Near Death Experiences, ISTA, Minnows in the election, and more...

Craig Shearer - 25 September 2023

25 September 2023

Hi there

This week I listened to a segment on Radio New Zealand about Near Death Experiences. It was an interesting listen, but ultimately a one-sided presentation of a Massey University assistant professor’s research. I take a look at NDEs and how the research was presented.

Bronwyn has contributed an item updating us on the recent news about ISTA and Steve Hassan.

As the general election is approaching, Al Blenny has blessed me with a survey of all the “minnow” parties competing for places in parliament.

For the benefit of our international readers, in New Zealand, we have the MMP system where people get two votes; one for their electorate and one for the party they favour. For candidates to make it into parliament they either have to win an electorate seat or they get brought into parliament via their party list. The issue for minor parties is that for a party that wins no electorate seats, they must gain at least 5% of the national party vote. All of the parties listed below are polling well below the 5% threshold and so are unlikely to be represented in parliament, unless they can get one of their candidates elected in a seat, at which point the 5% threshold vanishes.

So, of these minnow parties, the chances of them getting into parliament are quite low, which is probably a good thing. Many of them have some quite bizarre and extreme policies, which would benefit very few kiwis.

Of some amusement this week was the revelation that Liz Gunn’s NZ Loyal Party, a party with true delusions of grandeur, failed to register all its list candidates. This resulted in only two of their candidates out of fifteen actually being registered on their list. In an emotional video last week, Gunn told the story, which can basically be summed up as their own incompetence, in failing to register, but blamed it on others. She then went on to propose a bizarre idea that if everybody in NZ voted for her party, and because they only have two list candidates, it would effectively reduce the number of MPs in parliament to just their two. It’s supremely unlikely that they can get everybody to vote for them!

The latest on this is a new video on her website where Gunn spouts conspiracy theories that suggest that the Electoral Commission was conspiring to prevent registration of their candidates, and talks of legal challenges, and takes aim at Charlie Mitchell, the journalist who wrote up the article on their failure to register. She then goes on to suggest that a true protest vote is to vote for her party. However, doing the maths, even if all her electorate candidates were elected and they picked up a huge percentage of the party vote, they’d still not have enough seats to form a government. It’s truly desperate stuff, and without any foundation.

Ultimately, I urge everybody to get out and vote. While voting for a small party that may not actually make it into parliament could be perceived as a wasted vote, the worse outcome is to not participate in the process.

Lastly this week, I’ve written about the recent tantalising discoveries out in space, with the potential for extra-terrestrial life!

Enjoy!