Today's report by Parliament's MMP Review Committee, ducks the key questions, according to United Future leader, Hon Peter Dunne.

Mr Dunne, who was deputy chair of the committee, says many people will be upset that the committee has recommended no reduction in the numbers of MPs, and does not favour a further referendum on MMP.

"I agree completely with them and am bitterly disappointed that the majority of other parties on the committee did not share United Future's support for fewer MPs and a fresh referendum on the committee's findings."

"Those are the matter that go to the heart of many people's concerns about MMP, which will not therefore be alleviated by this report."

"These decisions, especially the one regarding the referendum, will leave many New Zealanders feeling more powerless and shut out of the decision-making process."

"I firmly believe that the electoral system belongs to the people of New Zealand and that it is ultimately the people who must sanction it."

"A referendum would have provided that opportunity, and by denying it to them, the other parties on the committee who made that decision risk fuelling public cynicism and suspicion," he says.

Mr Dunne says New Zealand cannot afford continuing uncertainty over its electoral system.

"The review was an opportunity to provide some closure on the MMP issue."

"However, by failing to pick up on the two issues of greatest public concern, I fear it may well have failed that opportunity," he says.

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>