Kiwiblog

John 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?

As the result was obvious since election night, I’ve left posting until now. First the results of Part A:

• Keep MMP 57.8%
• Change 42.2%

A very clear decision, and as far as I am concerned MMP is here to stay and any future referendum on our basic electoral system should not occur for several decades. The focus should now go on how to improve MMP, and other electoral and constitutional issues.

Part B saw:

• Informal 33.1%
• FPP 31.2%
• SM 16.1%
• STV 11.2%
• PV 8.3%

The fact that so few were able to vote in Part B suggest strongly that the educational campaign and associated debate was inadequate. This is not a criticism of the Electoral Commission who had a limited budget, but more the media who failed to broadcast any serious debates on the competing systems. The best debate was on Sky News ironically.

There were other factors such as the RWC and the general election also. Plus the general satisfaction with the Government meant MMP was less of an issue as say in 1999 or 2008. I just think it is a pity we never had a decent debate about the merits of MMP vs STV.

Voters in the Maori seats were the biggest supporters of MMP (which is slightly ironic as under FPP there would be 12, not seven, Maori seats) followed by South Auckland. While not a perfect match, the pattern I see is the more left the electorate the more it supported MMP. Wellington was the next strongest area of support for MMP. Overall only 14 out of 70 electorates voted to change from MMP.

Of the four options, the highest and lowest support for each was:

• FPP – 58.1% in Clutha-Southland and Invercargill, 24.5% Wellington Central
• PV – 23.4% Waiariki, 8.4% Selwyn
• STV – 37.9% Wellington Central, 10.25 Clutha-Southland
• SM – 35.9% Epsom, 12.6% Ikaroa-Rawhiti

As a keen student of electoral and constitutional law, there are three major opportunities coming up to engage:

• The review of the 2011 election by the Justice & Electoral Select Committee
• The review of MMP by the Electoral Commission
• The constitutional review by the independent panel established as part of the National and Maori Party agreement in 2008

I’ll blog more on my thoughts re the MMP review next year.

Now that MMP is confirmed, attention will turn to how can one improve MMP. A big issue before the election result was whether the threshold should include gaining an electorate, or just be the 5% party vote. A related issue is should the 5% threshold be lowered or increased.

It is worth noting that not a single MP entered Parliament through the electorate seat threshold. The only List MPs are with National, Labour, Greens and NZ First – who all made 5%. I suspect this result will take some of the sting out of the issue.

I’m voting for STV, not SM, but I do like the cartoon!

I will be voting to change New Zealand’s electoral system from MMP to STV. Having spent many months considering the pros and cons of the five systems, I believe STV is the best system for New Zealand. It retains proportional representation, does away with List MPs, weakens the powers of party hierarchies, and effectively turns every electorate into a marginal seat.

Before I go into the full list of reasons why I think STV is the best system for New Zealand, let’s start with the pros and cons of MMP. As always I stress no system is universally good or bad. It is a trade off.

Good aspects of MMP

• Almost all votes count
• Votes are equal
• Proportional
• Fair to minor parties
• Increased diversity

MMP is definitely an improvement over FPP. But there are aspects of it I don’t like.

• List MPs are indirectly elected through party lists, rather than receiving a direct mandate from voters
• Party leaders and hierarchies have become far more powerful through their ability to rank the list
• MPs who get rejected by voters, can remain in Parliament
• Two classes of MPs – electorate and list, which receive different funding, status and treatment
• Stability of Government. In all five terms we’ve seen a Government minor party implode under the strain. NZ First 96 – 99, Alliance 99 – 02, United Future 02 – 05, NZ First 05 – 08, Maori Party and ACT 08 – 11.
• Minor parties are encouraged to be extreme to attract votes as there is no downside to alienating most voters
• The vast amount of time and energy spent on tactical voting, and coverage of it

So why am I backing STV? First a summary of how STV will work.

• 24 – 30 electorates with 3 – 7 MPs per electorate
• Just one vote for candidates
• You rank candidates in order of preference, or accept the recommended preference order of a political party
• Surplus votes from candidates get transferred to the next preference, as do votes from candidates who are eliminated as lowest polling

Here’s what I like about STV

• It is still a proportional system where basically all votes count, and treats votes equally. It is not as pure a proportional system as MMP, but it is definitely still proportional, not semi-proportional such as SM.
• All MPs get elected directly by the voters. No List MPs whose main accountability is to their party.
• While a party can list its preferred order, voters can ignore them and rank candidates as they see fit. Voters can over-turn a party ranking.
• Better access to electorate MPs. While electorates are larger, there are multiple MPs in each. 120 rather than 70 electorate MPs makes them more accessible.
• Every seat will have a National and Labour MP. Almost inevitably every (general) seat will have at least one National and one Labour MP. That means people can choose to go to the electorate MP they are most comfortable with.
• There will effectively be a cross-party caucus in each seat of MPs from National, Labour and sometimes a minor part. On common issues affecting their area, they will be able to work together to advance change as all of equal status.
• All seats are marginal! Well, not quite. But what I mean is that in every seat there is the potential for National or Labour (or a minor party) to gain an additional MP. This means every seat will be contested vigorously. Even in a safe Labour area like South Auckland, you will have say one definite National MP, five definite Labour MPs and a battle for the 7^th seat.
• The quality of candidates should be greatly improved. Under FPP you can put up a donkey in a safe seat and they get elected. Under MMP a baboon can be a highly ranked List MP and they are impossible to dislodge. However with almost every seat under STV being competitive, parties will be incentivised to select candidates who actually appeal to their local communities, rather than reward unelectable unionists and the like.
• Under MMP minor parties make it on 5% of the vote, which encourages parties like NZ First to appeal to a narrow segment, without concern for how much they offend the rest of the country (such as their attacks on Asian immigrants). Under STV a minor party will generally only get elected if people who are not first preference voters for them, are willing to still give them a reasonable ranking, so it should encourage less extreme policies.

So I am voting for change in Part A and voting for STV in Part B. I am firmly convinced that STV will be a superior electoral system for New Zealand, retaining many of the good aspects of MMP such as proportional representation, but getting rid of many of the bad aspects of MMP.

Incidentally STV does not advantage National, and in fact on the modelling done of 2008 and 2005 elections probably mildly disadvantages it. My preference is based on what is good for New Zealand, not what is good for National.

My Herald column looks at what happens if Winston decides again.

This means that Winston Peters will decide who gets to be Prime Minister of New Zealand for the third time out of six MMP elections. In 1996 he chose Jim Bolger over Helen Clark, in 2005 he chose Helen Clark over Don Brash and if he holds the balance of power in 2011, make no mistake he will choose Phil Goff over John Key, and there will be a Government that can only pass a law if it can get the Greens, Winston, Hone, and the Maori Party to all agree to it.

And imagine the blowout in spending and debt!

Again polls have shown a certain reluctance for National voters to tactically vote for ACT. I speak often to many National supporters in Epsom. To a person, they all want National to have a coalition partner to the right (economically) of National. The debate is whether ACT in its crippled state is worth saving, or whether you do the humane thing and put it to sleep with some electoral euthanasia, allowing a new party to arise phoenix like from the ashes.

The prospect of Winston Peters installing Phil Goff as Prime Minister should be sufficient to resolve that debate. If they do not vote for John Banks, then a change of Government becomes significantly more likely.

Epsom voters now have a clear choice.

MMP is perfect for demagogues such as Peters. He selects who will be on his party list, and they become MPs based on his personal popularity, despite the fact 99% of New Zealanders could not tell you who the top six candidates on his list are. Their loyalty is purely to him, not to the New Zealand public.

STV will still deliver broadly proportional results, but candidates will have to actually be someone whom voters rank high enough with their ballots, to elect to Parliament. This should result in a significant improvement of the quality of candidates, if there is no backdoor through a party list.

I will blog more fully next week on the merits of STV.

On Twitter and Facebook I did an informal survey asking people how they will vote in Part B of the Referendum. I did not ask about Part A. The results were:

The difference between the Facebook responses and the Twitter responses are interesting. Twitter people went massively for STV while Facebook went massively for SM. Very few people went for FPP or PV. Almost all those who chose FPP said they were doing so tactically as they were MMP supporters, and see FPP as the system least likely to win in 2014 if there is a second referendum.

Some tentative conclusions I draw.

1. Those on Twitter and Facebook (well those who follow me anyway) are far more politically astute than the general population, as FPP is by far the most popular option with the public who only know FPP and MMP, but very few picked it in this survey.
2. If one assumes that those who punted for SM tend to be more right leaning, it suggests that people on Twitter are more left-leaning. This reinforces my general impression over a couple of years.
3. I think those who are of a different political persuasion to each other are generally more willing to engage on Twitter, than on Facebook. You tend to see someone’s Facebook page as “their property” so don’t challenge them as much, while Twitter is seen as basically neutral ground and one gets far more challenging of views.
4. Most MMP supporters will vote for STV and most MMP opponents will vote for SM, at least amongst the politically aware. This is based on my general knowledge of those who responded. I didn’t ask about Part A as I didn’t want it to turn into a debate on MMP. I may do a later informal survey on Part A.

I’m still amazed that to the best of my knowledge there are no TV debates scheduled on the referendum. Sure there has been the odd segment on Breakfast TV or Close Up where proponents have exchanged views. But I think the referendum deserves the same scrutiny as the election. There should be a 60 to 90 minute debate or debates. I’d do it like a leader’s debates. Have a couple of proponents for keep MMP and change MMP and a panel of journalists questioning them. Pretty much like Radio NZ did it, but you know on TV where you reach massively more viewers.

This is David Cameron endorsing a vote against AV in the Uk referendum. Whale wants John Key to do the same here, but in terms of our referendum.

Jon Johansson takes the other approach. he blogs:

I was staggered to hear on television Prime Minister John Key say that although he was “not entirely unhappy” with MMP, he intended to vote for change. The PM said while he likes proportionality, he “slightly prefers the characteristics of Supplementary Member (SM)”.

I think Jon’s post is a massive over-reaction. The PM was asked a question and he answered it. He said over a year ago his preference was SM, so this is no revelation or surprise.

We have a Prime Minister who wishes to vote to turn back progress for women participating in parliamentary politics, and a Prime Minister who in defiance of our dramatically changing demographics prefers not to facilitate Asian New Zealanders, Pacifika New Zealanders, or other ethnic Kiwis participating in their own democracy.

Jon is absolutely entitled to his view of John Key, but he is being rather hysterical in his tone, and is overlooking the fact that with 30 List MPs, one can still have plenty of female, Asian, and Pacific representation. It is not minorities that get disadvantaged by SM, rather it is minor parties (or parties that do not win electorate seats).

Jon’s rant is a perfect example of what I have said many times with this debate. Supporters of MMP hysterically denounce anyone who disagrees with them as anti-democratic, when in fact all five electoral systems on offer are perfectly democratic. I do not include Sandra Grey from the Campaign fro MMP in my criticism – I have found her to be very upfront about acknowledging that all systems have strengths and weaknesses, and it depends on what you value most.

If I was a woman I’d be very unhappy that my Prime Minister, one who has seemed to make MMP work rather effortlessly, has decided to favour an electoral system that will make it harder for me or my daughters or grand-daughters to pursue a political career. If I was an Asian or Pacifika Kiwi I’d be concerned that the Prime Minister wants to limit my and my children’s ambitions in the expansion of his own.

I am also, apart from being a political scientist, an ordinary citizen and I am appalled my Prime Minister supports a system that will make my vote less equal than it is now under MMP.

I think Jon makes it very clear how he will be voting. Further Jon is all but advocating people not to vote National. He is in danger of being more of a political activist than a political scientist.

I should point out here that I will  not be voting for SM in Part B of the referendum. I’ll blog in a few days on how I am voting on both parts and why. What I object to is the extremists who condemn people for daring to say they support SM or FPP or any of the five systems. My advice to Jon is to take in a few deep breaths and relax.

I don’t seem to recall Jon objecting so strongly when Phil Goff and Metiria Turei stated their preferences. In fact they have both been far far more vocal than Key on their preference.

Readers will recall Labour’s Electoral Finance Act, and how they rammed it through Parliament despite massive opposition. This shattered decades of rough bipartisan consensus that significant electoral law changes should be decided by either the public, or with support from (at least) both major parties. The Electoral Act is not meant to be the ultimate prize for the winner, where they get to rewrite the rules in their favour.

Hence Simon Power gave Labour a veto over the changes to electoral finance laws. He allowed them to veto reform of the broadcasting restrictions. He went even further than that, and reintroduced third party spending limits, despite the opposition of his own party. He did this with the most noble of motives – to remove electoral law from partisan gerrymandering.

Today Phil Goff shattered that. Radio NZ reports:

“People see a system being rorted, but my advice is that if we vote for MMP, then it will be reviewed.

“If there’s a Labour Government, we’ll take that rort out the system. You’ll have to get five percent to get more seats than simply the electorate seat that you win – that stops the rort.”

Simon Power set up a review of MMP, in case it wins. Phil Goff has just announced that Labour will remove the electorate threshold regardless of what the independent review by the Electoral Commission recommends.

There is a legitimate debate to be had about the threshold, and if MMP is retained the independent review is where that debate should occur. But let us not pretend, this is about any high minded principle. Labour want to legislate away their opponents. Their motivation is to change electoral law, so they will get to form Government more often.

By announcing unilaterally what would happen if Labour is in Government, Phil Goff has shattered the hard won agreement Simon Power achieved that significant electoral law changes should have bipartisan support. Goff has shown that if Labour forms Government, they will make partisan changes to the Electoral Act, to help Labour retain power. They have learnt nothing from the Electoral Finance Act.

This is not about ACT. This is not about whether or not the one seat threshold is or is not a good idea. This is about Phil Goff pledging to ignore the independent review and to use the Electoral Act to favour Labour electorally.

It was a Labour/Green/NZ First voting bloc that gave the Electoral Finance Act. God knows, what they will do if they get to form Government.

John Roughan at the NZ Herald writes:

When Phil Goff called John Key a liar on television the election was over for me. Goff has no class. The more difficult decision on election day could be the referendum. Should we keep MMP?

Goff thinks calling the PM a liar is a good strategy because that what his most fervent activists think and believe. But it does not go down well with swinging voters. You think they would know that from 2008.

Key could have responded and said Goff lied over the SIS briefing. He could have said Goff lied when he ruled out raising the super age just three months ago. He could have easily lowered himself to Goff’s level.

I wish I could see the election result first. There is only one question to ask about any electoral system: will it give a result everyone can respect?

A number of people are saying that. If the election produces an outcome where Winston or the Maori Party decide the Government, then MMP’s popularity will plunge I predict. A vote for change will mean a second referendum in 2014.

Not a huge surprise, but Vote for Change has come out and endorsed Supplementary Member (SM) as the “Smart Move”. They say:

SM’s the sensible middle. It means that small parties would have representation in Parliament, able to put their policy platforms on the political agenda, but it is less likely that they would hold the balance of power and a disproportionate amount of influence.”

On Friday Maxim also came out and endorsed SM. They argue its merits in this 10 page paper.

I think it is a pity that Parliament determined that SM would be a 90/30 model rather than 70/50, as the 70/50 model is more attractive to me, than the 90/30 model.

TVNZ has announced that One News will host three election debates. They are:

1. Mon 31 October – major party leaders
2. Wed 16 November – minor party leaders
3. Wed 23 November – major party leaders

Now it is great that we have three debates scheduled to help people make informed votes on who governs New Zealand for the next three years.

But where are the televised debates on the electoral system referendum, which will decide our electoral system for the next 50 years or so?

Surely if we have 270 minutes of prime time devoted to the election debates, we should have at least that much time on TV for debating the electoral system?

I hope TVNZ and TV3 announce a number of electoral referendum debates. It is only 32 days until we vote on whether or not we keep MMP or have another referendum in 2014. Radio NZ has led the way with a high level debate, I hope they will not be the only broadcaster to do so.

Radio NZ is hosting a debate on MMP and the electoral system referendum. The debate will be moderated by Julian Robbins and Philippa Tolley.

The debate will be held on Wednesday 26 October starting at 6 pm and you can be part of the audience at Te Papa’s Soundings Theatre. It will be broadcast on National Radio after the 8 am news on Sunday 30 October, and also available online at radionz.co.nz/Insight.

The panel for the debate is

• Rt Hon Jim Bolger, former Prime Minister
• Hon Michael Cullen, former Deputy Prime Minister
• Hon Ruth Richardson, former Finance Minister
• Jeanette Fitzsimons, former Green co-leader
• Sandra Grey, Campaign for MMP
• Jordan Williams, Vote for Change
• Professor Nigel Roberts

I think it will be fascinating to listen to, and find out who supports which system, and why. Fitzsimons will be MMP of course. I understand both Bolger and Richardson may actually agree on their preferred option! And not sure where Cullen sits.

I blog at Stuff in my “By the numbers” blog on the case for and against MMP.

There is a public forum in Hamilton tonight on the MMP referendum:

Sandra from Campaign for MMP and Jordan from Vote for Change will both be speaking, and I will be also. I’ll be covering what may have happened in the last five elections under different electoral systems.

I suspect we may end up at House afterwards. Feel free to come along if interested. Useful to let Wintec know if you are attending though.

Maxim have a handy wee paper by Steve Thomas on the five electoral systems on offer in the upcoming referendum. They don’t say which one is their preference. It’s a good guide to the pros and cons of the various systems, so I’ve embedded it below.

Their summary of the five systems are:

MMP

MMP provides well for electorate representation and the representation of interests, and can provide for reasonably stable government.21 The strength of MMP is the flip-side of its drawbacks. It enables more parties to be elected to parliament, which is great for the breadth of representation, but it also gives parties a lot of power. It can also create bargaining instead of debate among parties, and a weakened accountability of the government to voters. It can also encourage interest groups to act in unhelpful ways.

FPP

FPP is simple to understand and it usually produces clear results. FPP delivers strong, stable, single party majority government most of the time, and there is usually no confusion about which party can form a government. It is easy for voters to dump a government and elect a new one since parties generally do not negotiate together to form a government.20 But, as New Zealand’s experience indicates, instances of highly disproportionate election results weakened the legitimacy of electoral outcomes and the Cabinet’s tight control over legislation and parliament weakened the public’s trust in government.21 It can also be difficult for minorities to be represented, either because safe seats make it difficult to dislodge a popular candidate or because it is difficult for minority candidates to win enough concentrated support in one electorate.

PV

PV provides for strong electorate representation, through the election of local MPs, which usually leads to the election of single-party majority governments. That said, PV gives minor party candidates a fighting chance of winning a seat when second and subsequent preferences are used to help elect a candidate. However, it is still harder for minority candidates and parties to be represented in parliament under PV because it is not a proportional system. Further, PV can sometimes produce electoral outcomes that might not be considered entirely legitimate if the most popular candidate on first preferences does not win—although this point is debatable. While PV would enable voters to more clearly express their preferences for certain candidates it could also introduce some new ways for parties and candidates to engineer electoral outcomes, as parties would advise supportive voters how to vote to give them the best advantage.

STV

STV is an attractive system in principle since it enables voters to indicate exactly which candidates they would like in multi-member electorates. STV enables voters to choose both between and within parties, meaning that parliament ought to reflect a wider diversity of opinions within society.22 The use of multi-member electorates also means that electoral outcomes will be more proportional.

The theoretical advantages of STV have to be weighed carefully against the practical issues with using it and the way voters tend to interact with this relatively complex system. For example, it could undermine the cohesiveness of political parties as candidates from the same party would compete against each other for election. The option of voting above-the-line can also give parties more control over which candidates are elected and in which order. In this case, many voters would not actually end up individually choosing their local MPs. In short, the advantages offered by STV could be eroded by measures to make it easier for voters to understand and use.

SM

In trying to blend two styles of voting system, SM has some of the benefits and some of the drawbacks of both. It is neither a completely proportional system, nor does it guarantee that one party will win a large enough majority to be able to govern alone.

In terms of representation, SM has the potential to achieve a good balance between national and local representation of interests. Electorate representation would be strong, creating good ties between parliament and voters, but a quarter of parliament would also be made up of list MPs who tend to be able to represent minority interest groups well.

Because there would be more electorate MPs under SM than under MMP the major parties would benefit, but there is also a chance coalitions would be needed to form a government and that minor parties would have more representation than they typically do under single-member electorate systems, like FPP.

The document is below.

EMBARGOED Kicking the Tyres

Ryan Malone blogs on the MMP referendum:

Is the MMP referendum shaping up to be a big fat non-event?

Electoral reform was a big deal back in the early 90s when the two referenda were held. The protagonists argued their case in the media and waged extensive advertising campaigns. It was an old school fight, with threats and personal insults. Those were the days.

With the indicative 2011 referendum fast approaching, we’re yet to see anything remotely close to those lofty heights. Why?

One explanation is that people just don’t care. For some, this is no doubt true. They couldn’t give a toss one way or the other. But this is too simple (and boring) an explanation.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that the anti-MMP campaign just hasn’t turned up to the fight. As an objective observer with no connection to either camp, in my view the pro-MMP group (fronted by Sandra Grey) has made all the running in terms of media and advertising, while the anti-MMP group (fronted by Jordan Williams) is badly lagging. To give but one example, in the Wairarapa (where I live), the pro-MMP group has been running a weekly column in the local newspapers for some time. There is a prominent sign on State Highway 2 urging people to retain MMP. And from the anti-MMP group? Nothing as far as I can see. Not a peep.

There is a significant mismatch of resources, combined with a near total lack of coverage by the media.

The Vote for Change group is the only group I know of advocating for change. Those lined up to advocate for MMP are:

1. Greens
2. CTU
3. NZDWU
4. SFWU
5. NZEI
6. NZNO
7. NDU
8. Campaign for MMP
9. NZ Aged Care Assn
10. Labour
11. RMTU
12. MUNZ

No business group has lined up to register, and no political party that supports change. So the only voice for change is a one small incorporated society against eight unions, two political parties, one lobby group and the dedicated Campaign for MMP.

Now this wouldn’t be so much of an issue, if the media were doing full or half page stories on the five electoral systems, and the pros and cons of each. But they are not. And the broadcasters have done nothing much to date as far as I can see.

This referendum is probably the last one for 50+ years on the  basic electoral system. It will be a shame if it is a decision by default, rather than informed choice.

Why has National decided to keep to the sidelines in the referendum? Probably for the same reason, business groups have. They know that opponents of change will often play the man, not the ball, and call them undemocratic and power mad etc.

My hope is that coverage of the referendum will improve in the days ahead. But I suspect it is too late. After the RWC, most attention in the next five weeks will be on the election rather than the referendum. I think the debates and the media coverage should have started around January of this year.

Vote for Change has announced:

Vote for Change today announced the winner of its recent competition that asked New Zealanders to design advertisements for the upcoming referendum on our voting system.

The overall winner was Nick Cross, a Wellington student for his poster entry.  Mr Cross will receive $2,500 for attracting the most votes from Vote for Change’s members and supporters, in addition Mr Cross won campaign team’s award of $5,000 for the best entry.

The winning entry and finalists can viewed at www.VoteforChange.org.nz/competitions .

Well done Nick. His winning entry is below.

University of Auckland says:

Dr Geoffrey Pritchard and Dr Mark C. Wilson, members of the Centre for Mathematical Social Science at the University of Auckland, have created a simulator intended to voters to compare the 5 proposed electoral systems in a quantitative way, by allowing them to compute quickly, for a given polling scenario, the party seat distribution in Parliament under each system.

The simulator is here.

Its a useful resource, and it is great they have provided it. However it is also a good example of the difficulties you can get when you take an academic approach to an issue, rather than a more practical approach.

This is best shown by way of example. The simulator predicts that the 2002 election, if held under FPP would have had a result of 110 seats for Labour and 10 for National.

Now in 2002 National actually won 21 electorate seats out of 69 or 70. So this model is saying if there were 50 extra electorate seats, National would win 11 fewer seats!!

Why? Because they have come up with a formula based on the last 50 years or so of FPP elections, which they applied to the party vote figures for 2002. They ignored the actual electorate vote. It is a classic academic approach.

The more pragmatic approach, which is what others have done, is to say well if National won 21 electorate seats in 2002 out of 70, then if there 120 seats, their estimated number of seats would be 21*120/70, which is 36 seats.

For the same reasons, the model doesn’t predict the Maori Party would have won any seats in 2008 under FPP (as they had a low party vote), even though the Maori Party won 5/7 Maori seats, and hence if there were 12 Maori seats, one would expect they might have won 10/12, not 0/12.

So it is a useful resource, but it should not be treated as particularly authoritative in terms of alternate scenarios. Of course no alternate scenario is ever authoritative.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn has responded to my blog post where I agreed with him on keeping the one electorate seat threshold, but advocated the party vote threshold should be 4%, rather than abolished.

He notes my position is the same as the Royal Commission which said:

the Commission considers that the [4%] threshold is a justifiable and desirable means of preventing the proliferation of minor parties in the House. Such a proliferation could threaten the stability and effectiveness of government.

I/S says:

Which probably sounded good back in the safe, conformist, 2-party world of 1986, where we hadn’t had a coalition government for over fifty years, and political difference and dispute was seen as threatening. But to modern eyes, it seems quaint – not to mention sniffily undemocratic. To point out the obvious, we currently have 8 parties represented in our Parliament, and in the past have had as many as 9. And it hasn’t threatened the stability or effectiveness of government one bit

First of all I would disagree that there hasn’t been an impact on stability and effectiveness. Clark went early in 2002 due to the collapse of the Alliance as one example.

But the measure is not how many parties get into Parliament, but how many do you need to *all* agree to be able to pass a law. Here’s what the situation would be under 5%, and no threshold since 1996:

1996 – Nat/NZF would not have been a majority and would have needed either ACT or Christian Coalition or both United and Legalise Cannabis to govern. Was hard enough to be stable with Winston, let alone needing either Graham Capill or the Legalise Cannabis Party to agree to the budget.

1999 – Labour/Alliance needed Greens to pass laws, and no change at 0% threshold

2002 – Labour/Progressive/UF had 62/120 seats. With no threshold they would be 59 seats. UF had ruled Greens out so they would need either Christian Heritage, Outdoor Recreation, or Alliance to support.

2005 – The only change would be Destiny would have one MP

2008 – National would not be able to choose to pass laws either with ACT or Maori, but only if both agreed. That to me would not be stable or effective.

There are two reasons for this. The first is that our political culture doesn’t support destabilising, winner-take-all, toys-out-of-the-cot tantrum politics. Winston Peters tried that in 1996, the electorate punished him for it in 1999, and our parties have learned their lesson:

Actually with no threshold, there is no chance of a party being wiped out, so I think they would be more likely to have tantrums. Falling under the threshold would no longer be oblivion.

The second reason is mathematical: a “proliferation of minor parties” actually increases stability and effectiveness, by increasing the number of possible majority coalitions, thus reducing the bargaining power of any one party.

You have more combinations, but you need more parties to agree to form a Government. I do not think a six party Government is more stable than a two party Government. Israel has shown us this many times. This is not some crazy theory – they have the empirical evidence – which is why they have raised their threshold.

We have a good example of this in the current Parliament: ACT can’t “hold the government to ransom” and demand big policy concessions because National has an alternative majority with the Maori Party. Meanwhile, the Maori Party can’t “hold the government to ransom” because the National has an alternative majority with ACT. The two parties effectively act as a check on each other’s demands.

And here I/S is just wrong, because the very thing he lauds (the ability to choose ACT or Maori) would not happen under no threshold. National would have had 55 seats, ACT 4, Maori 5 and United 1. You need 62 to govern.

Having an extra 3 or 4 kibble parties at the bottom end simply increases the balance; if one of them doesn’t like your policy, then you go to another. You’re only in trouble if they all don’t like your policy, in which case its probably well-deserved

Nope under a no threshold scenario, if even one of the kibble parties disagrees, then you’re stuck.

The other argument I have against no threshold, is it will encourage extremism. Again not just a theory – look at Israel. With no threshold you can gain a list seat with 0.4% of the vote or 10,000 supporters. Now the way you get your 10,000 votes is to come out with crazy extreme policies (for example a law change so husbands can not be charged with raping their wives) that may repeal 98% of the country but appeals to 0.4%.

And no threshold will encourage extremist parties, and reward them with a seat. And if that seat is needed to form a Government, they will then get some sort of policy win.

As I said I think one can debate a 3% v 4% v 5% threshold, but I believe a threshold is desirable and necessary.

Meanwhile, this illusion costs us in democratic terms, by effectively disenfranchising (at the last election) 6.5% of the population. DPF would probably counter that those people and their views and votes aren’t important. I disagree.

Well they always have the choice of voting for a party likely to be in Parliament. No party perfectly represents my policy views. I choose to vote for the party that I deem most able to fulfil my policy desires.

If you take the view that every person must be able to get their preferred party into Parliament, then why stop at a 120 MP house where the effective threshold is 0.4% if there is no statutory threshold. You could argue for a 500 MP House, so that even parties with 0.1% of the vote get to be represented.

Idiot/Savant at NRT blogs:

With ACT cutting a deal in Epsom, and Peter Dunne cutting one in Ohariu, MMP’s “electorate lifeboat”, which sees parties gain list seats in parliament if they gain a single electorate, has come in for a fair amount of flack. And today, Labour leader Phil Goff has reminded us all that he opposes it, and that he wishes MMP to have a strict 5% threshold, with no exception for electorates. I think this is exactly the wrong position to take. Why? Because the “electorate lifeboat” improves proportionality.

Phil Goff’s stance is pretty naked self interest. He only opposes it, so ACT will lose representation in Parliament. Goff’s view of a good electoral system is one which gets rid of Labour’s opponents.

My concern is that a future Labour Government will make unilateral partisan changes to the Electoral Act, as they did with the Electoral Finance Act. Simon Power set the model for bipartisan co-operation on electoral issues, but will Labour return his generosity? My concern again is that they will think National were suckers for giving them a say on electoral law, and that they will revert to type as we saw with the Electoral Finance Act and the retrospective legislation to retain Harry Duynhoven as an MP.

Proportionality, remember, was the entire point of MMP. We wanted parties to be represented in direct proportion to the votes cast. The 5% threshold undermines this, but the “electorate lifeboat” provides a way around it. Without it, the Parliaments of 1999, 2002, 2005, and 2008 would have been less proportional, and less representative, thanks to the exclusion of (respectively) of NZFirst, the Progressives, United Future and ACT. That would have been bad for our democracy.

Sometimes the lifeboat gives perverse results, as in 2008 when ACT gained 5 MPs while NZ First gained none despite receiving more party votes (4.07% vs 3.65%). This is obviously unfair. But you don’t remove unfairness by increasing it. The appropriate response to this situation is to give parties in NZ First’s situation representation, not deny it to both.

Even though personally I do not want NZ First in Parliament, I agree (somewhat) with Idiot/Savant. I support the threshold being lowered to 4%, as the Royal Commission recommended, even though this would have led to NZ First staying in Parliament.

I don’t support eliminating the threshold entirely, which would lead to a party on 0.4% gaining representation. I think this would lead to an Israel type situation where miniscule extremist parties have massive say in who forms the Government. Israel has learnt from their mistakes and has been increasing the threshold.

So in my opinion 5% is too high a threshold and no threshold is too “low”. I could possibly be convinced of say 3%, but in the end I think one should stick with the Royal Commission’s model as closely as possible, in the absence of strong reasons not to.

Goff’s – and Labour’s – position is not founded on democratic principles. Instead, it is driven by naked self-interest – most obviously, by a desire to remove ACT from the political equation …

Indeed.

From the Centre for Mathematical Social Science blog:

New Zealanders will vote in a referendum in November asking whether they want to change the current voting system used for deciding the makeup of Parliament.

Dr Geoffrey Pritchard and Dr Mark C. Wilson, members of the Centre for Mathematical Social Science at the University of Auckland, have created a simulator intended to voters to compare the 5 proposed electoral systems in a quantitative way, by allowing them to compute quickly, for a given polling scenario, the party seat distribution in Parliament under each system. It is written in Javascript and the source code is publicly available. The assumptions made are detailed in the FAQ.

Try the simulator now!

Some of their assumptions around Maori seats are questionable, but still a useful tool.

Vote for Change is offering $10,000 for the best user generated ads.  $5,000 for the best ad (as judged by vfc) and $2,500 for each of two categories (video and non video) as voted by member of their facebook page.

Entries can be submitted to www.facebook.com/voteforchangenz (that is where entries can be submitted and voted on).  Deadline for entry is 7pm Sunday 24 July.

T&C are at http://www.voteforchange.org.nz/competitions/.

This is one of the entries so far. If you think you can do better, then submit away. And remember you can vote and get your friends to vote on which entries they like the most.

And this is another entry.

Alan McRobie (who advised the 1993 independent Electoral Referendum Panel) writes in the Herald:

If a majority of voters support MMP there are four changes that might usefully be made to improve its public acceptance.

First, parties should be required to win at least two electorate seats before they qualify for a share of list seats. Had this applied last election Act, which won fewer party votes than New Zealand First, would have had only one seat instead of the five it was awarded.

I disagree. I would lower the threshold to 4% (which would have seen NZ First remain) rather than increase the threshold for electorate seats which would merely encourage even more strategic voting.

Second, candidates should be permitted to stand either for an electorate seat or on a party list, not both.

This would remove what many see as “double-dipping”, aptly described as “voted out on Saturday; back in on Monday”.

Again I disagree. If you ban people standing on both, then it means that all the electorate candidates will concentrate on the electorate vote instead of the party vote.

I would deal with the Saturday to Monday issue in a different way, such as not allowing an MP who was the electorate MP and lost, from coming back via the list.

Third, sitting list MPs’ enthusiasm for standing in byelections in constituency seats should be dampened. It is somewhat bizarre to see sitting list MPs contesting byelections as has happened in Mt Albert, Mana and Te Tai Tokerau.

Here I agree. I would support a change that a List MP has to resign from their list seat, in order to stand as a candidate in a by-election. Jim Anderton I think has a bill proposing that.

Fourth, serious consideration should be given to introducing the alternative vote (preferential vote), at least for the party list vote. Although MMP results in proportional representation, wasted votes still occur when parties which fail to reach the 5 per cent threshold are excluded.

That is a novel idea. So those who voted for NZ First could then have their second choice count. I think it would be too confusing to have people rank all parties standing, but you could allow a 1st and 2nd preference.

Personally I think you could also use AV for the electorate vote.

Despite the recent statement by the Prime Minister that National “would not campaign for any position in the referendum” Parliament has loaded the options in favour of single-party majoritarian governments.

Nonsense. They have kept the exact same options from the 1992 and 1993 referenda.

NZPA report:

A campaign against MMP was launched today, aiming to persuade voters to opt for change in the referendum that is going to be held at the same time as the November 26 general election.

The referendum will ask voters whether they want to change to another electoral system, and to tick a preferred alternative from a list of options including the old first-past-the-post system.

If a majority want a change, a second referendum will be held alongside the 2014 general election which will run off MMP against the alternative that gets the most ticks.

“Vote for Change wants a system that restores more certainty, that allows voters to easily hold governments to account and kick rascals out of Parliament”, said the organisation’s spokesman Jordan Williams, a Wellington lawyer.

“The current system lets party bosses sneak MPs who have been dismissed by their local electorates back into Parliament on party lists.”

Mr Williams said many people had high hopes that MMP would create a new era of consensus politics but instead “small groups and party bosses can now hold the rest to ransom”.

The Vote for Change website has a list of initial supporters. They include former Labour Party President Bob Harvey.