List MP’s could be appointed from a party’s highest polling unsuccessful electorate candidates.

At least this way, a list MP can claim to have received some personal mandate from voters.

The important thing is that everyone in parliament has somebody in parliament who represents your ideas and locality. If the parties decide not to do that they will suffer the consequences.

6. Term of Parliament
I support 4 years, with set dates unless agreed by 2/3 of parliament so a government can’t call an early election that helps it.

This is really important I think, the current situation where the incumbent govt set’s the election date is as undemocratic as Epsom voters voting in 5 members of Parliament ( though one could argue Epsom voters merely allowed the people around the rest of NZ who voted ACT to have their votes recognised, in effect making one person one vote a reality ).

Representation in NZ has been based on population where as seats are (currently) allocated by proportion of votes. Some regions have young populations.
If population is still the basis of representation then voters in area where medium age is low then the number of seats allocated then there will be some bias in votes cast in NZ compared to seats won.

I don’t think these are big issues. However if we go the regional route then they have to be acknowledged.

As for smaller regions, I am not sure that they are needed. If you look at the population spread in the South Island you really only have two options;
1 region south Island wide
or 3 regions Southland/ Otago, the area around Christchurch, and the Northern part (these would not have the same population and the exact boundaries could be in a variety of places)

In the North Island, Northland is the hard part to assign. By itself Northland is probably too small (in terms of population). Perhaps with part of Auckland?

That’s the thing – with reducing it down to four regions, you still lose a bit of proportionality.

You can have a national top-up to ensure overall proportionality. Say 90 MPs being those elected in the regions, and 30 MPs taken from the regional lists to make sure things are proportional overall. The 30 MPs would be the best MPs who just missed out from each regional list needed to ensure proportionality overall.

That’s the thing – with reducing it down to four regions, you still lose a bit of proportionality. I’m not sure what the figure is for 15 seats (which is about what it would be), but for 9-seat areas, a party needs 10% or more just to get one seat.
So this could mean that a threshold wasn’t actually needed anymore.

Open lists would be cool, and have a couple of features in their favour, but how many people will actually use them, vs people that will whine that the whole system is too complicated?

The problem with Italy and Israel is that they’re not exactly average democratic states. Italy has had political instability under PR, and under Supplementary Member (in the 1990′s), and even more recently (2007-) when they seem to have raised the threshold. (two parties getting 3% and 2.5% did not get any seats –> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_general_election,_2008)

The instability is more due to the region rather than the system, in both cases – Israel’s being a crazy politico-religious situation that we simply don’t have in NZ.

I could use The Netherlands and Switzerland as counter-examples of this – both have low/zero thresholds (H: 0.66% / S:1% if anything) and usually quite stable govts.

Any threshold risks ignoring the votes of 50000 to 100,000 individuals, and should only be there to stop joke parties and one issue polticians/morons. 2% would be enough for 3 seats, and would not exactly see a proliferation of minor parties with no viability. Since 1996, the only parties that have polled over this (and recieved no seats) have been NZ First, The Christian Coalition and Christian Heritage.

(Of course many people will say that the above ARE one-issue morons – that’s no reason to ignore 90,000 voters.)

1. Regional Lists
I think four regions are probably enough (Auckland, Northern North Island, Southern North Island and South Island)
If you go much smaller you lose proportionality

2. How to address Maori representation
Option include
- status quo
- separate ‘region’ for Maori voter
- lower threshold for Maori Parties
- those on Maori Option vote in a general seat (therefore get local representative who is the same as other people in nearby region) however list candidates are a Maori option list for them. This could be too complicated, it would mean more Maori seats.

3. Threshold
I tend to think 4% would be best, none would get too many nutters elected (people who disagree might look at Israel for example of why we need a threshold).
If we go for regional list I would think 5% in that region would be a sensible cut off, rather than a national cut off.
The lowest threshold would be 3% on a national basis. I certainly would look at increasing the threshold

4. Overhang
I favour overhang not increasing the size of parliament so in NZ latest election I would reduce the parliament to 120 by removing a National and Green member (the 120th and 119th members)

5. Calculation methods
New Zealand uses the Sainte-Laguë method
Where as many countries use the D’Hondt method which returns slightly less proportional results
I personal support the status quo but think it should be investigated

6. Term of Parliament
I support 4 years, with set dates unless agreed by 2/3 of parliament so a government can’t call an early election that helps it.

7. Restrictions on list/ term limits etc
I don’t favour term limits. However it seems that many people who lose seats are then elected from the list.
I know open list could address this.
With closed list you could restrict to say (this is an example not the only option) only 2 in 10 list members can be sitting members of parliament. I think this would need to have regional lists. It would allow small parties to keep some degree of continuing MPs, while preventing MPs from getting back when rejected by their electorate (to some degree)

8. Size of electorates
Examine allowing rural electorates to be smaller. Exact size is not needed in MMP as the list vote will fix most abnormalities.

Threshold dropped down to 2 or 3% with no automatic top up if you get a electorate seat- Stops the dropkick parties getting in (hopefully) but stops the Progressive/Act top ups.

Abolish the Maori seats but allow “Maori” parties to have no threshold- Keeps representation but reduces the perceived two votes for the left in the Maori seats (doesn’t stop the two voted for the right in Epsom though unless National put up a decent candidate)

Put a limit on the number of electorate candidates on the list, and name them before the election. That way the Top say ten candidates could be protected but none further down.

pipe dream I fear though

As for term limits for MPs, this would be a very interesting possibility to explore further. I would certainly love to see the end of career troughers like Jim Anderton.

Because all sorts of lazy, good-for-nothing socialist lefties who’ve never done a day’s work in their lives are getting into parliament “through the back door” – i.e. from student politics straight onto Labour & Green party lists. Apparently. Just ask any of the stalwarts around here.

But Act list MPs are JUST DIFFERENT, OK?

jackp – I assume you’re looking for an answer other than: because they won one electorate contest and got enough party votes over the whole country to get four list MPs?

Because that’s the answer.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, Edgeler. Back up the explanation trolley. Where do the reptilian shapeshifters fit into your “answer”?

Because that’s the answer.

It’s interesting that voter turn out has been falling despite having a system which the “experts” say is fairer and more engaging.

Voters in general don’t like a system that ends up with the bull and the toreador shaking hands/hoof at the end and then going out of the ring to do a deal with third parties while the crowd sits and waits.

Political insiders vastly overrate ‘fairness’ in the system, looking to tweak things for a perfect solution. The more you complicate things the lower the turnout and the greater the discontent. Under MMP you can’t vote the bastards out. That’s a major drawback.

Under STV it comes down to name recognition – what a yawn those DHB voting lists are.

Bring back the winners and losers under FPP!

If we’re to stick with MMP, I would want to see a party requiring at least two MPs before it qualifies for an exemption. I’m also OK with lowering the threshold, but wouldn’t want it to drop too low (cf. earlier comments about a highly fragmented Parliament and weak or unstable government). I’d say no lower than 3%. I’d expand that by saying that any MP who is the sole representative of his party gets treated as an independent MP (at least for funding and so forth). I think that’s how they work in Germany, where you need at least three seats to be considered a “party”; I wouldn’t raise the bar so high here, because Germany has about three times as many electorates as NZ does.

Furthermore, I’d want to keep a rough balance between number of electorate MPs and number of list MPs. What’s the point of MMP if we’re going to move towards SM by stealth (raising the proportion of electorate seats gradually)?

I’d be in favour of term limits, only for list MPs. Philosophically, however attractive term limits may be, I don’t see any justification for forcibly removing an electorate MP as long as he retains the confidence of his electorate (except, of course, for misbehaviour or incapacity). But I see no problem with expecting list MPs to move on after three terms, so that at least they can be replaced with someone with fresh ideas. The exception to that might be a list MP who gains Ministerial office; I can see that you might need a term or two to get experience of Parliament before being appointed as a Minister. If we were to do that, I’d also suggest limits on the size of the Executive Council/Cabinet, so Prime Ministers can’t make large numbers of “token” ministerial appointments for the sake of keeping useful (to the PM) but nondescript Members in Parliament.