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GABA rejects criticism of Forum panel imbalance

Tue 18 Oct 2011 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA

Kevin Hague Smaller political parties were disadvantaged in last week's GABA Forum, according to one panel member, but the organisers are defending their choice to allow the two highest polling parties two representatives to the smaller parties' one. The forum, organised by the Gay Auckland Business Association in the lead-up to November's General Election, allowed attendees to hear and question nine candidates, with National and Labour allowed two speakers each. Parties such as the Greens, Maori and ACT were allowed one speaker. “I was disapppointed that that kind of thinking is really first past the post thinking," says Greens MP and candidate Kevin Hague. "There's the opportunity for our communities to vote for other parties and because of MMP the proportions of how people vote for parties will be reflected in how they will be represented in Parliament. So when you're giving preferential treatment to two parties just bcause they happen to have more MPs it's out of sync with everything. It meant that both Labour and National had twice as long to present their policies and their records, and also to respond to things that other people have said. Time is important and the Greens certainly would have liked to have been able to have said some more things.” GABA, however, is adamant that basing the balance of representation on its Forum panels on the parties' parliamentary representation is appropriate. “It was [based on] the ratio of people in Parliament and the need to have some kind of logic around how many people came from which parties and to control the numbers. As you saw we had nine candidates here tonight and it's taken nearly three hours so if we'd had any more it wouldn't have been sustainable,” responds Gresham Bradley, chair of the GABA Charitable Trust and acting chair of GABA. Bradley disagrees that it would have been more appropriate to have had, for example, one representative from each party. “We felt that there was a distinct difference between National and Labour and all the other parties in their size and the number of seats they have in Parliament today.” He says GABA might review its policy for future forums but doubts there will be any change. “We will certainly look at the way we choose the number of speakers from the different parties but it is my guess that it would be very likely that we would continue to reflect the seats that certain parties have leading into the election." Bradley said no other parties or their representatives had voiced concern about the Forum panel balance. “The Greens are doing very well in the polls so I think they might feel that they deserve a higher representation but this is about existing seats,” he added.    

Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff

First published: Tuesday, 18th October 2011 - 8:21pm

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