women, but he has missed Jill Pettis, who won election before 1996)
• 79 Maori MPs over 43 elections (before 1967 Maori could not stand in general electorates, with the odd exception of Sir James Carroll, on account of his Pakeha whakapapa). After 1967 there were just a handful of Maori elected in general seats.
• 1 Pacifica MP - Taito Phillip Field
• 1 out queer MP - Chris Carter - who came out after being elected. (Marilyn Waring did not come out as lesbian until after she left parliament).

After 1996:

• 79 women over 5 elections. Collectively those 79 women have served 196 terms, or 2.48 terms each on average. Fifteen of these women have been Maori (Parekura's 12 plus Paula Bennett, Hekia Parata and Rahui Katene)
• Maori political representation has almost exactly matched population percentages, with a total of 92 seats held by Maori MPs over 5 elections (some MPs have served multiple terms, so this doesn't equate to numbers of MPs)
• Pacifica MPs have held steady at 3 MPs per election, or 2.5% of MPs (cf 5.8% - 6% of our population describing themselves as Pacifica). This includes NZ's first Pacifica woman MP, Samoan Luamanuvao Winnie Laban and first MP of Tongan descent, Carmel Sepuloni
  
• Georgina Beyer became the world's first openly trans MP in 1999, so far the only one
• Maryan Street became the first out lesbian MP in 2005, joining Tim Barnet, Chris Finlayson and Chris Carter, all of whom, post MMP, were elected as out queer people. Since then Louisa Wall (first Maori out queer person), Grant Robertson, Charles Chauvel and Kevin Hague have joined them, and this election there are 14 out queer candidates standing, of which Jan Logie (lesbian) is a near certain newbie. "Lesbian end of bi" Kelly Buchanan and "bisexual" Rachael Goldsmith may be the first candidates daring to use the B word, though they are probably not headed for parliament.
• In terms of ethnicities wholly unrepresented when we had First Past the Post, MMP has seen the first Chinese MP (Pansy Wong), later joined by Kenneth Wang and Raymond Huo; first Tahitian MP (Charles Chauvel); first Korean MP (Melissa Lee); the first Indian MPs (Fijian Indian Rajen Prasad and Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi); the first Pakistani MP (Ashraf Choudhary) and the first MP of African descent (Nandor Tanczos)
• In terms of religion, MMP has given us the first Sikh MP and the first and second Muslim MPs

Let's look at some pictures. Numbers of women in parliament pre and post MMP:

Or Maori political representation and population demographic, compared with pre MMP in 1993:

I'm going to collate MPs with Asian, Pacifica and African ancestry (so ethnic minorities of colour, based on this, with the addition of Arthur Anae, Kenneth Wang, Ashraf Choudhary, Rajen Prasad, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi and Nandor Tanczos):

Despite the steep curve after MMP, in 2008, with 9% of seats in parliament being won by people from these ethnic minority communities, it is still woefully short of the population demographic of 16.6% last census. Diversity has some way to go it seems, if you're Pacifica, Asian or African.

How about absolute numbers of queer MPs:

It's only in the last two elections that the percentage of out queer MPs gets close to 5%, the figure of secondary school students reporting same and both sex desire. This is about the only general population survey asking about sexuality, so it's probably the best estimate we have. Just where are those gaggle of gays, anyway?

Joking aside, it's clear that MMP has driven real diversity and movement away from a parliament which is completely unrepresentative of anyone but white, middle class, heterosexual men. Of course those guys are still doing alright - leading the National, Labour, United Future and ACT Parties and co-leading the Greens - so no need to worry about them.

There's a simple choice to make on Saturday if you value diversity.

Why I support keeping MMP

MMP is loved by babies:

MMP is loved by dogs:

MMP is loved by cats:

MMP is loved by Don McGlashan (!!!):

MMP is loved by people with cool sneakers:

campaigning for MMP

i attended a meeting in hamilton this evening, which was to start some movement on the campaign to keep MMP. it's a crucial issue in terms of keeping the type of diverse representation we currently have in parliament. all the alternatives to MMP that will be included in the vote at the next election are less proportional than MMP.

some key points bought up at the meeting:

- while there are issues with MMP, it's possible (in fact desirable) for us to tweak the MMP system in order to sort those out. some examples are fixing the anomaly that saw rodney hide bring in 4 other MPs when his party had a lower level of the vote than NZ first; or creating more transparency around the list selection process for all parties.

- more education is required about the role of list MPs, who are working for constituents & are democratically elected. jeannette fitzsimmons gave a good response to this issue. she said when people questioned whether or not she had been properly elected, she said that as an MP for the coromandel electorate she had received 13,000 votes. but as a list candidate, she had received around 150,000 votes for a list with her name at the top. the latter was just as legitimate as the former, possibly more so. also, list MPs are valuable for those constituents who believe that their local MP is not adequately representing their views (eg not pushing for increased access to early childhood education). list MPs provide alternative representation for these people. because of this, they also ensure that electorate MPs provide a better service.

- women's representation in parliament went up markedly as a result of MMP (from 21% to 33%) as did representation for ethnic minorities. diversity in representation actually leads to better decision-making, because it ensures different types of issues are put on the agenda & different perspectives are brought to the table. also, having minority parties in parliament ensures that debates aren't just "for or against", but have a greater depth and breadth of coverage.

- a proper proportional system will mean that every vote counts. unlike FPP, where votes in safe seats don't count for much. any attempt to reduce proportionality will reduce the value of some people's votes.

it was a good meeting with a lot of positive interest. the campaign for MMP has a website with suggestions for positive action. they could definitely use donations, as those opposed to MMP will have some very big funders. if you have the time & energy, i hope you'll be able to contribute to the campaign.