Pagani on MMP
December 16th, 2011 at 10:00 am by David FarrarJohn Pagani blogs at Stuff:
The biggest change people are talking about is to remove the electorate winners’ bonus that allows a party winning one electorate seat to bring in other MPs. The loophole created the shoddy deals in Epsom and Ohariu by evading the rule that requires a party to get 5 per cent to get into Parliament.
As it happens no MP qualified for Parliament this way. The only List MPs are from parties that exceeded 5% party vote.
And why is it shoddy for National voters to vote for Peter Dunne but quite okay for Green voters to vote for Labour MPs in marginal seats?
The single worst feature of MMP is the quality of party lists and the frequency of MPs getting into Parliament with too little democratic mandate.
Lists must be compiled “democratically” but what does that mean? In practice, the people who put together lists are unaccountable. I’ve been involved in list selection in three different parties – small, medium and large – and I’m convinced that the missing ingredient is public input capable of vetoing backroom deals.
The best model is the Greens’ one, where the party’s high priests emit a draft that goes to members, who can rearrange it. This resulted in Steffan Browning coming to Parliament this year, when the draft list had him unelectably low.
We need the public to have an opportunity for rearrangement of every party list. I am not a fan of so-called “open lists”, where voters can rearrange the list as they vote – they make the ballot paper too long.
Why not have independently run primary list elections six months before the election? Individuals could get an independent mandate for their place on the list.
I can’t see open lists working, but requiring a party to let all members vote on the final list is a possibility.
Another improvement MMP needs is an increase in the proportion of electorate seats. We could easily have 85 electorate seats – 15 more than today, and consequently 15 fewer list seats – without disturbing proportionality. That would give more local MPs, with the small parties still tending to keep their status intact. Eighty-five would leave room for about another five or 10 seats to be created with population growth, without needing to increase the size of the House.
John is wrong here on the numbers. If the House in 2002 had 85 seats (and assuming National and Labour won the same proportion), then Labour would have had a three seat over-hang. Also at 95 seats, Labour would have had a 10 seat over-hang and National a two seat over-hang.
Also the Maori Party has had an over-hang in 2008 and 2011, and an increase in electorate seats would possibly increase their over-hang also.
Ministries are big simply because party leaders need to hand out rewards. Now they’re getting even larger because the prime minister is struggling to cram in all his support partners. This is an abuse that we don’t need.
Repeating a lie told by Trevor doesn’t make it true. The Ministry is the same size as under Helen Clark. And in fact the 2011 Ministry has one fewer Minister from support partners than in 2008.
Ministers ranked below about 9 or 10 in Cabinet are not part of the real Cabinet anyway.
This is basically correct. Any group which has more than 10 or so members will inevitably form an inner circle.
Ten MPs would be enough to run super-portfolios, with another dozen as ministers outside Cabinet. That would help create pressure from new talent knocking at the door, and improve the quality of ministers. Most MPs would never make Cabinet – but voters don’t need them to.
This is basically what I have long proposed.
I would reduce the pay gap between MPs and ministers. If there were no financial penalty for losing their jobs, ministers could be fired and resign on a point of principle more easily. Support parties would see policy gains as more important than salary gains.
A highly attractive feature of MMP is it helps make Parliament more powerful relative to the government. If chairs of select committees were to enjoy as much responsibility and reward as, say, ministers outside Cabinet, then that would be an alternative career path for MPs.
I think this is just stupid. Is John saying Jim Anderton stayed a Minister because of the salary, rather than his ability to contribute?
Tags: John Pagani, MMP
December 16th, 2011 at 10:18 am
“The single worst feature of MMP is the quality of party lists and the frequency of MPs getting into Parliament with too little democratic mandate.”
Well sure! He’s highlighting some pretty fundamental problems. But we just had a referendum and the majority voted to keep MMP. I don’t like it either, but this doesn’t exactly seem like the right time to be trying to debate what the best electoral system is.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 10:19 am
The Green party can allow members to rank its list because it has so few members. It probably has few more than the 500 required to register.
National has more members than that in single electorates and tens of thosuands altogether. It would be impossible for them all to know enough about the candidates to rank them on merit.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 10:23 am
DPF or Jadis, why the never-ending free publicity given to this hack, Pagani?
Vote:The mind boggles on how he manages to get paid for writing trite “articles” like this one.
December 16th, 2011 at 10:33 am
Andrew Williams getting 800 votes but getting into parliament through the list just Irks me. There must be a way of making him more democratically accountable.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 10:39 am
>The biggest change people are talking about is to remove the electorate winners’ bonus that allows a party winning one electorate seat to bring in other MPs.
MMP is full of opportunities for tactical voting and collusion. By validating MMP at the referendum, voters have signalled that they don’t mind this happening. I’m opposed to vested interests trying to use the review to gerrymander the current system to gain advantage for themselves. Because there isn’t going to be another referendum to approve the system they come up with.
Which is the tragedy of the referendum result. If we’ve voted on an alternative system then we’d have a second referendum to see if the alternative is better than MMP or not. The electoral system would be in our hands. Now we’re going to have an alternative MMPv2, but we won’t get to vote on whether we prefer MMP v1 or MMP v2. How is this democratic?
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 10:41 am
>This resulted in Steffan Browning coming to Parliament this year, when the draft list had him unelectably low.
He looks like he is in his late 50s, but he lists UE in his list of educational qualifications. You’d do that when you were going for your first job, but surely no-one over the age of 25 bothers to list their secondary school qualifications.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 10:45 am
I’m not so sure that mandating how any party should complie its list is a clever move. Ultimately the electorate will endorse or reject a party’s selection methodology in part in it’s party vote – the real trick is that the voting population need to know how parties work and their selection methodologies. Unfortunately that is probably a step too far for the average voter who,so far, has not exhibited any interest in the list, its selection or its rankings.
Political parties must see this as a strength whereas those of us who reject MMP as an acceptable system see it as its greatest weakness.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 11:03 am
Seeing as we have MMP how about dropping the threshold altogether. If you get 1% of the vote you get an MP. So lots of fringe groups and joke parties would be elected? So what? Cant be any worse than NZ First being in parliament.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 11:07 am
The problem with an “electorate seat bonus” isn’t that they can bring in more MP’s, it is that the difference between winning a single electorate seat (effectively 1/120th or 0.83% of the vote) and the 5% threshold (6 seats) is so vast. So when a party gets 3 or 4 percent and an electorate seat, it looks like a big rort because of that difference.
I still think that if you can generate 1/120th of the vote to your party – whatever it is – then you ought to have a seat in parliament. That is true proportionality.
It would also provide the ability to get rid of the Maori seats as there is sufficient support for the Maori Party and Mana Maori to ensure their representation.
Yes you might then get the McGillicuddy Serous Party voted in, but if that is how seriously the population takes the running of the country then they get what they deserve. And in any case they would be evicerated by the serious politicians and go running back to mommy pretty quickly
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 11:29 am
@Homepaddock
I think I remember hearing that the Green party has somewhere in the region of 3000+ members (plus some non member financial supporters in excess of that). Not sure how many National has – Tens of thousands might be right but it wouldn’t be very many tens I suspect – mass political party membership has been declining for years.
@David
I kind of agree with you on the list ranking – I don’t think legislation should be too prescriptive although it might be good to have something about it being determined in part or full by a vote of the members. How that vote is carried out or how much weighting it gets might vary, but the idea that the membership has no say whatsoever seems detrimental to encouraging participation in the political process.
I agree that list MP’s who quit their parties should be forced to leave parliament – they have no mandate – the voters elected a policy platform not them as an individual.
I don’t get the need for new electorates – just have 50 list seats and 50 electorate seats in a 100 seat parliament. Electorate size should be adjusted to fit electorate numbers not the other way round. Who cares if the electorate is big (the Maori electorates are massive already). Abolish electorate offices and just give an allowance for staff and a (fuel efficient) car for travel – this is the 21st century most people don’t access their politician by walking into a mainstreat office. It’s the politicians job to be accessible to the public – if they think the only way this is possible is by having an office and waiting for the public to come to them then they are sorely lacking in imagination.
The 5% exemption:
“As it happens no MP qualified for Parliament this way. The only List MPs are from parties that exceeded 5% party vote”
Which means it should be easy enough to remove this stupid exemption. It is unfair and encourages every man and their dog to create a party in hope of getting friends through on the loophole. There is nothing wrong with independent MP’s with a local mandate – Tariana, Pita, Flavell, Banksie, Dunne and Hone are independent electorate MP’s – lets call a spade a spade.
Either you have a local mandate or you have a popular mandate (5% plus) for a policy platform.
I do think that in order to be fair there should be 1,2,3 preferential ranking on the party and electorate votes. This would eliminate the ‘spoiler’ dimension with the electorate vote and would allow people to vote with confidence for a minor party policy platform knowing that their vote will not be wasted if the party doesn’t make 5% (like the 4 percent of people who voted NZFirst in 2008 or the 3% who voted conservative this year).
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 11:29 am
If 85 electorate seats (with 35 list seats) produces to much overhang, what would be a useful number. I believe electorates are too big for the MPs now. More electorates would mean smaller electorates, which would be a good thing. What would work without to much overhang ? 80 electorate ? 75 ?
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 11:33 am
David Farrar says:- “And why is it shoddy for National voters to vote for Peter Dunne but quite okay for Green voters to vote for Labour MPs in marginal seats?”
Translation (in a plaintive voice):
“But they did it first!”
Doesn’t make it right. It’s all shoddy, from all sides.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 11:40 am
People complain about the size of Cabinet, but there is a serious problem with Ministers being overworked as it is without consolidating portfolios. There was a bit of a flurry of attention to the idea of the MP for Botany being both an MP and a local councilor (and the same situation occurred for Maungakiekie MP Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga). Both resigned from local government acknowledging that they couldn’t do both jobs justice. Yet we believe that someone can be an electorate MP and a Minister and do both jobs justice? Ministers should be freed from having to service an electorate because they can’t honestly provide the level of representation their peers can.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 12:18 pm
Yeah I couldn’t really follow Pagani’s logic on this issue. Certainly there’s the potential for an MP to ride in on the coat tails of an electorate seat winner. I agree that it shouldn’t happen. I also think a candidate should stand in an electorate or be on the list, but not both. If you stand in an electorate and lose, you don’t get into Parliament. I also think the threshhold should be lower. These are all issues which I presume will be looked at in due course.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 12:22 pm
I support the Herald’s suggestion on List MPs: instead of having a party list, each party’s list MPs are those who get the most number of electorate votes without winning the seat. Thus every potential MP has the incentive to maximise their electorate votes by working hard for a particular community. Of course, this wouldn’t be acceptable to the sort of person who says “Candidate A got 16000 votes, Candidate B got 15999 therefore Candidate B has been rejected by the electorate and shouldn’t be allowed back in on the list” but I’ve never understood that reasoning anyway.
Had that system been in place for this election then National’s MPs wouldn’t have changed much (virtually everyone got in anyway) but Labour, Greens and NZ First caucuses would look much different. Not than you can read much into that because if the system had been in place for this election people might have cast their electorate votes quite differently.
As a special bonus, I think Andrew Williams would have missed out. And Winston would have been forced to stand in an electorate somewhere which would have led to Whale standing against him, that alone would have been worth the change.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
SteveO, why should a candidate be able to have two bites of the cherry?
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 12:37 pm
John Pagani is repeating Phil Goff’s line. In the run-up to the 2014 election, circumstances then may mean Labour benefits from an electorate MP bringing in a few list MP’s. Labour would then quietly drop its present stance and instead lathc on to some other aspect of MMP perceived as giving national some advantage.
To all those complaining about aspects of MMP – Welcome to MMP – that is what Kiwis want – you have to take the advantages and disadvantages that go with it.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Ross, I don’t see at as having two bites at the cherry but rather of fulfilling more of MMP’s promise to reduce the number of wasted votes (vs FPP). My reasoning requires that you view voting as voting “for” someone, in which case it doesn’t matter how many people vote for someone else as long as enough of you vote for that person. This reasoning doesn’t hold if you, like many, view voting as giving you the ability to vote “against” someone.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
I’m pretty sure preferential voting on the electorates would solve most of the silliness that went on in Epsom etc. Having a situation where Labour voters have to vote for the National candidate in order help Labour is completely retarded.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Of course he is. The hack Pagani was a former adviser to Phil Goff and a player in Jim Anderton’s Alliance team.
Vote:Crimson red, indeed.
December 16th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
I seriously don’t believe a change to stop people standing for both electorates and list is a good idea. It’ll just stop parties standing people in seats that aren’t ‘safe’. If the Herald’s proposal were accepted it would just involve the allocation of electorates differently, the top national candidates would always stand in Remuera or Botany and the top Labour candidates would always stand in Manurewa or Mangere regardless of where people are actually from or if they know the community they are supposed to represent.
The winning or losing of electorates in 90% of cases has very little to do with MP performance and everything to do with demography. I don’t subscribe to the view that George Hawkins was a better MP than John Tamihere just because he won his electorate but Tamihere lost his (and got kicked out of parliament as he had chosen not to stand on the list). Or that Ross Robertson should be ranked higher than David Cunliffe because he got more electorate votes.
Under an electorate ranked system (based on electorate majorities from electionresults.govt.nz) Labours top 5 would be
1) Ross Robertson
2) Sua William Sio
3) David Shearer
4) Annette King
5) Louisa Wall
Nationals would be:
1) John Key
Vote:2) Amy Adams
3) Simon O’Connor
4) Tony Ryall
5) Simon Bridges
December 16th, 2011 at 1:07 pm
Well if fewer list MPs creates an overhang, the simple solution is not to have an overhang. If a party gets more electorates than their proportion of the party vote, then good on them!
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 1:07 pm
@DPF: Is John saying Jim Anderton stayed a Minister because of the salary, rather than his ability to contribute?
No, he’s saying that the salary difference was a factor, not necessarily the only factor. In addition, he’s saying if you take the salary difference out of it then perhaps you’d see more mobility between Ministerial positions. I’m not sure whether the influence of salary is enough to do this or not. My guess is power to affect change is more likely involved (or perhaps the potential for future power to affect change)?
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Richard @ 11: 29: “Who cares if the electorate is big (the Maori electorates are massive already).”
It’s not just Maori electorates which are already too big – four of the biggest seven are general electorates:
Te Tai Tonga is 161,443 square kilometres in area; Clutha-Southland 38,247; West Coast-Tasman 38,042; Te Tai Hauauru 35,825 Waitaki 34,888; Ikaroa-Rawhiti 30,952; Kaikoura 23,706.
To put those numbers into perspective, Epsom, the smallest, is just 23 square kilometres in area.
It doesn’t matter who the MP is or which party they’re in, it’s impossible to represent people across that big an area the way MPs in smaller electorates can. Large electorates make access to MPs difficult for constituents and also limit the number of potential candidates who are willing and able to stand for election.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 1:41 pm
Couldn’t you just have a somewhat auto-generated list, i.e. those that come second in their electorate by less than a certain margin automatically go to the top of their party list.
This would ensure that they at least have some support, if they fall short of the margin then they aren’t eligible for a list position at all.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 2:10 pm
The biggest change people are talking about is to remove the electorate winners’ bonus that allows a party winning one electorate seat to bring in other MPs.
I’m not so concerned about that. What I’m concerned about is the wasted vote and the party vote threshold. Preferential voting for party lists and reducing the threshold is priority 1 and 2, respectively, for me. I should be able to vote for the person who I think best represents my interests and not have to worry about my vote not counting.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 4:34 pm
I believe that Parties in Parliament should be proportionaly Bulk funded leaving it to the Leaders to allocate salaries as the CEO does in a business.
Vote:Our present problem is that some MPs are pail too little while some are paid far too much. The distribution should be confidential of course.
But present salaries are not enough to attract some of the best and are so high that it seems like a fortune for many who get in on the list.
December 16th, 2011 at 5:56 pm
Make party lists ranked by the number of electorate votes they receive and increase the number of electorates to 80.
This makes strong left or right seats attractive for Labour and Act candidates to challenge the Labour/Nat candidate and get a good list ranking.
Swing seats can attract string candidates because a good result will get someone well placed on the list.
MPs will be distributed amongst electorates more evenly. Currently Ohariu has 4 candidates in parliament whilst most electorates have 1. More electorates will be closer to 2 MPs with 60/60, or 1.5 with 0/40.
Any MP becomes removable by the electorate rather than the party leader. If Nick Smith loses the confidence of his electorate he can go bye bye rather than rely on Keys help.
This is the most important effect of an electorate vote ranked list (with more electorates than list MPs), it improves the removablility of particular MPs by voters.
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 7:10 pm
DPF I see you are highlighting yet another post by Pagani.
As I asked last week “who is John Pagani and why is his opinion of importance?”; the comments from others indicated no one else had heard of this fellow either, and no one cared.
Are you and he siamese twins or something? if he blogged about a pressing need to send Jews to gas chambers will you be highlighting that sympathetically too? (all drinking buddies together and all that “because it is John it is okay”)
Can you name a single left wing Labour party loon who blogs that you disagree with? that you do not intend to give oxygyn to? (is buying you a drinkie all it takes???)
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Shit James. You are a hero. How many demerits to go?
Vote:December 16th, 2011 at 8:37 pm
Too big electorates come in two ways.
Vote:1. Numbers. All are roughly equivalent, but each still has too many people for the individual MP. It’s good they are equal in numbers and an increase in the the number of electorates would reduce the population in each. And that would be great.
2. Geography. Not a lot you can do about the fact they they vary widely. But a reduction in population in each would make each geographically smaller. A huge advantage in the Maori seats and such as Southern and Waitaki. And that would be good too. So Epsom would go down from 23 Km to say 18. Not a problem.
December 16th, 2011 at 11:37 pm
If the party lists were ranked by electorate votes. MPs would be strongly incentivised to get the voter turnout up in their district.
Vote:December 17th, 2011 at 12:02 am
Sorry homepaddock and KH, I still really dont get why geographically big electorates are an issue. People have phones and internet connections – who says I need to meet my local mp in person. This is the national parliament not the local council. The idea thtat we need to keep endlessly increasing the number of electorate seats each time people move out of the rural south island seems absurd.
Vote:December 18th, 2011 at 3:12 pm
“I am not a fan of so-called “open lists”, where voters can rearrange the list as they vote – they make the ballot paper too long.”
Err, might need to have a better argument than that to convince me that open lists are not a good idea.
Anyway with the advent of E-voting this will not be an issue.
Vote: