Kiwiblog

The NZ Herald slams the latest stunt by the anti-whaling activists:

Peter Bethune knew precisely what he was doing, and the consequences, when he boarded the whaling vessel Shonan Maru 2 to make what fellow-protesters described as a citizen’s arrest of its captain. …

Mr Bethune was intent simply on grabbing publicity. He, and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, wanted to prompt a diplomatic incident, thereby putting further pressure on the Japanese to end whaling. …

The Dominion Post argues against a city wide liquor ban:

On one of Wellington’s rare balmy nights there is little to compare to a quiet picnic on the south coast, watching the sun go down and the kids paddle in the surf as you enjoy some cold roast chicken, a nice green salad , and a glass of Martinborough’s best sauvignon blanc.

Soon that pleasure may come with the dubious frisson of being a law-breaker, and the prospect of a visit from police to tell you you are breaching a Wellington City Council bylaw. Under the proposed liquor ban, the wine has to be tipped out on the sand, or the picnic packed up and moved to a non-public place. If you refuse, you will be arrested. If you wait till police go away and then carry on enjoying your picnic, you will be arrested should they return.

That is the future that could face Wellingtonians should the city council go ahead and pass its city-wide booze ban.

It’s a daft idea that should be shot down. Have outdoors liquor bans in areas where there is a problem.

The Press talks about the future of their regional council:

Environment Canterbury chairman Alec Neill managed to put on a brave face after the damning report into his institution’s performance and governance yesterday. The reality is that if the Government adopts the recommendations in the report, ECan as we know it today will be gone. …

The report will provide vindication for the region’s mayors, business figures and farmers, who have been queuing up to slate ECan for some years.

They would also agree with the comment of review leader Wyatt Creech that ECan had a “fortress” and “we know best” culture. …

I predict it will be gone.

The ODT talks about electoral issues:

It will be recalled that, in 2005, the Exclusive Brethren attempted to influence the outcome of the poll by mounting a covert and costly campaign against the Greens and Labour.

Labour had also been concerned about the extent to which campaign finance was both anonymous and uncapped, raising the spectre, it claimed, of “big money” interests tilting the odds against a fair contest: the even playing field argument.

In an attempt to close loopholes in the campaign finance rules, and to prevent parties “jumping the gun” and subverting the spending caps, it also created a controversial regulated campaign period of three months prior to polling day.

Ummn, no. That was the old regulated period. Labour extended the period to be all of election year.

The NZ Herald wants the MMP referenda held earlier:

There appears to be no reason the final referendum could not have been held a year or so after the 2011 general election if the first found a majority wanting change. A new system, if favoured in the decisive vote, could then be used in the 2014 election, rather than waiting as long as 2017.

I disagree. The first referendum is likely to have a low turnout, if not held in conjunction with an election. We found this out in 1992.

I do think there is an argument for the second referendum (if needed) to be held before 2014.  As that will be a simple referendum that will change the electoral system if change is voted for (the earlier referendum is only about if there is a second referendum, and what that is), I think that would achieve a very high turnout even if held separate to an election.

Also, without an election at the same time, the public would be more turned into the pros and cons of the two choices. A change of electoral system si so important, that it almost deserves to have its own debate, not cluttered up with a general election.

So my growing preference is the first referendum in 2011, with the election (to maximise turnout), but have the second referendum in 2012.

If the 2012 referendum votes for change, I am not sure one could implement it in time for the 2014 election, due to boundary changes. But one way you could deal with that is to have the Boundaries Commission (which should start work in late 2011) to prepare boundaries for both options, which would allow them to be finalised in 2013.

The Dominion Post compares Kiwirail to Fawlty Towers:

Kiwirail is to the transport industry what Basil Fawlty is to the hospitality trade.

It treats its customers as impediments to the smooth running of its business.

Current management can be excused responsibility for the creaking trains and dilapidated tracks in the Wellington region.

They are the consequence of 40 years of neglect by public and private owners of the rail system. But KiwiRail bosses cannot escape responsibility for the way customers are treated.

If they are not left waiting on the platform for services that have been cancelled, they are shut in trains that have mysteriously stopped part way into their journeys. Either way, they are kept in the dark.

Who would have thought a subsidised monopoly would give bad service?

The Press examines the electoral finance reforms:

The Government’s proposed new electoral finance system is a mixed bag.

Compared to the Labour’s now repealed Electoral Finance Act, which was a knee-jerk reaction to the covert 2005 Exclusive Brethren advertising, it gives greater freedom for lobby groups to conduct parallel campaigns.

But the new regime has swung too far towards a laissez-faire approach and does create the danger that money could play too great a role in New Zealand politics.

The most unwelcome feature of the new regime would be the absence of advertising spending limits for lobbyists, who are technically but confusingly known as third parties. The preceding legislation imposed a cap of $120,000.

Although few lobbyists came close to this limit in the 2008 election, the lack of a cap might tempt interest groups from across the political spectrum to spend up large in an effort to influence future campaigns. It is also inconsistent with the position of political parties which do have a spending limit. …

But it is also important for voters to know how much lobbyists have spent. In this respect the registration requirement provides only partial transparency, as lobby groups will not have to submit returns on their advertising expenditure.

I don’t have a problem with those who register, disclosing their total spend. That can be something the Select Committee looks at. I prefer transparency to restrictions.

But the Government decided not to amend the taxpayer funded broadcasting allocation system for political parties. Worth further thought is allowing parties to spend their allocations on advertising in newspapers, not just in the broadcast media.

Sadly Labour and the Greens opposed reform of the broadcasting allocation.

The ODT reflects on Michael Swann:

Last week, the people of Otago were served a timely reminder of white collar crime with the sentencing on additional charges of convicted fraud Michael Swann in the High Court at Dunedin.

It will be recalled that Swann was sentenced last year to a nine-and-a-half-year prison term for defrauding the Otago District Health Board of almost $17 million between 2000 and 2006.

On Friday, he was sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment – concurrent with his present term, meaning that he will in fact serve no extra time behind bars – for accepting $755,000 in bribes from long-time friend and business associate Robin Sew Hoy.

Makes you wonder the point of the additional prosecution!

The Herald reports:

The most unpopular features of MMP could be ditched if voters opt to keep the electoral system in the referendum on it at next year’s election.

Justice Minister Simon Power revealed yesterday that if voters decide to keep MMP, it will be reviewed by the Electoral Commission.

Among the subjects Mr Power listed for such a review are:

Dual candidacy, which enables MPs who lose an electorate seat to be returned to Parliament through the party list. Examples are Labour’s Lynne Pillay and Rick Barker.

Closed party lists, where the party list is chosen by the party rather than a voters’ ranking of candidates.

Thresholds of 5 per cent and one electorate seat, under which where a party with less than 5 per cent of the vote can get seats in Parliament if it wins an electorate seat.

Overhang, where a party winning more electorate seats than its share of the party vote increases the size of Parliament above 120 MPs. In 2008, the Maori Party got two more electorate MPs than its share of the party vote, taking Parliament to 122 MPs.

The balance between the number of list and constituency MPs.

Having the review done by the Electoral Commission is rather brave, as they may recommend changes MPs do not want. For example, there is no way parties will vote to change to open lists, rather than party-selected closed lists.

The dual candidacy issue is rather difficult. People don’t like the electorate MP they booted out, remaining an MP, still based in their electorate. I fully understand that. However I don’t think many people seriously think that (for example) Chris Finlayson should not be a List MP because he was the near-token National candidate for Rongotai. If you have such a ban, then it simply means high calibre MPs like Chris will not stand in an opposition held seat at all.

One possible compromise is that you do not ban joint candidacy, but if an electorate MP loses their seat, they are ineligible to be elected as a List MP. That would give electorate MPs an incentive to fight harder to keep their seats, and if they think they may not, they can decide whether to seek a list only nomination and let someone else stand for the seat.

Personally I don’t favour any ban on joint candidacy, but if there is to be a ban, I would rather it is partial, not total.

Simon Power has also announced details of the MMP referenda.

1. Referendum in 2011 will ask whether they wish to retain the present MMP voting system.
2. A second question will ask what alternative voting system they would prefer from FPP, PV, SM and STV, regardless of how they voted in the first question.
3. If people vote not to retain MMP in 2011, then a run-off referendum in 2014 will be held between MMP and the preferred alternative.
4. If people vote to retain MMP, the Electoral Commission will be asked to review our MMP system and recommend desirable changes.

Two issues I think the select committee should consider:

1. Should the second question on alternate voting systems be a preferential vote? I think it would be better if it was, ensuring that the most widely supported option runs off against MMP.
2. Can the 2014 date for the second referendum be held earlier? I initially had the view it must be with the 2014 election, as that ensures a high turnout. However upon reflection I think the second referendum will get a very high turnout even if not at the same time as an election.

The Dom Post reports:

Labour MP David Parker welcomed the referendum, but said it should include reforming MMP itself as one of the options.

I’m not sure whether one does it as part of a the referenda, or seperately, but agree it would be good to review some aspects of MMP.

What do readers think are some of the changes that could improve MMP. Here are some of the options (note this does not mean I support them)

• Reduce threshold for list seats from 5% to 4% (as recommended by Royal Cmsn), or lower
• Remove threshold all together (means effectively around 0.8% gets you an MP)
• Increase electorate seat threshold for list seats from one electorate to two (or more)
• Remove winning an electorate seat as a way to qualify for list seats
• Waive the 5% threshold for “tangata whenua” parties and abolish the Maori seats (as recommended by Royal Cmsn)
• Increase the number of electorate seats from 70, and reduce the number of list seats form 50
• Set Parliament to have 60 electorate seats and 60 list seats
• Set Parliament to have an equal number of electorate and list seats (so size of Parliament will rise over time is the number of electorates increases due to faster population growth in the North Island)
• Ban dual candidacy so you can stand either in an electorate or on a list (note personally I think this is unworkable)
• term limits for MPs
• have “open” lists for parties so voters can change the order

Other suggestions welcome, plus views on the above.

Simon Power has announced the process for referenda on the electoral system, and I am very pleased with the final process.

I blogged a few weeks ago that I was very concern that there seemed to be some talk of having people vote only once on retaining MMP, without knowing the alternative. But the Government has announced, well basically, exactly what I advocated (which I am sure is merely because it really is the common sense way to do it).

The process is:

1. Parliament passes a law enabling a first referendum to be held in conjunction with 2011 election
2. The first referendum will have two questions – the first question being do you want to continue with MMP or have an alternative system
3. The second question will be to select your preferred alternative – the options are likely to be STV, FPP, PV and SM
4. If the first question is a vote to retain MMP, the second question is academic and that is the end of it.
5. If the first question votes for change, then a second referendum will be held giving people a binary choice between MMP and the preferred alternative (the highest ranking option from the second question)
6. The second referendum will be held at the 2014 election
7. Enabling legislation for an electoral system based on the alternate electoral system will be passed prior to the 2014 election, and it will automatically come into force if the alternative system wins
8. The 2017 election would be run under the new electoral system, if there is a change

As I said, it is really good to see there is a fair process – basically a mirror of the 1992/93 referenda.

I find it interesting that in my unscientific blog poll, 47% back MMP, 23% STV, and only 20% FPP. Personally I think it is highly unlikely that we would vote to return to FPP.

A run off between STV and MMP could be interesting as they are both proportional electoral systems, but operate very very differently.

One of the issues discussed in reviewing MMP, is whether or not the current 5% threshold should be reduced or even eliminated. I thought it would be interesting to look at what the results of the five MMP elections would have been, if there was no threshold, or it was reduced.

In 1996, having no threshold would have seen the Christian Coalition gain five seats and the Legalise Cannabis Party two seats.

A threshold of 2%, 3% or 4% would all see Christian Coalition gain seats, but not the ALCP.

This would have changed the Government. National and NZ First formed a Government with 61 seats out of 120. With no threshold they would only have 58 seats and would need three more seats to govern.

This would mean either a formal confidence and supply agreement with ACT would have been necessary (and would ACT have supported a Government with Winston in it) or more likely with the Christian Coalition.

In theory one could also govern with both the ALCP and United, but as United is very anti drug liberalisation, this is highly unlikely.

The 1999 election would have seen three more parties gain seats with no threshold. Christian Heritage gets three, ALCP one, and Future NZ one.

The Government formed was Labour/Alliance with support from the Greens. That combination would not have changed, reducing from 66 seats to 63.

No threshold for the 2002 election would have seen four extra parties in Parliament. Christian Heritage, the Alliance, Outdoor Recreation would have got two seats each and ALCP one.

This would have changed the Government. There was a Labour/Progressive Government with support from United Future that came to 62 seats. With no threshold it would be 59 seats.

Labour at 49 seats would need an extra 12 to govern. The simplest combination would be for them to have gone in with Winston who had 12 MPs. If he was ruled out, then a Greens, Progressive and Alliance combo on the left would be possible but unstable. To stay with the relatively centrist United Future would be difficult as even with Progressive and Outdoor Recreation they would be one seat short.

Less change in 2005. No threshold would have seen Bishop Tamaki get a pet Destiny MP, but the four party governing combination would still have had a slim majority.

No threshold in 2008 would have seen Winston and followers retain five seats, the Kiwi Party get one seat and the Ben & Bill Party get one seat.

The four party combination would still be able to govern with 65 seats instead of 69. However the Maori Party did not choose National over Labour. It was National or nothing.

The natural CR grouping of National, ACT and United Future has only 60 seats out of 122. You need 62 to govern so even one seat from the Kiwi Party would not be enough at 61.

Labour, Greens, NZ First, Maori Party and Progressive would total 60 seats.

So the Ben & Bill Party would have held a potential balance of power. They could either go with the centre-right or force a new election due to a hung Parliament.

I doubt many New Zealanders would back abolishing the threshold. Personally I support going to a 4% threshold which is what the Royal Commission recommended.

UPDATE: Chris Bishop has sent me a copy of a paper he did for his an LLB Hons class on the 5% threshold, titled Representation vs Stability. A copy is here – The 5 Percent Threshold in MMP – Representation v Stability. Note the paper was written in an academic and private capacity.

One amusing thing I noted from it, is that ACT was the only party that voted in 2000, when MMP was reviewed, to abolish the electorate waiver. If the electorate waiver had been abolished, they would have lost representation in 2005 and 2008.

After presenting arguments for and against a threshold, Chris concludes that the principled arguments for representation outweigh the pragmatic arguments for stability. I disagree. Chris said:

Concerns about “instability” are over-stated. By definition, minor parties in Parliament with few seats have as much as power as they do seats (in other words, not very much). The New Zealand electorate does not tolerate minor parties attempting to exercise disproportionate power over major parties.

There are two arguments against this. The first is that Chris sees power too literally as merely votes in Parliament. It is a well documented reality that a minor party able to play major parties off against each other can gain power well beyond their voting strength. They can gain a veto on any controversial legislation, due to the adversarial nature of our Parliament where the main opposition party will not help the Government out often.

The other weakness in the argument is the assertion that the electorate does not tolerate minor parties exercising disproportionate power. This overlooks that very very small parties do not have to care about most of the electorate. So long as they can use (for example) fear and hatred to whip up enough resentment so 1% of the country votes for them, they don’t have to worry too much about the fact 95% of the electorate hates them. So long as they keep their 1% happy, they can be as unreasonable as they want to be if they hold the balance of power.

Why do so many people who complain that ACT got five seats in Parliament on only 3.65% of the vote, never complain that the Maori Party got five seats in Parliament on 2.39% of the vote?

People often advocate that a party should not be eligible to gain List MPs if they get under 5%, due to winning an electorate seat. But I would say the overhang issue is a more serious problem.

The Labour Conference appears to have decided not to oppose the MMP referendum (and Simon Power has indicated he will be consulting other parties on how it is run which is commendable) but also want to look at improving MMP, rather than just replacing it.

The Herald reports:

The present Parliament of 122 MPs has 70 electorate MPs and 52 list MPs.

The number of electorate MPs is based on a formula set out in the Electoral Act that starts with the South Island having 16 general seats.

But there is nothing magical about 16 seats. On the basis of past elections, proportionality could still be achieved by having more electorates – of smaller size – and fewer list MPs.

A move by Labour-affiliated unions at the conference to support the present balance between list and constituency MPs failed.

Hamilton list MP Sue Moroney spoke in favour of the present balance but the argument used was that a reduction of list MPs could reduce the representation of women.

Labour’s representation of women in the north is almost entirely by women on the list because so many Labour women have lost seats.

Mr Parker said there were legitimate concerns about representation of women and minorities. But the other argument was that unless people’s concern that MMP had too many list MPs was addressed, the greater issue, which was MMP, would be put at risk.

There are some advantages and some disadvantages to altering the ratio of electorate to list MPs. More electorate MPs means the size of each electorate is smaller, which is a plus.

However fewer list MPs increase the chances of overhang (which we already have had with the Maori Party) and also gives parties less flexibility in terms of overall composition of their likely caucuses.

One way to deal with the problem of the size of electorates, without crating potential overhang is to simply increase the size of Parliament to 140, which is close to the average for countries of our size. But that is likely to e about as popular with voters as Clayton Weatherston’s defence strategy!

The table above shows the likely overhang we may have had under different electorate/list combinations. It assumes that a party will win the same proportion of electorate seats.

A negative number in red for List MPs indicates how much overhang there will be (as you can’t have a negative number of List MPs).

A 100/20 split would have resulted in overhang at every MMP election. In 2002 National and Labour between them would have a 16 seat overhang.

A 90/30 split would have resulted in Labour having a six and seven seat overhang in 1999 and 2002 respectively. It would also expand the Maori Party overhang in the last two elections by one.

A 80/40 split would just avoid Labour or National having an overhang, but would expand the Maori Party overhang. However Labour in 1999 and 2002 would have had no List MPs at all. Some might cheer at no Cullen or Wilson, but having no List MPs does undermine one of the claimed benefits of MMP – the ability to use the list to have a more diverse caucus.

What is important to remember is under current law, the number of electorate MPs increases every census anyway as the North Island population grows faster than the South Island. Already in our five MMP elections they have gone from 65 seats to 70.

So if you went to 80/40, within 15 years it would be 85/35 and overhang gets more and more likely. Even if the status quo is not changed, in around 45 years or so we will probably hit 85/35 anyway and be having overhang problems.

You could remedy this in a couple of ways. One could have the number of List MPs stay constant at say 50 rather than reduce as the number of electorates grows. But that means every five years there would be one or two extra MPs. You could also set a ratio of electorate to list MPs, such as 7:5 – but that would increase the number of overall MPs even faster. However it would keep proportionality.

Also from Q&A today:

PHIL: Well I certainly hope we are coming out of the recession – internationally you’re seeing signs of recovery in economies and really important economies too. It’s like China now – our exports to China have gone up 62% in the last year since our free trade agreement.

That’s the free trade agreement that the Foreign Minister in the last Government campaigned against?

But as I said at the time, Clark and Goff deserve praise for their efforts in securing the China FTA.

GUYON: Let’s look at an area that National has cut back on, and that is the Public Service. Now you’ve been very critical of that, you were in the short speech you made yesterday. In eight consecutive years in Government the Public Service grew 5.5% when economic growth was not much more than half of that. Is that the sort of levels of Public Service explosion really that you want to return to if you should take the reins of Government again?

PHIL: Well we think it’s great that there were 3 or 4,000 extra nurses that were employed in the Public Service while Labour was in Government&that the numbers of Police Officers out on the beat went up by 1,250.

Nurses and police officers are not included in the figures quoted. Guyon is quoting the core public service figures I am pretty sure.

GUYON: Yes, but they’re the glamour examples though. There were a lot of policy analysts and a lot of others.. How can you sustain a 5.5% growth in the Public Service when your economy is only growing at half that level?

PHIL: Because at the time the economy was growing fast

GUYON : at half that rate though.

Here’s the problem though. Labour do not seem to have accepted that there is a need for fiscal restraint in the face of the recession and a decade of deficits. They have opposed every spending cut there has been.

Having been spoilt with a fast growing economy, how will they cope with an economy where tax revenue does not grow massively each year?

GUYON: Can you say whether you would raise personal income tax, can you rule out this morning raising personal income tax should you take power again?

PHIL: It’s not our intention to raise personal income tax, nor GST – it may well be this government’s intention to raise GST.

Now that is a very welcome, and brave statement. I welcome it. Of course this creates the problem that to fund their spending promises, they will have to borrow billions more leaving future taxpayers indebted.

The challenge for Labour in 2011 will be to present an alternative budget that keeps Goff’s promise of no tax increases, but also has NZ on a believable path back to surpluses.

Goff’s ruling out of any increase in income tax or GST is very significant and the first major departure from the Clark years. The challenge is getting people to believe it by having realistic spending promises.

GUYON: You and your party, the Labour party, went after John Key very heavily in the last election campaign, you made the whole campaign about trust – the idea was that you couldn’t trust John Key. The party president was dispatched to try and dig up dirt on decades old deals to try and find some wrong-doing. Is that something that you’re apologising for this weekend as well, the way that you handled that?

PHIL: I think that both sides in Parliament probe the other side to check whether promises being made are promises being made with integrity. That will always happen in an adversarial system. I think the publicity and the looking at the finances around Mr Key at the last election WAS a mistake yes.

A welcome admission.

GUYON: but do you trust him [Key]?

PHIL: Do I believe that what is being said is always what is on the agenda, I’d have to say no. I mean they employ spin doctors, and the role of spin doctors is to have the Prime Minister saying what people want to hear.

Now Goff loses the plot. He doesn’t trust John Key because Key has spin doctors. Goff has several himself, as did Clark.

And just as relevantly, it is pretty obvious to most journalists that Key is one of the least scripted PMs of recent times. In fact the major criticism in recent days has been that Goff is the one who speaks in spin doctor sound bites, unlike Key who speaks normally.

GUYON: You talked about spin doctors, but every party employs them and in fact it looks you are employing them pretty heavily this weekend. I mean it’s an image makeover though isn’t it – you’ve tried desperately to make yourself look more human, look more relaxed, look more casual haven’t you?

PHIL: Ah, look when you talk about spin doctors we don’t have an agency like the Australian agency

Good God, Labour’s obsession with Crosby Textor is driving them demented. National has had a relationship with Mark Textor for almost 20 years.

This is a classic example of Labour still focusing on “Wellington” issues. They’ve tried very hard to have their conference focus on wider issues such as the economy, jobs, healthcare – but if you scratch away a bit, they revert to type. Absolutely no-one outside the Labour and Green Party membership cares about this crap.

PHIL: No look obviously you think, particularly when you become leader of the opposition, there’s a different role you have to perform, there are different sides of you that people have to see. I’ve spent most of my political career trying to protect my family from politics, I didn’t want them in the full glare of politics. But suddenly people say “look we don’t know anything about you, we don’t know what your family is, we don’t know you’ve got two boys and a girl”. So clearly in the role I’m playing now I’ve got to become a little more open about the sort of things that once upon a time I would’ve like to have kept personal.

I’m pleased to see Phil take my advice that New Zealanders do want to know more about him – and by default his family. Not in a hugely intrusive way, but to understand more about who he is. It is not that easy for either politician, or family, but people do want to feel they know something about the person who may be Prime Minister.

GUYON: You lost the working class at the last election , a good strand of them, in some pretty important seats like Waitakere and other areas, Chris Trotter calls these people the sort of guy who likes to have a few beers on a Sunday afternoon sitting on a deck that he built himself. How do you win those people back next time?

PHIL: It’s a point well made and I think you’ve got to win back those people by those people perceiving you to understand what their concerns are and what there hopes are.

GUYON: And how do you do that?

PHIL: I think by showing that most of us have come up by that same particular route, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I grew up in a working family – we worked hard for everything we got. I’ve got my family that I’ve worked hard to bring up, I can identify with those people . I’ve got two sons who are tradesmen. They are exactly the sort of people that Chris Trotter gave as a Waitakere man. Those are the sorts of things that they’re interested in – I believe I’m in touch with those things.

Goff is certainly better positioned than Clark and Cullen were to win back that working class vote. In fact of the entire Labour caucus he is probably the best person to try and do that – apart from possibly Shane Jones who has potential appeal there also.

GUYON: But the voters want to know is there a place for Winston Peters in a few years time to become a part of Government?

PHIL: There’s a place for anybody who is prepared to work on-side Labour for the values, the ideals, and the policies that we put forward. I don’t rule out Winston Peters any more than I rule out the Green Party, the Maori Party or the United Future Party and obviously the Progressive Party

There was a missed opportunity there. I’m not saying he should have ruled Peters out (that then becomes the major story) but he could have said that for Labout to work with Peters again, we would have to be convinced that he would conform with the Ministerial and Parliamentary rules on conflicts of interests and disclosures.

The danger for Goff, is that he looks to be saying he will be the same as Clark, and let Winston get away with anything in exchange for the baubles of power.

GUYON: And we have a referendum to this whole electoral system, what is Labour’s position on that? 1997, as Justice Spokesman, you called for a binding referendum on MMP whether we should chuck it out or not, what’s your view now?

PHIL: I think if you’re going to change the system it MUST be with the mandate of the people and that must be by a binding referendum.

GUYON: So you support going for a referendum?

PHIL: yes, we’re not opposing the Government on that at all

That is interesting.

GUYON: ..How would you vote?

PHIL: At this stage I’d probably vote for MMP but we’ve had at this conference quite an interesting discussion about that and the members I’ve talked to have said look we’d like to see fewer list MP’s and more Electorate MP’s. We’d like to see electorates a little bit smaller so that electorate members can give a bit more personal attention to their constituents. Our people tell me that we can do that, we could have as many as 80 electorate MP’s with the balance of 40 being list MPs. It may be that we’re looking for a variation on MMP to make it work better, to use its strengths to counteract its weakness.

More interesting is that he would only “probably” vote for MMP.

Labour need to be very careful of their numbers. Chris Hipkins said yesterday:

The analysis I have seen suggests we could have 90 electorates and 30 list MPs and the proportionality would be preserved. From memory applying that to the 5 MMP elections we have had the biggest overhang would have been 4 extra seats. That’s just from memory though. Someone else might have the actual nos handy.

I responded:

Chris – your memory is faulty on MMP with a 90/30 split. Assuming parties won the same proportion of electorate seats, a 90/30 elect/list split would have seen Labour in 1999 with a 6 seat overhang and in 2002 with a 7 seat overhang. That would be almost as unproportional as SM.

On the plus side it would have meant in 1999 every Labour List MP would have been wiped out so no Cullen and Wilson

Goff is now talking 80/40. If you assume they would have won the same proportion of electorates (which is not that likely) it would in 2002 have left Labour with either 0 or 1 List MPs – very close to overhang.

But what Goff overlooks is that every census the number of electorate seats increases by 1 or 2 as the North Island has faster population growth than the South Island. Hence within a decade that 80/40 could be 84/36 and overhang could well become a regular thing.

And the issue of Maori Party overhang would also get worse. Ironically what Goff is talking about would move MMP closer to an SM system.

Today’s Dispatch from St Johnnysburg at NBR is on the MMP referendum.

Brian Rudman writes:

Having lost the battle to skew the new Auckland council voting system to their advantage, the rich white business establishment is now turning its guns on MMP, the proportional voting system, which since 1993, has made Parliament a true House of Representatives.

What nonsense. I just love it when people invent mythical conspiracies as part of what appears to be rampant paranoia.

It was the Labour appointed Royal Commission which proposed at large seats for the Auckland Council. Now I was one of those who did not support the at large seats, but to try and paint it as some cunning plan of rich white businessman is moronic. The motivations behind having at large seats were spelt out in detail by the Royal Commission.

Going along with it, seemingly with some reluctance, is Prime Minister John Key, saying he is honouring an election commitment made last year.

But given National has already broken its key election promise to hand out $4 billion in personal tax cuts over the next three years, it’s a bit late to start pleading principle.

And more stupidity. The global recession destroyed billions of dollars of wealth in New Zealand, and turned projected surpluses into a projected permanent deficit. Hence there was a rational and logical reason not to proceed with tax cuts as promised (and the majority of voters have accepted that).

But again it is pathetic and puerile to suggest that because economic conditions forced a change to fiscal policy, this means that every single promise made at the election should be jettisoned – even in non-economic areas such as electoral.

Rudman would no doubt be the loudest complainer if National did start breaking more promises.

Supporters of MMP (and I would today choose MMP over FPP) should concentrate their efforts on the merits of MMP, not weird conspiracy theories expressing surprise that there will be a referendum when one was promised.

Personally I would like to see a supporter of MMP honestly acknowledge that it is not perfect, and that the power it gave to Winston Peters (which was well beyond his share of the vote) wasn’t conducive to good Government.

I’m not sure what is being considered by Cabinet, but they need to be very careful with the MMP referenda, so that people are voting on a sensible option.

There has been some suggestion previously that an initial question will be whether or not to keep MMP, and if people vote not to keep MMP, then the next question will be what is the replacement system – and MMP will not be given as an option against the replacement system – the preferred replacement system will just become law.

That would be quite simply the wrong way to do it. The current electoral system should ultimately be put to a vote against a known replacement electoral system, so people can make an intelligent choice on the pros and cons of both. You can not ditch MMP solely on the basis of an initial vote indicating dissatisfaction- because any of the alternatives may prove more dissatisfactory.

It was Churchill who once said democracy is the worst form of Government – apart from all the others that have been tried!

There is no need to spend a lot of time working out what are the appropriate questions, as it was done very well in 1992 and 1993, so I just advocate repeating that process.

The first referenda should be a two parter, and run in 2011 to maximise turnout. The questions would be.

1. Do you wish to retain the present Mixed Member Proportional system or do vote for a change to the voting system.
   
2. Please choose your preferred option to run off against MMP:
   A The Supplementary Member System (SM)
   B The Single Transferable Vote System (STV)
   C The First Past the Post System (FPP)
   D The Preferential Voting System (PV)

If a majority vote for change in Q1, then the most popular option in Q2 goes to a run off against MMP, so people are making an informed choice between the status quo and an alternative.

The second referendum would be held preferably in 2014, to again maximise turnout. That would give Parliament lots of time to devise an electoral act based on the alternative system selected. Then in 2014, if people vote for the alternative system ahead of MMP, the alternative electoral act automatically comes into force.

The Electoral Commission has an Advanced MMP Quiz. Give it a go. Many of them are trick questions that will catch out all but the experts.

I managed 9/9 but had to think very hard about some of the answers. Post your scores below.

Mai Chen has an article in NZ Lawyer on MMP. Some interesting aspects:

The skills for which the Right Honourable Helen Clark was often lauded, in governing under MMP (with a minority Government and disparate ‘support’ parties), seem to have been easily acquired by her successor, the Honourable John Key, despite Key never having been in Government. The new Prime Minister is now operating comfortably with a minority government under the MMP system after only six months in office. So comfortably, in fact, that this may be undermining public sentiment for change. It ain’t broke, Kiwis may say, so why fix it?

I’ve observed this also. The mroe sucessful John Key is at managing a minority Government, the less likely people are to vote for a change away from MMP.

Mai Chen then looks at options for reforming MMP, rather than dumping it. She focuses on the criticism that ACT got five MPs on 3.65% party vote and NZ First got none on 4.07% and proposes:

(a) Reducing the threshold to three per cent or removing the threshold altogether, which would likely result in a greater proliferation of smaller parties; or

(b) Requiring all parties to meet the five per cent threshold before they can have any List seats over and above their constituency seats. In the 2008 election, this would have meant that ACT would only have one MP, and the only minor party to obtain any List seats would be the Greens who won 6.72 per cent of the party vote.

I’ve long supported the threshold being 4%, not 5%, as recommended by the Royal Commission. If the threshold was lowered to 4%, there would be a stronger case for removing the back door method of an electorate seat to get List MPs.

Just discovered online the thesis from Greg Stephens on Electoral Reform and the Centralisation of the National Party.

It is 207 pages long, so only for those both with the time and inclination. Personally I found it very interesting, re-reading it for a second time.

National has released its electoral law policy, which includes of course repealing the EFA:

• Repeal the EFA immediately after the election
• Reinstate the Electoral Act, as it was before the EFA, but transfer into it the provisions in the EFA dealing with donations
• Reform electoral law through a process involving all parliamentary parties and the public
• Having a binding referendum on MMP by 2011
• Begin a constitutional process to abolish the Maori seats once all historic claims have been settled, which is anticipated to be 2014

It is good that National is retaining the donations provisions of the EFA, while repealing the rest of the Act. This exposes as a lie that National oppossed it because of the increased transparency around donations. In fact National agreed to this in principle way back in 2006. And it was Helen Clark who removed from the draft bill, any significant provisions around increased transparency of donations.

The donations provisions are not perfect, and I would hope they would be part of the overall review of electoral law post 2008. But until that review is done, it is best to keep the transparency obligations while removing all the parts relating to spending, third parties, definition of an advertisement etc.

It is worth remembering that if the Government is re-elected then the EFA will remain. Labour will just make it more onerous, if anything.

Listen to John Key on Nine to Noon. Key rules Peters out even if cleared by the SFO and Privileges Committee because he says his credibility is still too damaged. It is not just about criminal behaviour but ethical standards.

David Cohen has a 20 point test on whether you are a journalist or a blogger. I got 13/20 which makes me a “mid-grade hack”

Frog Blog asks if Helen Clark may be regretting choosing go go with Winston instead of the Greens?

Idiot/Savant blogs on Day Two of the MMP Symposium. The panel session was interesting (in my rather conflicted opinion) and if things slow down I might try and do an extended post on it.

Bryce Edwards has an excellent piece of research on the funding of NZ First. It is not a scandal breaking story, but some detailed academic research, well referenced. We need more like this.

Later this morning is a final panel session on MMP. One of the panelists, Chris Finlayson, can’t make it due to select committees – so I was asked last night if I would be a replacement.

I stupidly said yes, before checking who else was on the panel.

Sir Kenneth Keith is on the panel. Not only is Sir Kenneth arguably our most emiment jurist (he now sits on the International Court of Justice), he was on the original Royal Commission on the Electoral System. Great I get to look stupid in front of NZ’s most emiment jurist!

Now don’t get me wrong. I like to think a know a fair bit about electoral law and MMP. Possibly more than 99% of the population. But everyone in the room is in the other 1%!

No Right Turn has blogged all the speeches from last night, including links to some of the papers for those interested in electoral issues.

Raymond Miller was especially interesting, on how by 2011 36% of voters will have known nothing but MMP. His paper had lots of polling data about attitudes to MMP broken down by various demographics.

Constitutional Law expert Professor Philip Joseph is now speaking on future constitutional challenges. He is outling five changes under MMP.

1. Indirect election of Governments. The public used to effectively elect the Government, and it would be known within a couple of hours of election night. Now the effect is to elect a Parliament and Parliament spends a few weeks negotiating a Government. He emphaised this means the public are often surprised by the Government that emerges such as Nat/NZF in 1996 and in 2005 Labour campaigned with the Greens but ended up appointing Peters and Dunne as Ministers – something no-one would have expected before the election.
2. Government formation. Only in 1999 was the shape of the Government known on the night as Labour and Alliance got 63 seats on election night and had said they would go into coalition together. Ironically they shrank to 59 seats when the Greens later qualified for representation.
3. Minority coalition Government. Four of the five coalition Governments have been minority Governments. Only National-NZF was a majority Government.
4. Collective responsibility. MMP has shown that collective responsibility is not a constitutional convention but merely a rule of pragmatic politics.
5. Government and Opposition reconfigured. These labels are more flexible now.

Joseph then touched on the issue of the Maori seats. He asserted that retaining the seats will inflate the parliamentary representation of Maori beyond their relative population base and will create a permament overhang that will skew MMP proportionality.

Professor Joseph pointed out there are currently 22 MPs of Maori descent, representing 19% of Parliament – well above the 14% of the general population that Maori comprise. Eliminating the Maori seats would have Maori make up 12.4% of Parliament, only 1.4% below their population share and hethinks the 2008 election will see even that small gap disappear – without relying on the Maori seats.

He also touched on the possibility of overhang in the Maori seats leading to a situation where National might get 50.1% of the vote, but be unable to form a Government due to the increased size of Parliament. This would create considerable resentment and a backlash.

Another challenge Joseph alluded to is that one day there will not be enough list seats to ensure proportionality. So long as the NI populations grows faster than the SI, then every five years the number of electorate seats will increase, and the number of list seats diminish. Already under MMP the number of list seats has fallen from 55 to 50.

Three solutions are identified:

1. Increase the size of the House to greater than 120
2. Abolish the Maori seats, and have seven more list seats
3. Reduce the number of electorates, which will increase the size of the largest electorates considerably

Finally Joseph looks at whether MMP will survive in light of National’s referendum pledge. He thinks it will as he doubts National will get the numbers in Parliament, even if they form the Government, to have the referenda.

Nigel Roberts is now talking on the alternatives to MMP. He is doing what I in fact did on my blog some weeks ago, and look at what would have been the results of the four MMP elections if done under MMP.

Roberts identified five problems with MMP as he sees it:

1. One seat threshold
2. Treating minor parties and independents differently
3. Overhang
4. Closed Lists
5. Backdoor MPs

He pointed out you can fix these without a referendum – only need for changing the system.

Says one seat threshold is unfair. Christian Coalition got no seats on 4.3% in 1996 yet NZ First got five seats on 4.3% in 1999.

With issue 5, could do as in Wales and people can be an electorate candidate or list candidate – but not both.

I’m live blogging this from Victoria University where a symposium on MMP is being held in conjunction with the University of London.

An impressive collection of political scientists, lawyers and academics are in attendance, along with a couple of disreputable bloggers.

The symposium is tonight and tomorrow morning. The first session tonight is about the effect of MMP on the parliamentary process, on political parties and on the Executive.

Dr Ryan Malone from the Law Commission is first up, talking on the effect of MMP on the parliamentary process. He has pointed out how MMP makes opposition parties compete harder for media coverage, as there is no longer just one Opposition.

A lot of focus on how a Government has to get the numbers for every Bill now, and also due to agreements with parties may have to support some bills unwillingly – at least to select committee stage.

Another major change has been that the Government no longer has a majority on select committees and doesn’t chas as many of them. This gives more power to Parliament.

Related to this, is that the Opposition and minor parties can also force through hostile amendments during the Committee of the Whole stage.

This has all led to slow down the legislative process. From 1987 to 1996 an average of 160 government bills a year were passed. From 1997 to 2006, it was only 107 government bills a year. For those who want less laws, that is a good thing!

Associate Professor Andrew Geddis is now talking on how MMP has changed the legal status of political parties. Somewhat surprisingly, he is arguing that in fact the status of political parties under the law has not changed greatly due to MMP. There are more regulations for parties, but they remain essentially private bodies.

The old Electoral Act had minimal regulation of parties – just what they could display on election day, and that they could make submissions on boundaries. All the focus was on candidates.

Peters v Collinge established that political parties were largely private bodies, and that their rules were not generally open to challenge – only whether or not they followed them.

Payne v New Zealand National Party this year reinforced that approach, so long as they met the minimal requirements in the Electoral Act 1993 to have some provisions for members to be involved in selections.

Geddis looks at whether the greater regulation of parties (registration, spending caps, donor rules) is due to MMP, or whether the introduction of MMP was just convenient to do so, and these may have eventually happened under FPP. The UK did so in 2000, despite remaining under FPP.

Geddis concludes it was more a growing awareness of the importance of political parties in elections that led to their increased regulation, rather than MMP per se. I had never considered it quite like that before,but upon reflection I think he is right.

Finally in this session Professor Jonathan Boston spoke on how has Executive Government functioned under MMP. He focuses on agree to disagree provisions in coalition agreements, and that these worked fairly well up until 2005.

He describes the 2005 arrangements as novel and unorthodox with a coalition agreement, two supply and confidence agreements and a co-operation agreement. Also how two party leaders would be Ministers but not formally part of the Coalition Government, and how MPs not in the Executive would be Spokespersons for the Government on some issues.

He looks at the principle of unanimity within the Executive or at least the Cabinet (collective responsibility) and concludes it has under MMP been progressively modified and significantly weakened.

Dean Knight has the full details, but here is the short version:

For people who are interested in a systematic assessment of the MMP, the New Zealand Centre for Public Law, in conjunction with Institute of Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington
and the Centre for New Zealand Studies, Birkbeck, University of London, is hosting a symposium on MMP and the Constitution on 26 and 27 August 2008 (simultaneously video-cast in London, with a number of international speakers):

New Zealand Centre for Public Law
GBLT1 and GBLT2,
Government Buildings
15 Lambton Quay
Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington
New Zealand
6:30pm-10:00pm, Tuesday 26 August 2008
7:00am-10:30am, Wednesday 27 August 2008

Centre for New Zealand Studies
ST274 and ST275, Stewart House
32 Russell Square
Birkbeck, University of London, London
United Kingdom
7:30am-11:00am, Tuesday 26 August 2008
8:00pm-11:30pm, Tuesday 26 August 2008

The programme is here. And one can register here. $25 for students, $175 for academics and a fairly expensive $250 for others.  I was going to attend until I saw the $250 cost. That’s too much for me, just to cover the event on the blog.

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.

And the third and final part is just as good. Read this third post by Sue Kedgley. I like this part especially:

The President of one of the main Italian NGO’s, for example, Antonio Duovati, from the Committee for Food Sovereignty, explained that New Zealand is seen, thanks to our flag waving for free trade liberalization policies, as ‘an enemy of the third world’ and a slave of America and Europe.

Oh wow we get to be both an enemy of the third world, and a slave of America and Europe. Do you get badges to go with that?

You know what is really funny. All these people decrying the effort to alleviate the food crisis – I bet you very very few are from countries starving. Sue is quoting oh gosh an Italian NGO. I bet you they are starving. Now fo course you don’t have to be starving to have a view on food policies, but I reckon the views of Sue and her Italian mates that NZ is an enemy of the third world, is not shared by those in the actual third world.

Anyway to make up for all the irresistible Greens bashing, I should point out that Frog has done a very good response to my post on trying to get an overhang in Parliament, and is what I call a partial retreat. I still think they are on somewhat dangerous grounds talking about party votes for the Maori Party being wasted, because they are only wasted if there is overhang. One you get past an overhang situation, a party vote for one Party is just as valuable as a party vote for any other party which makes the threshold. But nice to have a thoughtful response.

The Green Party are once again showing their commitment to principles are incredibly expendable when it comes to political gain. They are now trying to engineer an election result which would result in a Government which had more votes cast against it, than for it.

Now to appreciate the hypocrisy of this, one has to look at MMP and the major principle or virtue of MMP. It is a proportional voting system where a party gets representation in Parliament in proportion to party votes cast for it. The Greens have strongly supported MMP, and one of the reasons so many supported it was because of the 1978 and 1981 situation when National formed a Government despite having less votes than Labour.

Now the Greens are trying to engineer a deliberate over-hang situation, which would result in a non proportional result. This is their suggestion that Maori roll voters should give their party vote to Greens and electorate vote to Maori Party in order to create an over-hang.

First we need to look at how over-hang happens. It happens when a party wins more electorate seats than its share of the party vote would entitle it to.  It is hard to eliminate entirely unless you abolish electorate seats. We currently have an over-hang of one seat as the Maori Party won four electorate seats and their party vote only entitled them to three seats.

It is also possible that this election could see ACT, United Future or Progressive with over-hang if their leaders retain their seats but their party vote is around 0.7% or less.

So we already have over-hang, but it is what I call accidental over-hang. The Maori Party, ACT, United Future and Progressive all want to increase their party vote.

But what the Greens are calling for, is for Maori roll voters to vote in such a way to ensure over-hang, to gain parties of the left more seats in Parliament than their party vote entitles them to. Here is how it works. Let us say the Maori Party wins all seven Maori seats. Now if they get 6% party vote, then the Maori Party will have eight MPs – one list MP and seven electorate MPs.

The Greens are saying, those Maori Party voters should give their party vote to the Greens. Now in an extreme example if those 6% all gave the Greens their party vote, then the Greens would gain an extra eight List MPs, while the Maori Party would still have seven MPs – all overhang seats. That means a Parliament of 127.

And this could change who gets to form the Government. Let’s say National gets 51% of the vote and 62 MPs. They should get to be the Government under MMP – this is exactly what MMP is meant to guarantee.

But by this strategy of deliberate vote splitting to ensure over-hang, then Labour, Greens and Maori Party could gain 65 MPs instead of the 58 they would have on the party vote only, and get to form a Government which only a minority of NZers voted for.

So whenever the Greens talk about any sort of principle when it comes to MMP or electoral law, you should remember that they are proposing a plan which is without principle and designed to secure power for the left, even if that goes against what the majority of NZers want.

Now some people could say, hey this is a loophole in MMP, and one should exploit any loophole you can find. The fact is though this loophole is more a design issue (can’t really easily fix it), and one which no party up until now has tried to really exploit. For the last 12 years various people have tried to convince National to try and do what the Greens are talking about. How it would be done is National splits into two parties – one contests the party vote and no electorates, and one contests electorates only. They would be seperate parties but co-operate together like the Libs and Nats in Australia. This would result in National getting 30 seat overhangs. Labour would then probably do the same and you’d basically have a meltdown of the MMP system (or a 190 seat Parliament!).

So the consequences of what the Greens are trying to do are severe. They are not only trying to frustrate the will of the voters, but they endanger MMP. For let me tell you that if they actually succeeded with their plan, and engineered a deliberate over-hang which changed the election result, the backlash would be nasty and massive. MMP would go, as the main rationale of MMP would have been discredited. Now FPP supporters might like that, but for the Greens as supporters of MMP to act in such a way is unprincipled and shameless.

The Greens, like all parties, are entitled to ask voters on teh Maori roll to vote for them with their party vote. But that should be on the basis of wanting Green party policies implemented and/or to get more Green MPs into Parliament. But they are not doing that. Instead they are arguing on the basis of overhang, that people should vote Green:

The question that Maori voters are asking though is that if the Maori party wins 6 electorate seats (it thinks it can win seven) is it worth also giving a party vote to the Maori Party? Last election each seat in Parliament was worth about 20,000 votes. So the answer is yes, a party vote for the Maori Party can deliver another parliamentary seat but only if there are about another 140,000 votes to go with it and help it climb above the seat overhang the Maori Party is expected to have. In other words, Maori voters who are leaning towards the Maori Party would need to give 7 times as many votes to the Maori Party to get one seat in parliament as they would to the Green Party.

They should abandon such arguments and retain a shred of principle. An MMP election should be decided by which parties get the most party votes. If they want to use overhang to gain power, then they should support the SM electoral system which effectively does precisely that.