A question
September 18th, 2009 at 4:06 pm by David FarrarWhy do so many people who complain that ACT got five seats in Parliament on only 3.65% of the vote, never complain that the Maori Party got five seats in Parliament on 2.39% of the vote?
People often advocate that a party should not be eligible to gain List MPs if they get under 5%, due to winning an electorate seat. But I would say the overhang issue is a more serious problem.
Related posts:
- An unproportional result
- Trying to win via overhang
- Possible changes to MMP
- Sir Douglas Graham on Maori seats and overhang
September 18th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
I think an electorate MP has more electoral ‘credibility’ (if you like) than a list MP. An electorate MP has, at least to some degree, been tested by the the franchise, whereas the list MP gets in on the mettle of his party. Thus, a party with 1 electorate MP and 4 list MPs, has only 20% of its personnel (its greatest asset) ‘electorally approved’. Conversely a party with 5 electorate MPs and no list MPs has 100% of its personnel ‘electorally approved’. So, at least it can be said that each Maori Party MP represents a group of voters who voted for them. David Garrett on the other hand, just represents a deal with a lobby group.
The general principle being that transparency in the method of reaching Parliament is greater for an electorate MP than for a list MP.
Very perceptive article at the NBR, you have put your finger right on the heart of the matter.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I hadn’t noticed that particular bias amongst complainers.
Is this question a subtle conscience-raising exercise to fuel resentment of the disproportionate power welded by the Maori Party? If so, I applaud it.
Personally I think the threshold by-pass mechanism should go. If you win the seat fine, but no list MPs until you exceed the threshold (maybe lower it to 4%). I don’t mind the overhang. It’s an inevitable consequence of the hybrid system and the alternative (letting the house grow as required to achieve proportionality) is not a palatable option.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
That is an excellent point, the problem is to fix it one would have to do away with electorate seats entirely. The other solution I have heard of is that in some countries the other parties are awarded extra list MPs to rebalance proportionality. The third option is to only allow the overhang party the number of seats it is entitled to based on their party vote, but that would be extremely messy, e.g. who doesn’t get into parliament? Who represents the electorate instead? All three of these would be very unpopular, so my it probably goes unmentioned because finding a solution is difficult, no one can be bothered getting into the debate and I’m sure inevitably the person who dared bring it up would be labelled a racist.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
WHAT???????
Bloody hell DPF, you know you are not allowed to even suggest that Mowree seats are a rort.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
jks has pretty much hit the nail on the head. Essentially I believe this situation is too difficult to solve. I am yet to hear a credible solution. Whereas not being able to drag in list MPs when you are below the threshold is a simple, credible and effective solution.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
I thought you were a bit more politically savvy than this, DPF.. Unless you know you are wrong, but want to use this to bag on the Maori party anyway.. ACT on the other hand have no mandate, its just Epsom (my electorate.. *cries*) rorting the electoral system. Good on them I guess.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Probably because Act were vital in giving national power.
Maori party were neither here nor there.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
>>Why do so many people who complain that ACT got five seats in Parliament on only 3.65% of the vote, never complain that the Maori Party got five seats in Parliament on 2.39% of the vote?
Simple, because the are leftists
Vote:They are not honest
How could anybody truthfully in their right mind suggest that ethnic/sectarian gerrymandering is democratic? They can’t, they just do because they think it will further their agenda
Simple as that
September 18th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Guys, there is a very easy answer to the problem. Get rid of the Maori seats, problem solved. The Maori seats systematically create overhang, the normal electorate seats don’t. The problem would mostly go away if we did that.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
I’d have thought the answer blindingly obvious, DPF.
People complaining about ACT having 5 MPs with 3.65% of the vote are really just complaining about MMP.
People winning electorate seats is something that happens under their preferred first-past-the-post system.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Or PaulL, Maori could just vote for Labour or NZFirst again? Or just give their party vote to the Maori party more often?
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
emmess, grow a brain and comment based on fact, not supposition.
I am what YOU would call a leftist, and yet I consistently advocate for abolition of maori seats, in line with the recommendations of the commission that brought us MMP.
It is wrong that ACT and maori party get seats when NZ First with a vote greater than either of those have no seats.
It is wrong that the Greens have a greater proportion of votes than ACT and maori combined, and yet have 8 seats to their combined 10.
Maori seats are wrong. MMP is wrong.
Happy now?
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Perhaps we should invade and colonise Epsom to level the playing field?
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Lol Vibenna, maybe in Labour’s next term we can see an increase in state housing in the area so we can afford it!
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Sly ol’ Graeme E…
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
DPF
Good question. The issue with NZ1 not winning a seat and therefore there being a portion of lost votes for the
lovers of corruption and use of secret donations and trustsLabour supporters is still smarting for the Labour supporters.I commented that as long as ACT won a seat and NZ1 didn’t then that is a result of the electorate based system a week or so back on a thread about MMP. Graeme Edgeler makes the same point (with less venom than I did) much more succinctly than I made it – I think he nails it.
The poor losers needed someone to blame for not making the numbers and socialists are not good at accepting responsibility for failure. Hell most of them can’t even acknowledge that their ideology has never been a success anywhere it has been implemented so how could they possibly acknowledge that their choice of bed pals was was poor.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
DPF
I seriously think NZ is obsessed with making sure there isn’t an overhang. My opinion is that the entire principle of MMP has been corrupted by this fear. What is the point of having two votes when people are encouraged to cast them both for the same party simply because; Overhang = bad. Surely having a parliament that is proportional to the will off the people is way more important than having people choose their proportionality based on which electorate MP’s they like.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Am I the first to notice Khiwiblog? Or to notice and mention? Or not even that?
Oh well.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
I remember when twenty percent of the population voted for a party and it got just two seats. I much prefer the current way thankyou. What does it really matter if there are a couple of ‘overhang’ seats …. in the cost of running Parliament it is negligable.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
It’s more common name is Apartheid, a system of politics usually enjoyed by the minority of a population with positive discrimination and rights above another ethnic or cultural groups.
In South Africa the minority were the white population and in New Zealand it is enjoyed by the Maori minority at the expense of the Caucasians and other races.
Mike Laws is perhaps our first Nelson Mandela then.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
DPF asked:
Simple. Because to complain about that would attract allegations of racism. That’s what we’ve come to unfortunately.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I have come to the sad conclusion that Maori MPs are not very clever. Name me one who is. It would be a risky reach to say that Maori, in general, are not generally very bright, but their representatives in Parliament seem not to have grasped the plot. I hate the smell of tokenism. But it pervades.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
DPF, the Maori Party didnt get five seats ON 2.5% of the vote. They got five seats because people in electorates voted five candidates in. The 2.5% was incidental . Perhaps that is why nobody complained and you full well know that. These people are complaining about MMP.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
ACT got more votes than NZ First.
NZ First only got more PARTY votes than ACT.
Surprise! Electorate votes count too!
If ACT hadn’t spent loads of time and money on winning Epsom, they might have made 5%, and almost certainly would have got more than what NZ First got.
If NZ First had tried to win an electorate, they would have had to have used lots of resources to do so, and would have got fewer Party Votes.
You play by the rules that are set. ACT played better.
Having said that, I think the rules are unfair, and we should just ditch the threshold completely.
Why should the votes of someone that votes for a party that only gets 2% not count at all?
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Wasn’t the original recommendation to have a threshold of 4% and get rid of the Maori seats?
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Borker
Any system that minimises the number of seats that the Greens get is fine with me.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Just to throw another spanner in the mix, voter turnout in most electorates is 25000-30000. In Maori seats it was more like 15000-18000. It may say something about the Maori electoral roll, but most likely it reflects a poor voter turnout in Maori seats. If more of the Maori electorate came out and voted and gave their party vote in the same proportion to the Maori party, 1 or even 2 of those overhang seats would be eliminated.
My advice, get more of the Maori electorate voting.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
“Why do so many people who complain that ACT got five seats in Parliament on only 3.65% of the vote, never complain that the Maori Party got five seats in Parliament on 2.39% of the vote?”
These people fear ACT policies and principals. ACT used to be (and hopefully still are) a party based on policies and principals, not people. People should vote for policies and principals, not people. Unfortunately people don’t vote on policies and principals.
Labour or National could put a dog as a candidate in their strong electorates and would probably win them. The quality of some of the electorate candidates begs the question of why we should have electorate seats at all (Taito Field, Toku Morgan). Especially when these mp’s have to tow the party line anyway. EG, Name a time when a National electorate MP has done something contrary to National party policy when doing so is in their electorates best interest?
I would go as far as saying a much fairer (not necessarily practical) system would be one where there are no electorate seats and 100 list seats, therefore people vote solely on policies, and people from far and wide that share the same belief can be confident of having their ideas represented.
These people who complain are biggots who want ACT voters who currently get proportional representation to get no representation. Remember, the maori party has a disproportionate number of seats in parliament compared to the vote they got across the country.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
As noted already, Maori seats tend to generate overhang, as Maori tend to split their vote: party to labour, electorate to Maori. It would be interesting to see which way Maori vote if you implement something along the royal comission’s original recommendation: remove Maori seats, reduce threshold so a party that gets say 2% of the total (maori + culturally irrelevant rolls) vote entirely from Maori roll get in. Doing so would get rid of the overhang problem. Of course it would probably cut the number of seats the Maori Party holds by half so its not likely to happen as long as we are in Maori appeasement mode.
Vote:September 18th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
pharradime
If you are saying that reducing the threshold for representation to 2% being approximately equal to one MP while maintaining the electorate seats would reduce the overhang then I think you are completely wrong.
Many fringe parties would get over 2% and not win a single electorate. For example Jolly Jim could scoop in on his party vote while his safe Labour seat picks up a Labour candidate. Winston would have been in for sure as well in the last election. Bill and Ben might get a man in the house and the Legalise Cannabis crowd might also. So Yes I agree, lower the threshold but I’m not afraid of the big bad overhang. I think it irons out the BS threshold crated by a system we currently have that basically says; If you can’t win the same proportion of votes to stand 5-6 members – then piss off.
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 12:31 am
Getting rid of MMP would make this better how?
Under ACT and the Maori Party would still have more seats than NZF despite having less support. The Greens would still have fewer seats the ACT and Maori combined, despite greater support.
You list three things you think are wrong with the current system and then appear to suggest the solution is to change to a system that would makes all* those problems worse!
*there would be more Maori seats under FPP or SM
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 1:28 am
Graeme Edgeler
Interested in your thought on STV? A return to FPP would seem moronic. With SM I think setting the mix of list and electorate seats would be contentious and quickly become a hot button campaign football. I also think SM allows stealthiness in the setting a threshold like the 5% threshold we have under MMP, which makes me wary.
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 6:06 am
I am quite confused as to why so many people refer to the Maori party as the apartheid party. It would seem a silly comparison at best and a blatantly racist one at worst. In the South African apartheid, it was used to ensure the hegemonic position of the dominant culture in society. Whereas in New Zealand, the Maori party is in response to their sub ordination by the hegemonic position of the dominant culture. In the first situation the apartheid is being used for sub ordination, in the second it is being used to counter sub ordination.
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 6:14 am
Quite simple. The problem is the racist and anachronistic Maori seats.
If only the National government had the balls to abolish them. If only.
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 6:26 am
reddeath – Don’t be confused, all you have to do look up the meaning of the word and you will see that it is totally appropriate to use the word apartheid. The literal meaning of the word in Afrikaans is “separate” or separateness”. Maybe a bit too early for you?
The confusion is in your own statement where you somehow try to link the race based, special rules and laws in NZ for Maori (that do not apply to any other citizen) to the oppressive regime in South Africa. There are no laws exclusive to any other citizen that Maori are excluded from. These examples are not linked except by the sharing of the same word.
To try and link these completely different examples of use of a word is disingenuous at best and deliberately shit stirring at worst.
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 7:01 am
@Manolo-
Why is it you believe such a move would be desirable? Would this not simply move us further away from equality?
@kaya-
Vote:Yet it would seem this is exactly what so many people who call them the apartheid party intend on doing. Instead of actually addressing the issue of one group enjoying a hegemonic position in society and through this dominance subordinating and marginalizing others, they attempt to go for the knee jerk reaction to such a word as apartheid.
September 19th, 2009 at 9:16 am
I was a supporter of MMP before it was introduced, but I (and probably thousands of others) did not fullt appreciate the extent to which the tail wags the dog under this system. Even a 5% threshold is too high in my opinion.
To have parties with just 5% voter support or less fully represented in the parliament and thus able to crucially influence the balance of power is, I think, an unsatisfactory thing and is every bit as undemocratic as if they had no representation at all.
How about putting aside a small bloc of seats (5 maybe?) to be divvied up amongst all the parties which get 5 to 20% support and this way entitle them to sit on select committees etc and have an input but without being in the position to wag the dog?
This ludicrous situation where two major parties with 80 or 90% of the vote between them have to pander to fringe dwellers, nutty religionists and racists is most unsatisfactory.
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 10:56 am
burt – STV is an okay system, but it is really a system for choosing between individuals. I support it for local government, but we have a very strong party system in New Zealand and voters aren’t really choosing MPs, they’re voting for parties – the waste of space MPs that used to be (and often still are) elected from electorates are testament to this. An STV election in New Zealand wouldn’t so much see candidates from one party squaring off against those from other parties, but challenging each other. National candidates would be competing with other National candidates to try to get higher preferences from National voters. Not an entirely bad thing, but it isn’t really how our system operates. If the US ever wanted to go proportional it would probably be good for them.
Better than first past the post? Yes. But so would be any majoritarian system. If we had to change from MMP, I’d go with regional electorates – say 8-12 MPs each, on open regional party lists – South Auckland might get 12 MPs and elect 7 Labour, 3 National, one Maori Party and one Green. One vote only, with nationwide proportionality maintained for parties, by having the last 20 or so spots picked up by the best losers. Everyone would have an electorate, and no-one would be there only because they were highly-placed by some list-ranking committee (open lists mean you can use your vote to help re-order the list of the party you’re voting for, but putting your party vote tick next to the name of a particular candidate).
But I’m not really pushing that, and will very likely be supporting MMP.
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Dave, that’s pretty close to National getting at most 5 seats in 2002 – when they got 21% of the vote.
Two parties with 80-90% between them can do whatever they want. They don’t have to pander to anyone. If National wants to pass a reasonable law and the only way they can do it is with ACT support and they insist on something unacceptable, or with Maori Party support and they insist on something different but equally unacceptable, then National should get Labour support.
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
CharlieBrown: “These people fear ACT policies and principals. ACT used to be (and hopefully still are) a party based on policies and principals, not people. People should vote for policies and principals, not people. Unfortunately people don’t vote on policies and principals.”
I wouldn’t piss on my principal if he was on fire, he was a wanker.
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
ernesto – “I wouldn’t piss on my principal if he was on fire, he was a wanker.”
What do ya mean? I now realise I spelt principle wrong, is that the point you are trying to make?
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I hear the term “tale wagging the dog” alot, however there isn’t many examples of this. The most obvious example of this was Winston and National back in 1996, however he quickly got booted from power, and it was ACT who pragmatically provided support on confidence and supply to ensure a stable government till the next election.
The greens havn’t had much of an effect on things other than stirring up irrational debates, Labour were extremely left in the last government anyway. All ACT has achieved this government is to try and keep national to their word on Maori seats. What national party policy supporter can complain about how ACT have behaved this term so far?
The most obvious recent case of the tale wagging the dog is John Key and the Maori party this term, and this would continue under an electorate based system. John key has been completly untrue to his word on Maori seats, and seems to be gradually abandoning what core national supporters believe in.
I think people tend to get hung up on the very few policy concessions the minor parties get in governments. In the big stuff like budgets and social policy, the major party usually gets the sole say.
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Burt, I suspect if you spent less time failing to cleverly misspell my username, you might properly comprehend what I was suggesting.
For Maori representation, instead of the Maori seats you add an additional reduced threshold for votes coming entirely from the Maori vote. So the thresholds for getting seats in parliament would be:
1 electorate seat OR
if (your party vote)>(0.05* total number of maori + nonmaori party votes) OR
if (your party vote ONLY FROM MAORI ROLL)>(0.02*total number of maori + nonmaori party votes)
Such a scheme would let the likes of the Maori Party get in, but reduce the chances of overhang mps. It would not let Bill and Ben, Legalise Weed or any similar group in.
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I admit I haven’t read all responses above so I will probably repeat things said above.
The Royal Commission recommended a 4% or 1 seat threshold for MMP. They also recommended the abolishment of the Maori seats.
Instead parliament, namely National and Labour, ignored the Royal Commission and kept the Maori seats.
I support MMP but think there is a number of minor changes that could be adjusted. The Threshold and Maori seats are 2. Firstly the 1 seat threshold has been abused (by the Greens (1999 although they did just get above 5%), Progressives (2002), United Future (2005) and ACT(2005 and 2008) and of course NZ First (1999)). In Germany they have a 3 seat threshold, NZ would be better. A 4% threshold for a party would encourage support for parties.
As for Maori representation.
Maori seat were at least in part created to ensure that European Settlers would not be in minority in parliament (or it predecessor). After Labour pact with Ratana the seats were pretty safe Labour. Under FPP this benefited Labour as they would always have those 4 seats. However it also benefited National as large number of smaller margins in electorates beats big wins in a few.
Now under MMP that is not the case. In part the high number of Maori Party MPs is based on Population Demographics. Did you know that the population size of electorates is based on the population, not the population over 18. The proportion of Maoris are younger and hence they are allocated more seats than if the allocation was based on the population over 18. I am not sure if it would mean fewer Maori seats in the 2008 election or not, it could have.
As the Maori electorates are large, I don’t think this is a way of allocating Maori seats. If there was threshold, as recommended by the royal commission there would be 3 Maori Party MPs and no overhang in the parliament. I am not sure that this would help.
I think it may be possible to construct a system where people who take the Maori option could have some sort of separate list allocation. I also think that the elected Maori representatives could be assigned back to regions to represent the Maori voter there. I’m not sure how this would be done.
Actually I am in favour of all list MPs being assigned to represent a region (as an alternative to the the local electorate MPs) or to a community with greater New Zealand. The person elected may state a preference of who she or he will represent but the final allocation will need to planned. Why should an mostly urban Wellington seat have 3 MPs and a rurak South Island set have just one. End of the aside
The think about MMP it could be a whole lot more flexible. The fact that the previous government said it was all working well doesn’t mean they were right. It also doesn’t mean that it
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Cause if you are on the Murri side you are a staunch bro who won’t accept colonisation and believes that all W’s have H’s after them and if you are on the ACT side you are a filthy little capitalist upstart who just can’t accept that you are only allowed to live here if you pay lots of cash over to the bro’s
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Inky_the_Red, I didn’t know electorates are based on total population rather than population over 18, I assume this is based on the idea that MPs should serve X number of constituents regardless of their eligibility to vote.
Vote:September 19th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
paradigm
So what you are saying is remove Maori seats and make special race based concessions on the list vote. Are you always wanting to meddle with rather than level the playing field. The whole point of an list based system is that it provides proportionality, slippery slope you walk when you try and use it to achieve some form of compensation for something else that is not really measurable.
Vote:September 20th, 2009 at 1:56 am
Don’t know what you mean by always. In the specific case of the pro-Maori bias in the electoral system, it is clear it is strongly entrenched and will be very difficult to remove outright: When pressed at the leader’s debates last election, even ACT conceeded the Maori seats (or some equivalent system) would have to stay for awhile.
Given all that, the least we can do is get rid of the disproportionate representation Maori get from being able to effect an overhang. The mechanism I pointed out (which was also suggested by a Royal Commission, which apparently means its infallable) would achieve that. While I don’t think doing so would dangerously affect proportionality, I would agree its a slippery slope, mostly as adopting an alternative to outright elimination of the proMaori bias in the election system may in some way appear to give it long term legitimacy. However I would also note that in at least one of its dimensions, the said slope it is angling downward toward an election system less biased proMaori.
Vote:September 20th, 2009 at 9:01 am
If you win the seat fine, but no list MPs until you exceed the threshold (maybe lower it to 4%).
Agree – 90,000 NZF people have no representation in Parliament, while one wealthy electorate has disproportionate representation in Epsom.
Vote:September 20th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Jules: “Agree – 90,000 NZF people have no representation in Parliament, while one wealthy electorate has disproportionate representation in Epsom.”
ACT do not have disproportionate representation, they have proportionate representation (ie, they got about 3.65% of the vote and get 3.65% representation in parliament).. NZ first do not have proportionate representation (ie, none), and the maori party have disproportionate representation (5 instead of 2 or 3).
Vote: