MMP Symposium Part II
August 27th, 2008 at 8:24 am by David FarrarNo Right Turn has blogged all the speeches from last night, including links to some of the papers for those interested in electoral issues.
Raymond Miller was especially interesting, on how by 2011 36% of voters will have known nothing but MMP. His paper had lots of polling data about attitudes to MMP broken down by various demographics.
Constitutional Law expert Professor Philip Joseph is now speaking on future constitutional challenges. He is outling five changes under MMP.
- Indirect election of Governments. The public used to effectively elect the Government, and it would be known within a couple of hours of election night. Now the effect is to elect a Parliament and Parliament spends a few weeks negotiating a Government. He emphaised this means the public are often surprised by the Government that emerges such as Nat/NZF in 1996 and in 2005 Labour campaigned with the Greens but ended up appointing Peters and Dunne as Ministers – something no-one would have expected before the election.
- Government formation. Only in 1999 was the shape of the Government known on the night as Labour and Alliance got 63 seats on election night and had said they would go into coalition together. Ironically they shrank to 59 seats when the Greens later qualified for representation.
- Minority coalition Government. Four of the five coalition Governments have been minority Governments. Only National-NZF was a majority Government.
- Collective responsibility. MMP has shown that collective responsibility is not a constitutional convention but merely a rule of pragmatic politics.
- Government and Opposition reconfigured. These labels are more flexible now.
Joseph then touched on the issue of the Maori seats. He asserted that retaining the seats will inflate the parliamentary representation of Maori beyond their relative population base and will create a permament overhang that will skew MMP proportionality.
Professor Joseph pointed out there are currently 22 MPs of Maori descent, representing 19% of Parliament – well above the 14% of the general population that Maori comprise. Eliminating the Maori seats would have Maori make up 12.4% of Parliament, only 1.4% below their population share and hethinks the 2008 election will see even that small gap disappear – without relying on the Maori seats.
He also touched on the possibility of overhang in the Maori seats leading to a situation where National might get 50.1% of the vote, but be unable to form a Government due to the increased size of Parliament. This would create considerable resentment and a backlash.
Another challenge Joseph alluded to is that one day there will not be enough list seats to ensure proportionality. So long as the NI populations grows faster than the SI, then every five years the number of electorate seats will increase, and the number of list seats diminish. Already under MMP the number of list seats has fallen from 55 to 50.
Three solutions are identified:
- Increase the size of the House to greater than 120
- Abolish the Maori seats, and have seven more list seats
- Reduce the number of electorates, which will increase the size of the largest electorates considerably
Finally Joseph looks at whether MMP will survive in light of National’s referendum pledge. He thinks it will as he doubts National will get the numbers in Parliament, even if they form the Government, to have the referenda.
Nigel Roberts is now talking on the alternatives to MMP. He is doing what I in fact did on my blog some weeks ago, and look at what would have been the results of the four MMP elections if done under MMP.
Roberts identified five problems with MMP as he sees it:
- One seat threshold
- Treating minor parties and independents differently
- Overhang
- Closed Lists
- Backdoor MPs
He pointed out you can fix these without a referendum – only need for changing the system.
Says one seat threshold is unfair. Christian Coalition got no seats on 4.3% in 1996 yet NZ First got five seats on 4.3% in 1999.
With issue 5, could do as in Wales and people can be an electorate candidate or list candidate – but not both.
Related posts:
- More Electorate MPs for MMP?
- Sir Douglas Graham on Maori seats and overhang
- Trying to win via overhang
- Kids Voting 2008
August 27th, 2008 at 8:37 am
This shows just how bad MMP is. Tinkering with MMP will only increase it’s complexity – But, that is bad too, even today, I don’t exactly understand mmp.
Also, the number of MP’s under MMP is crazy. Surely we could get by with 1/2 or 1/4 of the number – but, it’s gravy train out there since each MP gets massive budgets and perks. Why would mp’s vote themselves out of a job the greedy pigs.
Vote:August 27th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Since MMP we have had governments held hostage by radical environmentalists, jealous socialists and Winston Peters.
When we have a referendum do you reckon many kiwis will vote for more of that? Yeah Right!
Vote:August 27th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Maybe I have this wrong – but isn’t point 3 (the 1st list) the other way around?
i.e the only minority Government was Nat/NZF and the others are majority Governments?
Vote:August 27th, 2008 at 9:04 am
It is unfair. With no threshold we would be a big step towards a real democracy, where one could vote for the party they like best, without worrying if whether ther vote will count or not!
Vote:August 27th, 2008 at 9:55 am
I hope you’re paraphrasing
1. We could go to some form of Supplementary Member without a referendum (or parliamentary supermajority).
Vote:2. We would need a referendum (or parliamentary supermajority) to have open lists.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Nigel Roberts is quite right about at least some of those MMP problems, and right that they can be fixed without a referendum because they are really minor tweaks.
* The one seat threshold let-out clause was a mistake which even the Royal Commission later recognised. It should be scrapped so you only get list seast if you get 5% of the vote.
* Treatment of minor parties and independents is largely a matter for Standing Orders I think.
* The overhang is in most cases a trivial problem, but Joseph is right that it would be an outrage if (say) National got 51% of the vote but failed to get a majority – and maybe didn’t even get to form a government. (Note that this is no different to what can and does happen under FPP however). There is a solution though: link a party’s voting strength in Parliament to its party vote seat entitlement. Thus if your party vote entitles you to 5 MPs you get five votes – even if you have six actual MPs. They would have 5/6 of a vote each.
* I don’t think closed lists are a problem, but, again, it could be amended easily enough.
* I do not personally see that an MP who comes into Parliament half way through a term as a result of another MPs retirement is any less elected than the MP they are replacing. Both are on the list for voters before voting.
Joseph is right too about the numbers problem. Under the current mechanism proportionality would eventually be threatened. I think the best solution would be to put an upper limit on the ratio of list to electorate seats, and allow the number of South Island seats to drop if necessary. At the last census NI growth outpaced SI growth by only about 7% to 6%. Depending on the ratio set, this trend would mean the SI dropping to 15 seats in maybe 30 years time, and to 14 seats some decades later. Not the end of the world…
Now, many people will want to reject MMP altogether. Okay, but we should make sure that whatever system we have, it works as best as it is able to. That is why I think we should have Royal Commission to a) engineer these fixes and to b) design the referendum process so there is a fair vote on replacing it if that is what peopel want.
Vote:August 27th, 2008 at 10:59 am
1% 1 seat
21% 21 seats
100 seats 50 consitiuency 50 list
No Maori seats, they can stand in other seats or just canvass for party votes.
QED
Vote:August 27th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Oh
And ADD BINDING referenda if more than 5% of registered voters want one as demonstrated by a petition. The idea that we, the peepuhle are not able to make decisions for ourselves through a ballot is so quaint as to be almost worthy of a Monty Python sketch
Vote:August 27th, 2008 at 11:06 am
“Wreck 1080″:
“…….the number of MP’s under MMP is crazy. Surely we could get by with 1/2 or 1/4 of the number…….”
I remember reading an op-ed somewhere where the author analysed the number of MP’s per thousand population in the world’s democracies, and generally, governance and prosperity was better in the countries with the lower numbers and worsened the higher the number got to.
Vote:August 27th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Correlation/causation etc…
Vote:August 27th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
s.russell said:
The minor party vs. independent is an electoral law thing as well. An independent (or an unregistered party winning an electorate seat) doesn’t result in overhang. If the Maori Party wasn’t a registered party that contested the party vote, but only contested the Maori electorates, there wouldn’t be an overhang, and the proportionality of Parliament would be determined over (say) 114 seats (assuming the Maori Party won six of the seven).
Opening up lists would require a change to the format of the ballot paper, and would need a supermajority or referendum.
Vote:August 27th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
The racist Maori seats must surely go. .
Vote: