Written By: - Date published: 2:19 pm, November 10th, 2008 - 79 comments
Categories: activism -
Tags: MMP
The Right hates MMP. The old system, FPP, advantaged the Right by about 1.5% according to this study. In 1978, 1981, and 1993 the Right governed despite the Left having more support. Under FPP, National was the ‘natural party of government’ and that has changed under MMP.
So, the National/Act government plans to have a referendum on MMP, thinking it can use the power of government to win the public’s support.
Just as a grassroots movement was needed to bring us MMP in the first place, another movement will be needed to argue the case for keeping it. Already, the base of this organisation is being established: The Campaign to Save MMP.
From their press release:
A second referendum on the issue is not something to fear, but an opportunity for New Zealanders to show they believe in fairness in their electoral system. The Campaign to Save MMP will be an independent, non-partisan effort to inform voters of the benefits of MMP and show them the downside of other electoral systems. Our first meeting is at Auckland University Students Association executive chambers, 7pm Thursday the 13th of November.
MMP is just one of the democratic institutions and rights that will be at risk under National/Act. Do your part to help defend it.
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NeillR:
“You’re not really keeping up – the scenario was that electorate votes didn’t count”
No Neill, the scenario being discussed was that winning an electorate seat wouldn’t make your party votes (even though under the threshold) count which is how it works now.
For example: Under the current system ACT’s party vote translates into 4 list MPs in the house because Hide won an electorate seat. If he hadn’t won his electorate, those party votes wouldn’t count for ACT as they are below the 5% threshold and Hide’s seat would be the only ACT seat in the house.
The alternate scenario being discussed is one in which with the same result, Hide would have his seat (which he won) but ACT would still have to meet the 5% threshold before they start bringing list MPs into the house (which they currently do not).
Please keep up with who’s keeping up.
Argh, you’re right – i blame late nights and a failure to read properly.
The problem with that scenario is that you distort the proportionality of the result. If you applied those figures you would end up with the following:
National 60
Labour 45
Green 9
Maori 5
ACT 1
UF 1
Prog 1
It would still result in a National government. I don’t really think the electorate would wear change on the basis of leftist expediency, because they can’t accept a result that wasn’t what they wanted – especially when seats were taken from ACT and given to the Greens and Labour.
All that would do is make it almost certain the public would clamour to ditch the Maori seats – five electorate seats for 2+% of the party vote.
There’s a bit of paradox here in the sense that some of you are arguing to keep MMP but want to change it. If you need to change it then there must be a problem you are trying to address.
Well we’re never going have a “perfect” system that everyone’s 100% happy with but that doesn’t mean we give up improving it.
What we have now is a huge improvement on what we had before in terms of representation, fairness and the “wasted vote” issue but lets keep thinking about how to make it better stronger faster.
NeillR: It wouldn’t take a genius to set up the “Underhang’ Party who had only one member, to campaign on the basis of reducing the number of MP’s. For every vote above 1% they received parliament would be reduced. You reckon the electorate wouldn’t go for that scenario? I’m picking they’d get around 10% of the vote, minimum.
You can pick what you like, but in fact, this has already been done in NZ – the 99 MP Party contested the 2005 election and received a whopping 601 party votes. In addition, I’m not aware of any such party in any of the (many) proportional systems elsewhere. So, like your last example, an irrelevancy which you’re using to fearmonger in direct opposition to the facts on the ground.
Regardless of that fact, I’d say if they can get 40,000 people to vote on a platform of `one less MP’ they deserve the (lack of) representation. See, I’m not really afraid of heterodox voices – I think they’re valuable, and easily-enough marginalised by the orthodox players.
L
Daveski,
“If you need to change it then there must be a problem you are trying to address.”
I have spent some time this morning reading this entire blog, and I have to say I think this whole issue is a non-event.
The issue would not have been raised, I suspect, if the election had returned the encumbents to power, and I can’t see it is in anyone now in govt’s interest to change it either. It’s taken the Nats this long to figure out how to work the system, and also taken this long for the general public to understand how MMP works (if they do, yet).
There are certainly plenty of ideas (even just in this blog alone) on possible ‘improvements’ but I think we will see this one quietly fade away, as without a strong motivation from those in govt now, the reality is that no-one will make anything happen in a hurry.
CP
Indeed I almost mentioned the fact that as each election goes on, MMP increasingly becomes the status quo (compared to those who grew up with FPP).
I suspect Key has surprised both the left and the right with the nous he has shown in managing the MMP environment.
However, fundamentally, if the public wants change, the politicians must listen.
The Bill&Ben Party were exactly that – because there was only two candidates on their list any vote that entitled them to a third or more seat would have seen that number of seats removed from parliament. I’m sure if that was more widely publicised beforehand it may well have led to a higher vote for them.
But, given the widespread public support for a reduction to 99 MP’s, it wouldn’t take long for a party based on that reduction to get off the ground. However, the point you appear to be missing is that the threshold was put in for a reason – to stop one-issue crackpots from hijacking the political process. Under some of the scenarios proposed here, they would have a field day.
NeillR: The Bill&Ben Party were exactly that – because there was only two candidates on their list any vote that entitled them to a third or more seat would have seen that number of seats removed from parliament.
Bollocks. The Bill & Ben party wasn’t about constitutional or electoral change – it was an advertising stunt for a TV show (which worked very well indeed). It was a lark. Just because the result of a strong electoral showing would have resulted in an underhang doesn’t mean it was intended as an underhang party.
I’m sure if that was more widely publicised beforehand it may well have led to a higher vote for them.
But, given the widespread public support for a reduction to 99 MP’s, it wouldn’t take long for a party based on that reduction to get off the ground.
If there’s such widespread support for there being 99 MPs, why did the 99 MP Party only garner 0.03% of the vote in 2005, and not even bother to contest 2008? And why do such parties not exist elsewhere? And you still haven’t explained to me why 40,000 people (that’s roughly the minimum to have an underhang seat) shouldn’t be entitled to reduce the size of parliament by one MP if they choose.
However, the point you appear to be missing is that the threshold was put in for a reason – to stop one-issue crackpots from hijacking the political process. Under some of the scenarios proposed here, they would have a field day.
Do you actually read the other comments in the thread? I’ve addressed this argument above. The 5% threshold was implemented in postwar Germany to prevent the rise of initially-marginal populist demagogues. It was a specific response to the history of that country, and I think a wise one in that case – but not strictly applicable everywhere. We don’t have anything like the combination of factors which Germany had, making us vulnerable to the country being hijacked by extremists – hell, 45% of the party vote is described as a `slaughter’ or a `landslide’.
Neill, from this discussion and the discussion about `moral mandates’ it seems to me that you’re impervious to logic and argument which doesn’t suit your preconceptions. You seem willing to take on examples from elsewhere when it suits you (5% threshold from Germany) but not when it doesn’t (there are no underhang parties anywhere in the MMP systems without a threshold). You’re also accepting correlation as causation (Bill & Ben Party is an underhang party because it could have caused an underhang) but only in some cases. Finally, you attribute unrealistically high influence to things which suit your argument, in contradiction of the actual facts of a matter (National Front gaining power; 99 MP Party having actual support).
It’s a shame, because you seem to actually think about these things. It’d be nice to have a discussion when we’re both on the same planet.
L