As you can tell, I'm something of an institutional conservative. I'm not big into radical experiments with institutional and constitutional arrangements that have served the country fairly well. I would say that our system concentrates authority and power, and that way people take the credit or the blame for what they do. It's unlike the American system of divided power and checks and balances where accountability is diffused.
I like the idea of a local representative. I've already indicated that. That's a very high priority for me. I wouldn't sacrifice that.
I don't like the idea of two categories of members of Parliament. I could live with it. I like the idea that if you don't have coalitions or minority governments.... I'm not afraid of coalitions or minority governments. If we went the route of coalitions, we'd have to develop precedents and practices for that, and we don't have any experience with that. New Zealand had to develop that, so they have had supply agreements and confidence agreements among the parties since they adopted mixed-member proportional.
I like efficiency and effectiveness in government. I don’t want a prime minister to be able to say, “I would have given us a bold policy on climate change, but I couldn’t because my allies, my colleagues in the coalition, wouldn’t allow me to do that.” The Americans have a problem of too much dispersible power and authority. We have the opposite problem of too much concentration of power and authority. Again, as I said to Mr. Cullen, there are other ways to deal with that beyond the electoral system. I’m not saying no to electoral reform, I’m just saying you don’t put all of our eggs in one basket.