Abolishing or reducing the threshold
One of the issues discussed in reviewing MMP, is whether or not the current 5% threshold should be reduced or even eliminated. I thought it would be interesting to look at what the results of the five MMP elections would have been, if there was no threshold, or it was reduced.
In 1996, having no threshold would have seen the Christian Coalition gain five seats and the Legalise Cannabis Party two seats.
A threshold of 2%, 3% or 4% would all see Christian Coalition gain seats, but not the ALCP.
This would have changed the Government. National and NZ First formed a Government with 61 seats out of 120. With no threshold they would only have 58 seats and would need three more seats to govern.
This would mean either a formal confidence and supply agreement with ACT would have been necessary (and would ACT have supported a Government with Winston in it) or more likely with the Christian Coalition.
In theory one could also govern with both the ALCP and United, but as United is very anti drug liberalisation, this is highly unlikely.
The 1999 election would have seen three more parties gain seats with no threshold. Christian Heritage gets three, ALCP one, and Future NZ one.
The Government formed was Labour/Alliance with support from the Greens. That combination would not have changed, reducing from 66 seats to 63.
No threshold for the 2002 election would have seen four extra parties in Parliament. Christian Heritage, the Alliance, Outdoor Recreation would have got two seats each and ALCP one.
This would have changed the Government. There was a Labour/Progressive Government with support from United Future that came to 62 seats. With no threshold it would be 59 seats.
Labour at 49 seats would need an extra 12 to govern. The simplest combination would be for them to have gone in with Winston who had 12 MPs. If he was ruled out, then a Greens, Progressive and Alliance combo on the left would be possible but unstable. To stay with the relatively centrist United Future would be difficult as even with Progressive and Outdoor Recreation they would be one seat short.
Less change in 2005. No threshold would have seen Bishop Tamaki get a pet Destiny MP, but the four party governing combination would still have had a slim majority.
No threshold in 2008 would have seen Winston and followers retain five seats, the Kiwi Party get one seat and the Ben & Bill Party get one seat.
The four party combination would still be able to govern with 65 seats instead of 69. However the Maori Party did not choose National over Labour. It was National or nothing.
The natural CR grouping of National, ACT and United Future has only 60 seats out of 122. You need 62 to govern so even one seat from the Kiwi Party would not be enough at 61.
Labour, Greens, NZ First, Maori Party and Progressive would total 60 seats.
So the Ben & Bill Party would have held a potential balance of power. They could either go with the centre-right or force a new election due to a hung Parliament.
I doubt many New Zealanders would back abolishing the threshold. Personally I support going to a 4% threshold which is what the Royal Commission recommended.
UPDATE: Chris Bishop has sent me a copy of a paper he did for his an LLB Hons class on the 5% threshold, titled Representation vs Stability. A copy is here – The 5 Percent Threshold in MMP – Representation v Stability. Note the paper was written in an academic and private capacity.
One amusing thing I noted from it, is that ACT was the only party that voted in 2000, when MMP was reviewed, to abolish the electorate waiver. If the electorate waiver had been abolished, they would have lost representation in 2005 and 2008.
After presenting arguments for and against a threshold, Chris concludes that the principled arguments for representation outweigh the pragmatic arguments for stability. I disagree. Chris said:
Concerns about “instability” are over-stated. By definition, minor parties in Parliament with few seats have as much as power as they do seats (in other words, not very much). The New Zealand electorate does not tolerate minor parties attempting to exercise disproportionate power over major parties.
There are two arguments against this. The first is that Chris sees power too literally as merely votes in Parliament. It is a well documented reality that a minor party able to play major parties off against each other can gain power well beyond their voting strength. They can gain a veto on any controversial legislation, due to the adversarial nature of our Parliament where the main opposition party will not help the Government out often.
The other weakness in the argument is the assertion that the electorate does not tolerate minor parties exercising disproportionate power. This overlooks that very very small parties do not have to care about most of the electorate. So long as they can use (for example) fear and hatred to whip up enough resentment so 1% of the country votes for them, they don’t have to worry too much about the fact 95% of the electorate hates them. So long as they keep their 1% happy, they can be as unreasonable as they want to be if they hold the balance of power.
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September 21st, 2009 at 12:16 pm
So the Ben & Bill Party would have held a potential balance of power.
Can you say that with any seriousness when people SURELY wouldn’t have voted for them at all if they’d known the vote would actually mean something? At least, I HOPE that’d be the case.
[DPF: That is possible, but on that basis one can say that Social Credit never really got 20% of the vote, as they would have got far less if people thought it would give them 20% of the seats]
September 21st, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Interesting analysis David.
Although I’m not sure you can draw the conclusions as definitely as you have. Needless to say, had the elections been held with different rules the parties would have campaigned differently and in different places. Particularly with the threshold by-pass wildcard.
Who could forget the fun of Wellington Central in 1996? Poor little Mark Thomas bravely campaigning for National while simultaneously being stabbed in the back by his own party, telling the faithful to vote for Prebble. Got a funny little book out of it as well. Cheers, Mr Prebble.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Fascinating, always been interested to see how much of an impact the threshold has.
An interesting side analysis would be if what is also being proposed, not taking in members under the threshold on the basis of a single electorate seat, and its impacts on elections under MMP.
I guess you can see why Germany was set to fail back in 1933, well with allot of other back ground factors (Treaty of Versailles etc).
September 21st, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Why look only at a reduced threshold? The only way to ‘fix’ MMP is in increase the threshold to eliminate the political rorting of the system by the Dunnes and Andertons of this world. How do your graphs look with an eight or ten percent threshold?
[DPF: A 10% threshold would generally have no third parties - well for the last two elections anyway]
September 21st, 2009 at 12:42 pm
<i.Can you say that with any seriousness when people SURELY wouldn’t have voted for them at all if they’d known the vote would actually mean something? At least, I HOPE that’d be the case
If I was in my late teens, I would have thought it bloody funny if my vote got those guys into parliament. In my 30’s not so much – but I would prefer them over half the buggers who are in there right now.
Put yourself into the shoes of a late teen, half pissed from the night before, scratching his arse thinking what he was to do with his day until their first uni course on monday.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Outta interest on the Bill and Ben list ( i presume there is one) who would have got in – Bill or Ben ?
September 21st, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Mike78
I suspect they would have flipped a coin, one gets a Hell Pizza and the other gets three years of doing silly shit.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:56 pm
So a lower threshold reduces some of the advantage the major parties have… no chance of getting it lowered then.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:56 pm
First time in a long while I’ve been tempted to write “LOL”.
Still not going to, though.
Except I kind of just did.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:58 pm
[DPF: That is possible, but on that basis one can say that Social Credit never really got 20% of the vote, as they would have got far less if people thought it would give them 20% of the seats]
Indeed. Were SC not seen as a viable governing option at all though (anyone)? Meaning, was that 20% voting because they were hoping SC would actually get in; as a joke/protest vote like B&B; or a mixture of both? None of that is rhetorical, they were before my time.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Tends to show the fallacy of a low threshold. What would the figures be DPF if the threshold was 10% ? If the threshold was 10% and gaining an electorate seat did not trigger a party with less than that getting extra seats it would give a much fairer spread in parliament. If you can’t convince 10% of the voters to support you, your party should not be able to effectively hold parliament to ransom. (I’m open to argument for that figure to be 8% or 9% but not lower)
September 21st, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Bevan, I have a higher opinion of ‘late teens’ than you, but whatever. I kind of doubt anyone as shiftless as you described would bother voting at all.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:06 pm
And I’ll continue to say that it isn’t the electoral system that allows parliament to be held to ransom. It is the behaviour of the major parties, who create situations in which they have no other choice than a single party. At which point, that single party can have anything they want.
John Key has demonstrated mastery of this – the minor parties have limited power in his government because he has other options. Helen Clark also achieved this during some of her terms. Underlying this lack of options is:
– the behaviour of the Greens, who (despite claiming with their branding to care about Green issues) refuse to ever support National
– the behaviour of the major parties in refusing to ever support each other, or compromise with each other, even if the alternative is someone like Winston getting their way
A parliament with a centre Greens party and a centre Maori party that can both go either way should offer sufficient freedom for neither to be wagging the dog. I’m pretty sure the maths works out such that the largest bloc (left = Labour + Alliance, right = National + ACT) would always be able to govern with only one of these two parties – or to put it another way, there shouldn’t be a situation where the defection of one of those two parties could allow the other bloc to form a government.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:08 pm
A 0% threshold would be quite dangerous as it allows small, radical and extremist groups to enter parliament and gain a platform they wouldn’t have otherwise.
Lowering the threshold to 4% would be good, it would encourage more political participation as the prospect of being in parliament becomes more realistic, while still having to have a reasonable amount of support throughout the country.
However I would also like to see the threshold for a party being represented lifted from one electorate to two.
So while you would need to win at least two electorate seats or 4% of the party vote before your party get’s represented proportionally.
I believe those numbers would look quite different for NZF and ACT if that were the case.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:10 pm
If the threshold for getting in to parliament is lowered there ought to be an increase in the threshold for registering as a political party – 500 members is far too low if the party has a realistic chance of getting in to parliament.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:14 pm
why not a comprimise of 3%….?
would democracy fall..?
what harm would it do..?
(and even tho’ i disagree with the christian coalition..
i can’t see the/any real harm in them having parlimentary representation..
..in fact..in any attempt at a true democracy…
they should not be disenfranchised..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
September 21st, 2009 at 1:20 pm
DPF – if we were to have no threshold at all, we’d probably use the modified Sainte-Laguë system instead of pure Sainte-Laguë (1.4 as the first divisor). This was implicitly endorsed in the Royal Commission report.
Mike78 – Bill was first on the Bill & Ben Party’s list.
[but under modified Saint-Laguë he wouldn't have been in)
[DPF: How does modified work? Is it just the 1.4 as first divisor?]
September 21st, 2009 at 1:26 pm
“..eszett (13) Vote: Add rating 0 Subtract rating 0 Says:
September 21st, 2009 at 1:08 pm
A 0% threshold would be quite dangerous as it allows small, radical and extremist groups to enter parliament and gain a platform they wouldn’t have otherwise…”
and so what is the harm with them having that platform..?
it’s only ideas..
you can either agree or disagree with them..
and once again..democracy won’t fall..
and nobody (however ‘radical’ you may feel they are)..is disenfranchised..
what’s not to like about that..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
September 21st, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Lowering the threshold to 4% wouldn’t change much. Most parties who get between 4-5% get an elected member anyway. NZF and the Christian coalition being the exceptions. The threshold needs to be lowered further – to around 2% and the numbers to register as apolitical party should be doubled.
Interestingly in terms of the MMP votes, dropping the threshold from from 4%-2% would have made a difference to just these two parties – but that’s easy to say in hindsight, the vote may well be different had the threshold been at 2%.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:31 pm
It will not matter when we FPP back.
Roll on the day so we can get rid of the loonie left/commie fringe parties.
As an aside phoolu, comprimise is spelt compromise. Perhaps you should desist from scolding your betters about spelling/punctuation.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Testing the reply function.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
dave
In most instances lowering of the threshold lowers the share of the major parties. The major parties seem to want SM which would typically see their numbers go up.
Perhaps we need to remind the govt who the voting systems are actually put in place for.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:34 pm
yeah..!..i’m a real punctuation nazi..!
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
September 21st, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Lowering the threshold and having more smaller parties represented should mean less chance of one or two small parties holding the balance of power – the main party then just needs to find those parties that will agree to any legislation ie they can shop around.
Raising the threshold makes it more likely the biggest small party (Greens at the moment) would more likely hold the balance of power with no other party options available.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:37 pm
.. and as gremlins wont let me edit comments, I should have also said that dropping the threshold from 4% – 2% would have, on the current vote, also had a detrimental effect on the parties on the left – alliance and Greens – but allowing for a more representative parliament.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:38 pm
homepaddock – as long as they get lots of votes does it matter how many members there are in a party?
For things like qualifying for state funding I can see you’d want a wide membership, but for actually getting on the ballot, what’s the major concern?
(genuinely interested)
September 21st, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Thumbs work for me in IE7 but not in Firefox 3.5.3…
September 21st, 2009 at 1:44 pm
In 2008 at 0% the choice for the Maori Party is still basically National or nothing isn’t it? A clear chance at power and saving the country from Bill and Ben, which would be mana enhancing. They would also have the option of a deal to abstain. There would be quite a bit of pressure on them to act to avoid another election, which would make their bargaining power about what it is now.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:48 pm
DPF – yes, Sainte-Laguë uses 1, 3, 5, 7 …
Modified Sainte-Laguë uses 1.4, 3, 5, 7 …
Basically makes it harder for a party to get that first seat. Instead of needing to earn a little less than half-a-seat which is rounded up to a whole seat, parties need to earn nearly a whole seat (two-thirds to three-quarters) before getting elected.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:51 pm
DPF: “It is a well documented reality that a minor party able to play major parties off against each other can gain power well beyond their voting strength. They can gain a veto on any controversial legislation, due to the adversarial nature of our Parliament where the main opposition party will not help the Government out often.”
“The other weakness in the argument is the assertion that the electorate does not tolerate minor parties exercising disproportionate power. This overlooks that very very small parties do not have to care about most of the electorate. So long as they can use (for example) fear and hatred to whip up enough resentment so 1% of the country votes for them, they don’t have to worry too much about the fact 95% of the electorate hates them. So long as they keep their 1% happy, they can be as unreasonable as they want to be if they hold the balance of power.”
Two mere assertions unsupported by the facts here.
If National and Labour adopt Parliamentary practices that empower smaller parties that is their call. Why should the representativeness of the HofR’s be fiddled with because National and Labour tactically decide to largely oppose (irrespective of the merit of the public policy issue) the other when that other is in Government?
It’s a terribly immature approach a hang over from the pre MMP FPTP mentality.
No minor party has survived to a second consecutive term of government (they are usually dispatched). What “veto” has been exercised by minor parties over the government’s legislative programme since the introduction of MMP. Again none. Furthermore, when National decided not to deal with Winston First (their creation) they disempowered him. Labour was no more craven to Winston First than National was in 1996 or prior to MMP – where they happily used his appeal to the grumpies for 1990.
None of our experience of MMP has much to do with the threshold it has much more to do with underlying cultural issues. The FPTP cultural stuff has a long tail.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I agree with you, DPF, regarding the threshold. The Israeli parliament has no threshold, and the hard line religious parties often hold the large parties to ransom. Thus there is ongoing, chronic instability in the Israeli parliament, and any attempt at a peace process is hijacked by the fringe parties/elements.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I notice in 1999 NZF stayed in power because Winston held Tauranga. The MSM did not go on how unfair that was as they are now about ACT is in Parliament because Rodney holds Epsom.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Actually, democracy did fall. In Germany, in the Weimar Republic. The absence of any kind of sensible threshold caused a huge number of parties to be in parliament, some of them actively anti-democratic. The chaos that it created gave rise to the Nazis.
In post-war Germany the threshold was created after the war to avoid another situation like the Weimar Republic.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:05 pm
David in Chch – I thought the Israeli Parliament had a 2% threshold….
September 21st, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Would Bill and Ben have run if there was 0% threshold? Last election, they were having a bit of fun, safe in the knowledge that they wouldn’t break 5% or win an electorate. If they only needed 0.8%, they might have stayed away — three years in parliament (even with a parliamentary salary) wouldn’t be much of a joke..
September 21st, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Labour wanted to enact Darien Fenton’s bill that would apply the minimum wage to contractors. They were willing to adopt it as a government bill to pass under urgency before Parliament was dissolved, but couldn’t get the numbers.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Dunno about the MSM (nor have I noticed many complaints about Rodney, except from individuals on blogs), but I certainly heard a lot of bleating about NZ 1st at the time..
September 21st, 2009 at 2:20 pm
The current situation is unfair because NZF had more support than ACT at the election, but won no seats. Do you disagree that that is unfair?
In 1999, the most unfair result is that Christian Heritage got more votes than UF and Peter Dunne combined, but were not represented in parliament.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:24 pm
dave (632) Vote: Add rating 0 Subtract rating 0 Says:
September 21st, 2009 at 2:05 pm
As I recall, there is no threshold, as I have read Israeli election result reports that mentioned this or that fringe party getting 1 seat in the parliament.
AHA! We were both sort of correct. My memory of 1 in 120 was based on the old system. According to Wikipedia, the threshold was JUST RAISED to 2 %, from what it was previously, which was 1 in 120 (0.83 %).
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Israel
September 21st, 2009 at 2:26 pm
P.S. Don’t know if it’s my system or yours, DPF, but the “Click to edit” just sits there with some sort of bar graphic doing naught. :-p
September 21st, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Just call me old fashioned , raise it to ten percent and raise the membership requirement to ten percent of the total registered voters. The quality of M P among those who are able to convince a simple majority of voters, with the best chance of assessing them ie electorate voters, is bad enough without those who have a snowballs chance in hell of being elected with a simple majority sitting making law from their one dimensional perspective.
I favour the Australian system for their. lower house where the successful candidate has after redistribution the support of a majority.
FFS just look at some of the people who would have been wasting oxygen if the lower threshold had been in place. WRP would have looked positively statesmanlike
September 21st, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Hmm. Mr Dodger, I don’t think any current political party in NZ could meet a membership threshold of 10% of registered voters. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing – no parliament means no new laws, and on average I reckon new laws take us backwards, not forwards.
As for the quality of MP, shall we say that they reflect the aspirations of the NZ voter. And in a similar way that a goodly proportion of NZers are no hopers, so for their elected representatives.
I do have a solution to both these problems, it an elected dictatorship. Since I am a public spirited sort of fellow, I am prepared to offer myself as a candidate. Actually, as the sole candidate, and my goons will enforce the mandatory voting rule that I will introduce…….
September 21st, 2009 at 3:21 pm
PaulL
The first thing you will need is an electoral finance act to shut down dissent. There is a good example of such sitting around not being used right now that you can just implement immediately.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:48 pm
My first action will be to appoint burt as my Minister of Information. He will make sure that we have good control of dissenters. As reward I will allow him to live in Bowen House, and pay an accommodation allowance even though my government is clearly already paying for his accommodation. This will be how I reward those who please me.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Graeme @ 1.38 “as long as they get lots of votes does it matter how many members there are in a party?”
MMP gives party hierachies a lot more power than FPP did because they can control the lists and it potentially gives wee parties influence which is out of proportion to their membership or voting base because they could hold the balance of power.
If you can’t get more than a couple of thousand people to agree on philosophy & principles & pay a sub you’re not a party you’re a lobby group.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Nice work David. It’s one of the questions sure to be debated over any MMP reform, and having a bit of history to use for modelling changes is really useful.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Thankyou PaulL but I offered myself as a benevolent dictator some 40 years ago but the 0% threshold gave me enormous problems then and that was before MMP. I would definitely offer myself as one of your goons but am too feeble and with the booze problem,well?
On a serious note though at least a higher membership threshold would help alleviate the point HP raises in converting lobbygroups to some semblance of a political party.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:56 pm
The 5% threshold is the only thing saving us from a pure direct proportional system. IMO, it needs to be higher, not lower.
September 21st, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Graeme Edgeler:
“Labour wanted to enact Darien Fenton’s bill that would apply the minimum wage to contractors.”
This wasn’t a Government Bill but a private members one. It was not a Government Bill vetoed by a party in a confidence and supply arrangement.
homepaddock:
“MMP gives party hierachies a lot more power than FPP did because they can control the lists and it potentially gives wee parties influence which is out of proportion to their membership or voting base because they could hold the balance of power”
Pure fiction.
Labour had a highly centralised electorate candidate selection system prior to MMP. Both Labour and National under MMP have continued to centralised electorate candidate selection albeit National on a regional basis. Nothing to do with the list. Everything to do with modern elections both FPTP and MMP are all about Parties.
As for one MP holding the Country to ransom you mean like Marilyn Waring and her fellow National MP from one of the Hamiliton Seats?
September 21st, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Any system which stops NZ First from being in parliament is a system I like.
What a lot of people forget, however, is that National and Labour could always form a grand coalition if they don’t like the alternatives. It happens in other countries with proportional representation all the time.
I’m not too bothered about dropping the threshold personally, but I don’t see any overriding reason why not (other than the NZ First not being in parliament thing). I agree with Chris Diack that minor parties do not punch above their weight generally, and if they do, they and the major party are punished.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:19 pm
But it was wanted as a government bill.
The support party veto will generally be over something that’s not (yet) a bill. Can we get the numbers for this to pass a first reading? Ask NZF/Ask UF/Ask Greens? No? Then no introduction and no “veto”, but it’s a veto in every other sense.
Perhaps I can add another – Peter Dunne vetoed any change to the legal status of cannabis through his confidence and supply agreement.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:41 pm
I suppose this can also be considered an arguement for letting people with one or more electorate MPs but <5% party vote still get extra list seats. Winning an electorate requires being able to a greater cross section of the populus to not despise you utterly. Thats the theory anyways, maybe Winston Peters shows it doesn't always go according to plan, or it at least takes people a while to catch on.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:57 am
It might be just me, but I think your maths for 2002 might be wrong.
Labour+UF+Prog+OR = 49+8=2+2 = 61
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
The threshold discussion (while moot is good!) is speculative insofar as it discounts role of strategic voting (place betting), weighting give by media to reductionist thinking around win/loose ‘two horse races’, and those damned polls that omit the ‘also running’.
Further, 4% vs 5% threshold is an order of magnitude difference and proportionality is (increasingly) lost. Anderton’s legacy is one such example.
I think populist electoral representation is a win for the nation, but taking respective proportionality at a 5% threshold onto list representation is disproportionate. ie: ALCP consistently gets more list votes nationally than Progressives (and Anderton becomes Drug Czar! yeah right).
The MMP list candidates are decided by who the Party wants ‘in that order’ and while that is an open process within the party, it certainly accounts for the MP who? syndrome we have in NZ. I never cease to be amazed at how many MP’s I don’t know… never heard of, until one throws their cat in the fire. (or some such non-parliamentary act)
I think Farrar’s analysis while constructive is none the less simplistic.
To my mind the discussion needs to come back to electoral options.
(like the MMP debate/vote wasn’t bastardised by political self interest!)
STV (IMHO) at least delivers proportionality (voids strategic voting) and is transparent
STV would in my analysis (and submission on the subject) deliver greater voter participation therefor better reflect electoral choice. One of the attributes I like most about STV is its propensity for both ‘consensus’ and decision efficiency around vexing issues, climate change is one example, smacking another. [The media don't get to define issues as black/white, he said, she said. They are compelled to report much more around the subtlety of issue and thus inform the electorate].
Some would find voting Winnie ‘to the bottom of the list’ particularly attractive… (ranking who you do want allows people to effectively vote for who they don’t want. No other electoral system has offered that incentive! where have you heard that explained?)
STV – no one gets elected unless they have 50%+1 voter support… MINIMUM!
STV – no election occurs without even marginal views being accounted for and incorporated proprtionaly around the table. (ie: STV for greater dawkland solves the ethnic issues without having to canvass them, they ARE included fairly.)
Hence that is where the objective analysis needs to be done… otherwise we risk/will end up getting FPP back. Urrgh!
Thanks for stirring the pot none the less David!