Joyce too timid to help ditch this MMP mess
Eyad Masoud is a swimmer in limbo. A Syrian citizen living in Saudi Arabia, the 22-year-old is relying on a race in New Zealand to prove he’s a world class athlete.
Nowhere else would give him a chance.
Saudi Arabia bans foreigners from public pools and competitions and, as a fit young man, if Masoud returned to war-torn Syria he’d likely be forced to swap swimming for combat.
Few countries stamp visas in Syrian passports these days; it was grit and serendipity that got him to Auckland. He’s won five out of five races since landing in September, and will compete in the NZ Short Course Championships this week.
But the best things about being in New Zealand weren’t the swimming pools. Masoud said they were the view, ‘‘hearing the word ‘yes’ more than ‘no’,’’ and being made to feel welcome.
He’d snapped a photo of a ‘No Bombing’ sign at a pool in Whangarei: ‘‘They must have heard a Syrian was coming,’’ he quipped.
Masoud started swimming as a six-year-old in Syria. His father, a doctor, got a job in Saudi Arabia just before war broke out, and the family flitted between the two countries until Syria became too dangerous. Their home has since been destroyed by bombs.
While relatively safe, life in Saudi Arabia was not straightforward. Masoud could not open a bank account, enter public pools to train in, or register with Fina – the international swimming federation that governs the sport in the Olympics.
Kiwi coach David Wright, 74, spied Masoud’s talent while working in Saudi Arabia, saying he was ‘‘as good as any swimmer in the world’’, and even kept coaching him, via email, on returning to New Zealand.
Wright then pulled strings so he could register with Fina and got his protege membership at Waterhole Swim Club in West Auckland, even though he lived in Jeddah.
The next step was getting a New Zealand visitor visa – no easy task, he was rejected twice – so Masoud could compete against equals.
Masoud is often asked why he keeps swimming. ‘‘I just love it. My hands are chained in so many ways, so when I dive into the pool it’s the only time I feel free, but I also want to be the best.’’
There has been much backslapping in the National Party this week. Steven Joyce is being hailed as a wise and canny electoral shepherd. This is risible. Back in 2011 the National Government, riding high in the glow of John Key’s magnificent inactivity, honoured an election pledge to hold a referendum on retaining MMP.
It was held in conjunction with that year’s general election.
Despite Key’s popularity, campaign manager Joyce was credited with National’s decision to abstain from campaigning to abandon our electoral system. It was an opportunity missed.
That this flawed system remains popular is incomprehensible. For the second time the nation’s electoral fortunes lie in the hands of a man who cannot hold an electorate seat or a Cabinet portfolio anywhere near as long as he can a grudge.
The idea of fairness sits in the New Zealand mind like a gnarled hobbit. Life should be an endless game of Buggins’ turn and the idea that Social Credit can get 20 per cent of the vote but only two seats, as in 1981, is unfair. In that sense, MMP works well. Parliament does, broadly, reflect the views of the electorate, but as a means of electing a Government it’s awful.
For a start, the calibre of some MPs who slide into Parliament on the list isn’t always great. You only have to look at their lamentable post-Parliament careers to appreciate that a system that can elevate these folks to high office is questionable. Worse lies ahead. MMP lends itself to some artful manipulation. A party which stands to win a suite of electorates can create a separate but aligned party to game the list. Had the Maori Party remained firmly aligned with Labour, this could have given the Left a permanent advantage as long as Maori electorate voters ticked Maori Party in the electorate and Labour in the list. Ohariu and Epsom evolved into Right-wing over-hang opportunities. Because such rorts have evolved in other MMP jurisdictions, a system that allows such gaming shouldn’t have got past our draftsman’s easel. Yet here we are. First-past-the-post wasn’t ideal but it produced a century of competent and representative governments with a mandate to govern and a crop of talented material from which to form a Cabinet. Had National won 46 per cent of the vote under this system it would have been a landslide. But we have MMP, partly because campaign genius Joyce didn’t have the courage to attempt to kill it when he had the chance. Instead we have no Government and a Parliament that is carrying a little too many sheep and not enough farmers. The nation’s electoral fortunes lie in the hands of a man who cannot hold an electorate seat or a cabinet portfolio anywhere near as long as he can a grudge.