KEY POINTS:
They say that a week is a long time in politics but it certainly wasn't long enough to get this political expose spell checked and in on deadline, let alone get many of the facts checked.
I am filing this column from Hong Kong _ a process that hasn't been helped by language difficulties, jet lag and some alcohol-related technical issues. Nevertheless I am sure you will agree the political bombshell I am about to drop was well worth the wait.
My source in Hong Kong has told me National and Labour have been having talks pre-election and may well form a coalition post-election.
Natlab, or Labnat depending on how the votes swing on election night, will have the ability to make MMP work positively for the first time since its inception, by getting rid of all of the minor parties from the political landscape, once and for all.
Until now, MMP has allowed these
half-arsed minor parties, or "Hamps", to operate and manoeuvre well beyond what voters intended, and MMP until now protected them.
The first real signs of this possible coalition came when Helen Clark and John Key met to discuss whether all the minor parties should take part in the TV debate.
Apparently, that meeting went remarkably well. One thing led to another and talk of a coalition was the logical progression.
MMP has always been a problem because it has been designed to protect itself by constantly morphing, much like a super virus when it detects a threat to its structure or existence.
A more tangible and certainly more visual example of this kind of process is the alien character played by Natasha Henstridge in the sci-fi thriller Species.
Like a parasite she eats and destroys everything around her to survive and constantly moves from host to host to do this.
To destroy MMP we must turn it on itself much like we do with our immune system, although technically, there are no similarities whatsoever.
The Natlab scenario all seems to have backing from an independent research institute, which has designed a super computer to analyse all the post-election scenarios.
"You have to be able to take all human emotions out of the equation when doing
this kind of thing," explains computer software designer and Star Trek enthusiast Conrad West.
"It's like being on the bridge of the enterprise and asking Spock a question.
"You expect the answer to be logical and not to be affected by human emotion, that's why our results have been so powerful."
The super computer, which takes up as much room as A Sleep Easy super king size bed, has consistently computed that the best political scenario is to have National and Labour forming a coalition.
These parties have the most votes so, democratically, the party that wins the election should have the most say and have the right to pick who they jump into bed with, and logic suggests that it should be the second-most popular party.
These two parties have the most in common, with one being centre-left and the other centre-right.
They are like peas in a pod, or two testicles in a sack, one is hanging centre-left the other centre-right.
When this is considered without emotion, egos and human politicking, you see very little need for a number of minor parties cluttering the political landscape.
By all accounts, the development of this super computer came at great cost. To date, it is estimated that the development of the program has cost in excess of $65 million and four lives were lost.
Exactly how they were lost remains a mystery but we can confirm two were a murder-suicide, and another was a case of sexual misadventure involving household variety jet wash.
West believes until we get rid of the Hamps we will never truly have a democracy again and he is proud his super computer may contribute to that one day becoming a reality.
He also sees applications for the computer post election.
The very same program that worked through all the MMP scenarios can also be applied to identifying every possible way of doing the RubiK Cube, and he already has a tentative contract with Daily Keno, another system that operates in a similar manner to our current political system.
