Preferential Voting Fails to Score

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 108, 28 July 1927, Page 1

Preferential Voting Fails to Score

MR. MCCOMBS’S BILL SECOND READING DEFEATED (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. THE Preferential Voting Bill, sponsored by Mr. J. McCombs, Lyttelton, was discussed in the House of Representatives tonight and defeated by 44 votes to 20. When Mr. McCombs moved the second reading he explained that the measure embraced the same machinery as that embodied in the Legislature Amendment Bill introduced by the late Prime Minister, Mr. W. F. Massey, in 1923, which contained provisions more definite than the late Mr. R. McNab’s Absolute Majority Bill of 1905. The Bill now before the House had nothing to do with mem bers of Parliament, but applied to issues only. Where there were two or more issues a preference vote was applied, the voter having to mark 1,2, 3 in preference. A cross on the ballot paper did not make the vote informal, this being accepted as the first preference. Mr. G. W. Forbes: It is quite harmless, then. Mr. T. M. Wilford: It sounds like an appropriation. Mr. McCombs: No. No poll is provided for. He claimed that the Labour Party was quite consistent on its attitude toward the voting question, and declared that his Bill would secure true majority rule which, if applied to Parliamentary representatives, would secure a miniature nation in the House. It could be applied to any referendum. The second reading was defeated on a division by 44 votes to 20. The division list is: AYES Armstrong McCombs Bartram Mason, H. G. R. Bellringer McKeen Forbes Parry Fraser Ransom Holland, IT. Rolleston, F. J. Holland, H. E. Savage Horn Sullivan Jordan Veitch Lee, J. A. Young NOES Anderson Jones, W. Bell Linklater Bitchener Luke Bollard Lysnar Buddo McLennan Coates McLeod Dickie Macmillan Dickson, J. S. Mason, J. Eliott Nash Field Nosworthy Forsyth Pomare Girling Reid Glenn Rhodes Hamilton, A. Rolleston, J. C. Hamilton, J. R. Samuel Harris Smith Hawken Sykes Henare Waite Hockly Walter Hudson Wilford Hunter Williams Jones, D. Wright