MMP wakajumping Bill not worth supporting

‘‘CIVIS’’ seems unnecessarily confused (ODT, 4.8.18).

Under MMP, both electorate and list candidates are chosen by their parties. Period.

We vote for both an electorate candidate and the candidates named on the party list of one’s choice. This only requires the ability to read.

List MPs usually represent their parties where they live e.g. list MP Michael Woodhouse represents the National Party in Dunedin and has an ‘‘electorate’’ office. All MPs are equal. There are not some who are more equal than others.

If an MP, on a matter of conscience, wishes to vote against or leave the party they represent during a parliamentary term, then they should be free to do so. At the end of the term, the party will decide whether or not to choose that candidate again (unlikely) or the public will vote them out. That is what happened to all ‘‘waka jumpers’’ in 1999.

The socalled Electoral Integrity

Bill is antidemocratic, a poisonous demand from Winston Peters who does not trust his own NZ First MPs. Both the Greens and Labour should be ashamed for supporting it.

Philip Temple

Dunedin

Just who is ‘Civis’?

IMAGINE how pointless letters to the editor or articles in the ODT would be if they were all anonymously written.

Requiring names and addresses means every contributor is identifiable and open to public scrutiny — this being an important component of a free society.

In contrast there is the weekly column Passing Notes by ‘‘Civis’’, in which extremely forthright statements and assertions are often made under a veil of anonymity. This is entirely inconsistent with the notion of openness and accountability that should reasonably be expected.

The ODT has previously justified this on the basis that the nomdeplume ‘‘Civis’’ has been in use since 1878. However, the world has changed a lot since then.

‘‘Civis’’, like the rest of us, is living in the 21st century and there is no reason for the continuation of this outdated description. Readers are entitled to know who Civis is.

Joss Miller

Waverley

Future of te reo

JOE Bennett’s view that te reo is doomed is not ‘‘observable linguistic fact’’ (ODT, 2.8.18).

Archaic languages of the old world are not comparable with the living language of Maori; stating opinion in a resounding manner does not make it fact. Alan Beck

Dunedin

HOW gutsy of Joe Bennett (ODT,

2.8.18) to predict te reo will ‘‘disappear’’, and gutsy of the ODT for publishing his opinion.

No doubt the hate mail will roll in, plus the ‘‘fascist’’ accusations. However, I don’t believe it will disappear, because the languages that have didn’t have the advantages of the internet to preserve them.

I. Williams

Dunedin

[Abridged]

The uncommon colon

I WAS interested to see the use of the colon in the court reporter’s article (ODT, 2.8.18), for it is not too common.

I read of an English professor’s task, set to a mixed group of students, to punctuate the following:

‘‘Woman without a man is nothing.’’ The boys wrote — ‘‘Woman, without a man, is nothing.’’

The girls wrote — ‘‘Woman: without, a man is nothing.’’

What a profound difference the colon makes. Stan Randle

Alexandra ...................................

BIBLE READING: You have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son . . . — Deuteronomy 1:31