My name is Phil Pothen. I'm here to speak in favour of mixed member proportional representation. I oppose first past the post for all the reasons that have been expressed here so eloquently by the vast majority of presenters. Also, I want to emphasize that I believe that the ranked ballot would exacerbate the biggest problems of first past the post.
The problem with both of these systems is that they engender majority Parliaments that entitle the largest interests to effectively discount the others throughout the term of their governments. They can produce policies that pander to their own bases and to the marginal voter while essentially discounting the smaller interests.
Like a lot of your colleagues, and a lot of you, I'm a lawyer. In particular, I'm a land use planning lawyer. In almost every case, I end up advising my clients that it's better to strike a deal early on than even to win outright.
The best, most thoroughly thought-out solutions are those that are arrived at when all the parties are represented and have real bargaining power around the parliamentary bargaining table. That forces them to earnestly consider and accommodate each other's interests.
In the end, it doesn't help much if you win outright at committee of adjustment, because the opposing party is just going to appeal to the OMB, and your policy is only going to be overturned in the next election. Likewise, it doesn't help much if you come to some kind of consensus while some of the key, most effective parties have been excluded or under-represented at the table. If your solution isn't stable, you're going to have interests that haven't bought into it.
We need a system that gives all the parties a seat at the parliamentary table and real bargaining power. I think you will find that you can often find a solution that doesn't sacrifice your own interests and that can still accommodate the others'.