Kiwiblog

The Electoral Referendum Bill has also been reported back. Major aspects are:

• Comes into force 1 Jan 2011
• aligns advertising rules with Electoral Act, including $300,000 spending limit
• MMP to only be reviewed if people vote for it to remain, not if they vote for change. So any run-off referendum will be with the current version of MMP
• Order of alternate voting systems to be alphabetical
• ballot papers will not be counted on E Day, but the results of advance votes will be known which should indicate the likely result
• The SM option has been defined as a 90/30 option. This is quite significant as it means it will be significantly less proportional than MMP. My preferred SM option would be 70/50 as MMP currently has. On the plus side a 90/30 system will have smaller electorate seats.

The question in Part A has been modified to be:

Should New Zealand keep the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system?

The options are:

• I vote to keep the MMP voting system
• I vote to change to another voting system

The select committee has done a diligent job with the bill. Politically I believe a majority will vote to retain MMP, especially with the SM option being significantly disproportional.

The Put MMP to the Vote lobby group has declared their preferred alternate scheme to be Supplementary Member:

The Put MMP to the Vote lobby today declared supplementary member (SM) its preferred voting alternative to MMP.

Co-leaders Peter Shirtcliffe and Graeme Hunt said an SM-elected Parliament would mean the number of list MPs would be slashed and “listers” would be stopped from subverting the will of the people.

“Under a 120-member Parliament, 90 members would be elected by first past the post with just 30 top-up MPs. If New Zealand opted for a 100-member Parliament –– something electors voted for in 1999 –– there would be just 20 list MPs,” Hunt said.

So a 90/30 system, or an 80/20 system if the size changed.

“What’s more, proportionality would apply to list seats only so it would be virtually impossible for list MPs to stop the party that won the most seats on election night from forming the government for the next three years.

“We have recommended SM because it provides for diversity but does not undermine electorate MPs. Under our system, electorate MPs would be denied a place on party lists. This would mean a defeated electorate MP could not return to Parliament via a party list. It would spell the end to electoral double-dipping.”

This is one of the things the public don’t like. However the solution has problems also – if electorate MPs are not on the list, they have less incentive to campaign for the party vote.

“We believe SM, with the appropriate safeguards, would restore faith to the parliamentary system, lead to greater voter participation in parties and foster higher turnouts in general elections.”

The Royal Commission on the Electoral System, which recommended MMP in 1986, said SM would be “likely to build on existing levels of [elector] participation” but added that popular control of Parliament under SM would not differ much from under first past the post.

“Single-party governments would continue to be the norm because the constituency results would not be altered by the allocation of the list seats,“ the commission said.

Now I always like to look at numbers, and how the last five MMP elections would have turned out if done under a 90/30 SM system.

To model this, one has to assume that a party would win the same proportion of 90 electorates as they did of the number that existed at each election.

Here’s 1996

In 1996 under MMP National needed NZ First to get a majority. Under a 90/30 SM, they would still have needed NZ First to govern. SM rewards parties that wins electorate seats, and NZ First won a lot that year.

In 1999, SM 90/30 would have given Labour an absolute majority, meaning they could have governed without the Alliance. Arguably this means the Alliance may have never disintegrated.

And in 2002, Labour would have gained a massive majority.

2005 is interesting. National and Labour would have ended up with 53 seats each, both eight short of a majority. Lab/Gre/Prog would be 56 and Nat/ACT 54. Don Brash could have become PM if United Future and Maori Party went with them. Helen Clark would have remained PM only if she could have got the Maori Party onside – Winston wouldn’t be enough.

As Helen had declared the Maori Party last cab off the rank, it is possible one may have ended up with a Don Brash led Government with the Maori Party, ACT and United Future.

In 2008 a 90/30 SM system would have given National a clear majority.

Back in August 2008 I blogged pros and cons of SM.

I also blogged back then how SM would have worked with no change to the number of electorate seats.

The Centre for Independent Studies has published a paper on electoral reform, which amongst other things advocates a Senate for New Zealand.

An opinion piece has also appeared in the Dominion Post.

Here are the salient features of the CIS proposal:

• A House of 79 MPs elected under FPP
• A Senate of 31 Senators elected under proportional representation and regional lists, also for a three year term, with a 4% threshold
• Senate acts as house of review but can not amend or initiate money bills
• Senators can serve as Ministers (they don’t specify that the PM can not be a Senator – a point to be clarified)
• No Maori seats

They analyse the problems, as they see it, with the current system:

• MPs re-elected to Parliament, after being rejected in an electorate
• Top politicians such as Michael Cullen and Don Brash accountable to their parties, not to local voters
• Winston Peters as Foreign Minister campaigning against the China FTA
• Maori Party over-represented due to over-hang
• ACT gained representation and NZ First did not despite higher party vote
• On overarching joint cabinet responsibility with minor party ministers able to disagree on all issues outside their portfolios

They conclude:

Clearly, an electoral system that produces such strange and sometimes bizarre outcomes could hardly be called exemplary. Yet, this system was only brought in less than two decades ago to deal with the deficiencies of its predecessors. It could well have been a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, as we shall examine in this report.

They also remind us:

Any discussion of electoral reform should be based on the premise that there is no such thing as a perfect electoral system.

It is a balance between being able to deliver a coherent policy programme and having strong checks and balances on the Government.

They also note:

In a two-party FPP system, the winning party gets to implement its manifesto and can be held accountable for its promises. Under MMP, political results depend on negotiations between governing parties. What a voter eventually gets from a party may be quite different from what the party initially promised, cancelling the idea of representation of voter preferences.

I prefer MMP to FPP, but it should be acknowledged that MMP has weaknesses such as the above. It is harder to hold a party to account, when they can blame not having a majority for not implementing their manifesto.

Truing to the Senate proposal, a good point is made:

The difficulty for a Senate is to make itself relevant. In his critique of upper houses, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes says, ‘if a second chamber dissents form the first, it is mischievous; if it agrees it is superfluous.

This is partly why NZ got rid of an Upper House. But it was also because the old Legislative Council was appointed by politicians, so had no mandate to oppose the Government of the day. A Senate, elected by proportional representation, would have a strong mandate to decline legislation put forward by the House.

Some may call this proposal FPP in drag, but that would be somewhat unfair. Let me explain.

Because the Senate would be elected proportionally, and can reject any bill (including the Budget) then no law will be passed which does not have the support of parties that gained a majority of the (threshold) votes.

So if for example Labour and Greens got 52% of the party vote and National got 48%. However National won 40 electorate seats and Labour 39.

National would get to form the Government (and that s no small thing), but Labour and the Greens could block any laws they want to, and could even force a new election by refusing to pass the budget if the Government didn’t win their support.

Of course forcing an election can have political consequences, so there would be an incentive for parties to work together to avoid this ultimate step. We see this a bit in Canada where sometimes the main Opposition party keeps the Government in office, rather than be blamed for forcing an election.

So what are the parts of the proposal I like. They are:

• Candidates stand either for the House in a seat, or the Senate in a party list. No more MPs being booted out of a seat but remaining in Parliament.
• More electorates, which means smaller electorates, making MPs more local
• Clearly defined different roles for MPs and Senators, rather than status quo where some List MPs pretend to be de facto electorate MPs
• Should result in higher quality candidates for the party lists. At the moment too many places go to MPs who lose electorates.
• A Senate would be a useful additional check on the Government and would hopefully result in better quality laws
• No more race based seats
• The party vote would still be all important in deciding what laws get passed
• A 4% threshold for the Senate, which should help keep minor party representation

But here are what I see as the drawbacks:

• Electorate seats go from useful for a party to vital – you win the most electorates and you get to be Government. This may encourage pork barrel politics for marginal electorates and also makes the boundary drawing process of supreme importance – who wins Govt may come down to who has the best rep on the Boundaries Commission, rather than popular appeal.
• While it will be popular, I don’t like the decrease in MPs from 120 to 110. I would go for an 80/40 split or ideally (this will be really unpopular a 90/50 (we should have 140 MPs under the cube root rule of thumb).
• A possible lack of diversity in the House. CIS argue that the recent increases in diversity is not just due to MMP, but having followed National Party selections for some decades, I know there are considerable obstacles in many seats, for woman candidates to get selected. Having said that, it is getting better – National has ten female electorate MPs to Labour’s six.
• The potential for stand off between House and Senate. This should not happen often, as the PM should negotiate a coalition that has a majority in both Houses, but not always possible. One could end up with a lost more elections.
• There may be issues of legitimacy over a Government that wins the most electorate seats but trails their opponent on the party vote. For example we may see this in the UK where Gordon Brown may win more seats than David Cameron and remain PM, even if Cameron’s party gets 5% more votes.

I think this would have been an excellent option for reform in the 1990s. I’m not sure how much salience it will have today though. However it is good to have the contribution to the debate, as it should just just be a debate on FPP vs MMP vs SM.

Academic Bryce Edwards has a very well researched post on the axed Labour/Greens electoral review. Edwards is no National supporter, having worked for the hard left Alliance for several years – which makes his research and conclusions all the more powerful. I urge people to read the post in full, as it is too long to do justice here – plus he has many apt cartoons to illustrate it. But some key points:

This blog post examines what was behind the review, and why the exercise was always going to be more about window dressing than democracy. Although expert panels and citizens’ forums are not without merit, when compared to similar exercises carried out elsewhere, the planned Labour-Green model for New Zealand was designed to be incredibly weak and undemocratic. What’s more the process by which it was brought about was just as poor as the one that produced the EFA.

Labour and the Greens called its a citizens’ forum – but as you will see it was merely a means to an end – more taxpayer funding.

The Greens strategy on political finance reform entirely backfired in 2007, and the party has had to face up to the public derision – especially because the Greens were complicit in such an appalling and anti-democratic process. For the Greens their advocacy of the review was a cynical attempt to avoid apologizing for the damage done. But worse, the whole Citizens’ Forum was actually also quite a con.

And they still hold out the EFA to be better that its predeccesor!

Second, rather than having any teeth or real power, the review was designed to be purely advisory. For example, the Citizens’ Forum was merely given the task to produce a report for the Expert Panel to read. Such a report ‘may’ then have helped inform the report that the Expert Panel was going to write. And even then, this final report was also merely advisory, and the terms of reference stated that the Minister was then able to choose to accept any elements of it or reject it entirely. (And as we saw with other expert advice tendered to Labour and Greens – such as the Human Rights Commission, Law Commission on the EFA – if it’s not ‘the right advice’ it can be easily brushed aside.)

This part is quite crucial, and I did not even realise it until I read Bryce’s post. The Citizens’ Forum had no power. The main power lay with the hand picked Expert Panel.

Compare this to the British Columbia example where a citizens’ forum was established to look at the voting system. In this case, the established rules of the citizen forum said that ‘If the Assembly recommended a system different from the current system, its recommendation would be placed on the ballot at the next provincial election as a referendum item’ (Snider, 2008). The widely-referred to Ontario citizens’ forum had similar powers.

The Greens kept referring to the Canadian experiences, but as Bryce has detailed what the tried to implement in NZ was a sham with no actual powers at all – it was just political cover.

Essentially, the Citizens’ Forum was to have no role in making recommendations to either the public or the Government. Instead, any outcomes from the Citizens’ Forum would be filtered through the Expert Panel. The official terms of reference made it very clear that it was the Expert Panel body that was to come up with the proposals and options for any change, then educate the Citizens’ Forum on these, and then merely ‘consider the report of the Citizens’ Forum’ while making their own decisions.

I’m kicking myself for not realising how the Greens and Labour had structured this. The lesson for the future is to ignore any names or terms they use, and look at the fine print.

This situation was clearly quite some distance from what the Greens’ Metiria Turei presented it as, when she said in Parliament that the Expert Panel ‘would do a great deal of work preparing information and support systems for the Citizens’ Assembly’.

Much of the Government’s propaganda also tried to obscure the neutered nature of the Citizens’ Forum. The Labour blog ‘08 Wire’ attempted to sell the exercise by incorrectly describing the subservience around the wrong way: ‘the expert panel’s role is basically to do a lot of the (very important) donkey work for the Citizens’ Forum, while the Citizens’ Forum makes all the big decisions’.

But the terms of reference were very clear, and Panel Chair Assoc Prof Andrew Geddis was very unambiguous, saying that the Expert Panel would set the work programme for the Citizens’ Forum. And the Minister, Annette King said the Expert Panel and Citizens’ Forum would only provide an independent, non-political ‘perspective’ on the reform options.

And if either of these groups came up with anything disagreeable, well the public would never get a vote on them.

My concern about the Citizens’ Assembly is that it may be an expensive piece of window dressing, yet another one of those carefully guided sham consultations with the great unwashed public to simply avoid the charge that the public haven’t been consulted.

Indeed, it was to allow Labour and Greens to vote themselves increased taxpayer funding, and claim the public have been consulted on it.

Clearly, since 2005 the Labour and Green parties have taken the vital issue of political finance and electoral law and tried to politicize it for partisan advantage. By arrogantly assuming that they possessed the moral high ground, these parties claimed the right to change the electoral rules. This is fine – essentially it’s ‘victor’s law’ – the baubles of power. But they shouldn’t have turned around and pretended otherwise. And they shouldn’t have pretended that this is a basis on which to build enduring and robust policy and law.

Labour at least appear to have recognised the danger of continuing down this road.

It was therefore not surprising that the Greens tried to fast track the review process to start and be set up before the election, so that National wouldn’t be able to influence it. It was reported that ‘Russel Norman said the party wanted the [Citizens’ Forum] assembly running before the election so it was harder to derail if there was a change of government’ (Trevett, 5 June 2008).

Oh yes, can’t let an election change anything.

In appointing the so-called Expert Panel, the Government and Greens showed that they learnt nothing from the awful EFA process. Obviously, the question of ‘Who gets to appoint the independent panel and set the terms of reference’ would be vital, yet it was stitched up behind closed doors. There were no calls for nominations from the public, and no discussions with other political parties (although the Greens had a strong backroom role in determining who to appoint).

I made this point at the time – it was vital all parties be consulted over the composition of the panel. But again – all done in a private deal.

There should be no doubt that the selection of Associate Professor Andrew Geddis as the chair of the Expert Panel was a very sensible one. Geddis is the number one expert in electoral law. But there also shouldn’t be any doubt that they chose someone with a bias in favour of direct state funding – Geddis had often written supportively of state funding.

Indeed. You would be stupid not to have Geddis on the panel, as he is an expert in this area. But the panel should have been balanced with one or more people who are more sceptical of state funding.

In fact one of the biggest cons of the sham process was the fine print in the terms of reference, which specifically excluded the Citizens’ Forum from examining the current parliamentary funding of political parties. This is, of course, exactly the area of political finance in New Zealand that is most obscured, most influential on the parties, and most negative for the party system. Yet it is precisely this area that Labour and the Greens don’t want the public (or even the experts) sticking their noses into.

Indeed. The advantages of being an incumbent party is huge. Only the ACT Party has managed (since MMP) to enter Parliament without already having an incumbent MP or MPs.

No Right Turn has some useful quotes from the Royal Commission on the SM system. Incidentally one friend IM’s me and asked me what does SM stand for apart from as part of BDSM. When I replied it was supplementary member they giggled that it was almost as dirty

NRT is upset that a story described the Royal Commission as viewing SM as having “real merit”, and quotes them in rebuttal. However when I look at the conclusion, I think “real merit” is not an unfair description, Of course it was not the preferred option, but here is the Commisison’s conclusion:

2.114. Conclusion. The Commission recognises that SM has considerable appeal. It improves on the plurality system in a number of ways. First, it would give representation to significant minor parties. Second, because almost all of the list votes would count towards the election of candidates, electors in safe seats would have a more effective role than under the present system. Third, it would enable the parties, particularly major ones, to protect a limited number of particularly able members in marginal seats. Fourth, it would provide a way of increasing the number of MPs but avoid the disruption to constituency boundaries that would be caused by a significant extra number of single-member constituencies. Fifth, it would, because of the list, be likely to enhance the representation of Maori voters as well as voters belonging to other special interest or minority groups. Sixth, it would lessen somewhat the disproportionality between major parties.

2.115. Nevertheless, the Commission is of the view that SM does not go far enough in meeting the fundamental objections to the plurality system in respect of the relationship between seats and votes. Those objections would still be powerful under SM, even though minor parties might be somewhat better off. We are reluctant to rule out SM altogether, however, until we have seen whether either MMP or STV can overcome the objections to both plurality and to SM without introducing too many disadvantages of their own.

They said they are not ruling out SM, listed many benefits from it, but said it doesn’t go as far as MMP or STV in terms of the relationship between seats and votes. Yor can quibble over whether you describe that as “real merit” or “some merit” or “worth considering” but their conclusion is a good summary of the pros and cons.

And that is what I was seeking to do yetserday – get some debate going on the pros and cons, and looking at what the impact would be. If a majority do want a referendum, then I would rather it on MMP vs SM (or MMP vs STV) than MMP vs FPP. My concern is that FPP may win, and that would be a backward step.

I was curious as to how the four elections we have had under MMP, would have gone under SM. It was relatively simple to redo the St Lague formula to calculate this, so below are who each election would have turned out under SM:

In 1996, National and NZ First went into a coalition with a 61/120 majority. Under SM this is still a likely outcome but they would have had 64 seats instead of 61. NZ First were not that keen to go with Labour if they were dependent on the Alliance and Labour/NZF was 56 MPs so this problem still existed.

Overall it is hard to see a different outcome under SM.

In 1999 Labour and the Alliance formed a minority Government with 59 seats out of 120. They were backed by the Greens to give them 66/120 on supply and confidence.

Now under SM Labour could have governed alone. It is possible they may have chosen to go still do a Coalition with the Alliance, but I suspect they would have been treated like the Greens – supporting players outside Government. Ironically if this had been the case, it is likely the Alliance would not have disintegrated on the Afghanistan issue. If they had not been in Government they could have oppossed troops, like the Greens did. I suspect Anderton’s ego made a bust up with Harre and McCarten inevitable at some stage, but perhaps not as early as 2002.

In 2002, Labour formed a minority Government with Progressive having 54/120 seats. They had confidence and supply from United and Greens giving them a total of 71 seats. Under SM they could have governed alone.

In 2005, Labour formed a majority Government with Progressives, NZ First and United having 61/120 seats. They also had agreement to abstain on confidence and supply from the Greens and a non formal abstention from the Maori Party meaning they could win confidence votes 61 to 50. National tried to put a Government together also which was in theory possible with National, ACT, United Future, and Maori Party having 57 seats but they could not get NZ First which would have given them 64.

Under SM, Labour, Progressive, NZ First and United Future would only total 59 seats so Labour would have been a minority Government relying on abstentions from Green and Maori Party. Arguably more likely is Clark may have gone left instead of centrist and done a Labour, Progressive, Green, Maori coalition which would give her 62 seats.

What options did National have, if this was SM? On 51 seats they need 10 to make 61. Assume ACT and United Future and they are at 55 seats. Maori Party would give them 60 but they would still be one seat short.

So under SM, the Alliance may have never disintegrated, and the Greens may have got their long desired coalition agreement in 2005, as Clark would have been unable to get a majority just with NZ First and United.

And in no case would there have been a different major party in Government.

The Weekend Herald reports John Key as saying he does not favour a return to FPP, but is leanign towards SM which is a semi-proportional system.

“I’m leaning towards Supplementary Member,” Mr Key said. “It allows for proportionality while ensuring it’s not the dominating factor. You get the best of MMP without it being overpowering. That is the reason why.”

I also don’t support a return to FPP, but think both STV and SM have merit. MMP has worked well in many ways, but there are areas where it does not. I think the biggest weakness is the huge power given to so called centrist politicians such as Peters. There is no doubt he would have been sacked from his Ministerial role by now, if it were not for MMP.

For those who do not know how SM works, it is very similar to MMP but with the vital change that the allocation of list MPs is done by having them supplementary to the electorate MPs. In practical terms it means that under SM every electorate won by a party is a net gain for thet party. Under MMP if you win an additional electorate, you get allocated one less list MP.

SM is used in around 16 countries including Japan, Georgia, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Anyway it is worth taking a look at SM, the pros and cons of it. No electoral system is perfect with only positive attributes. So what are the pros and cons of SM:

Pros of SM

1. Could not be simpler to implement – the only change is how List MPs are allocated by the Chief Electoral Officer.
2. Retains party lists, allowing parties to use them to have more diverse MPs
3. Minor parties who make 5% retain a presence in Parliament
4. Reduces the “tail wagging the dog” syndrome where minor parties gain power massively in excess of their share of the vote
5. Makes it less likely you will need as many as four parties to form a Government
6. Increases the chance the Government will be known on election night, and not decided by who is the best negotiator
7. Will make Government less able to ignore the public mood on controversial issues such as anti-smacking bill, as losing electorate seats is far more devastating under SM than MMP.
8. Would be safer to reduce the threshold for representation from 5%, as minor parties less powerful
9. Unlike FPP, every vote will still count towards gaining more MPs for your party
10. Removes the problem of over-hang (ironically by sort of making every electorate seat an over-hang seat)

Cons of SM

1. Is only a semi-proportional system, therefore one could end up with a situation where a Government received less votes than the Opposition. This is also possible under MMP with overhang. Under SM it is more likely than under MMP but less likely than under FPP.
2. Increases the chance a party can form a Government by itself (some will say this is a pro)
3. Encourages pork barrel politics as marginal seats become far far more important under SM than under MMP
4. Favours parties which can win electorate seats
5. Over time electorates would grow in importance as number of List MPs declines – unless the size of Parliament as a whole grows, or the number of electorate seats is frozen.

There are probably more pros and cons that these ones. Feel free to add them below.

The Sunday Star-Times reports that National is likely to hold a two-stage referendum on MMP, if elected.

It would be the height of hypocrisy for supporters of MMP to argue that the public should not get a chance to determine our type of electoral system.  That would be the worse kind of elitism.

Now of course one should not be changing the voting system every three years. But we are about to have our sixth election under MMP, and it is timely to give the voters a chance to confirm their choice in 1993/94, or modify it.

Now personally I would not vote to return to FPP. If the choice is between MMP and FPP, I would vote for MMP. But that in no way means I want to deprive my fellow voters of the chance to vote differently to me.

And there is the possibility one could end up with being able to choose between say MMP and STV.

Winston Peters is against the public having a say. I miht take the liberty to quote his party’s fundamental principles at him:

Electoral reform will be determined by the electors. The Government’s duty will be to ensure the fair representation of all views and the holding of appropriate referenda.

Of course he ignored this with the Electoral Finance Act, but surely he is not seriously arguing against the public having their say on the method of election MPs?

A UMR poll found around 67% of NZers want a referendum on MMP. However MMP itself has 42% support to 39% for FPP.

However it should not be seen just as a choice between MMP and FPP. STV, could be considered again as could SM.