Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, October 12th, 2017 - 195 comments
D day approaches. What will happen? Will we have a decaying toothless National Government moderated by coalition with New Zealand First or will we have something more exciting?
Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, October 12th, 2017 - 26 comments
It’s the last day of coalition talks (probably). Peters has certainly created big expectations of “change”, but what they will mean in practice is still anyone’s guess.
Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, October 12th, 2017 - 12 comments
If the Greens prioritise change over power, then the whole ‘they have no leverage’ rhetoric becomes less important than the fact that the Greens are necessary to form government but still have choices in how they participate in that.
Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, October 10th, 2017 - 50 comments
MMP is challenging the traditional role of the Governor General in determining who should lead the Government after an election.
Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, October 6th, 2017 - 64 comments
Important in the Green’s coalition deal-making process is the party’s political positioning, and the internal processes that the party is obligated to follow. Both of those things reflect deeper values around policy and decision making. Here’s a look at what processes the Greens will follow in the coming weeks and who will be involved.
Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, October 1st, 2017 - 124 comments
This guest post looks at the ways that the national governments in Scotland and Wales operate. Their functional systems are effectively MMP, but they break up their list into regional areas which makes it easier to gain the voters to put regional issues into the wider debate.
Written By: - Date published: 4:02 pm, September 25th, 2017 - 45 comments
“Its not going to be a comfortable term. But it will probably be an exciting one.”
Written By: - Date published: 2:43 pm, September 25th, 2017 - 40 comments
The papers are full of the expected establishment hysteria today, trying to paint the election as a done deal for the Nats (I wonder what Peters will make of that?). Professor Richard Shaw: “Nobody’s won the election yet. The people who won the election are the people who form the government.”
Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, September 24th, 2017 - 153 comments
Some post election thoughts on what James Shaw said last night, what the post-election options are, and that given the Left got a possible reprieve not an outright win, what are we going to do next?
Written By: - Date published: 7:01 pm, September 23rd, 2017 - 15 comments
The timing of this election’s results, how NZ governments are formed, and election stress.
Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, September 22nd, 2017 - 101 comments
On current polling the next government could be Labour + Green + NZF. That would annoy a lot of Nats if they have more votes than Labour alone, but that’s how MMP works. English lied about this in the last debate, but apparently has since walked it back.
Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, September 15th, 2017 - 56 comments
Labour’s surge under Jacinda Ardern has us all talking about Labour vs National – who’s in front. Exciting stuff, but there is something even more important going on. The mood represented by Labour + Green + the plurality of NZF supporters. The winds of change are blowing.
Written By: - Date published: 4:09 pm, August 18th, 2017 - 87 comments
Matthew Whitehead on MMP and the threshold, along with some commentary on the current polling situation.
Written By: - Date published: 10:07 am, July 31st, 2017 - 114 comments
With all the speculation about polls, it’s time to have a discussion about polling and the cold, hard facts around it. Is it good news for the left?
Written By: - Date published: 12:02 pm, July 26th, 2017 - 80 comments
Without a cup of tea in sight National has announced that it will asking supporters to vote for Act leader David Seymour in Epsom and United Future leader Peter Dunne in Ohariu.
Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, March 27th, 2017 - 73 comments
Marama Fox opens the way for the Māori Party to work with Labour and the Greens.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, March 4th, 2017 - 22 comments
2017 will be New Zealand’s eighth election under MMP, over 22 years. With very strong democratically elected governments appearing right across the world digging in for the long term, it’s useful to take a moment for MMP.
Written By: - Date published: 5:51 pm, February 20th, 2017 - 54 comments
The agreement between the Mana Movement and the Māori Party.
Written By: - Date published: 7:49 am, January 26th, 2017 - 103 comments
Greg Presland has been daft enough put his hand up for Labour candidate in New Lynn. That would be unfortunate for this site. But my advice for Labour and New Lynn is to grab him. Media say that the leading candidates are him and Deborah Russell. Regardless of a her competence, a non-Auckland resident is a big ask in the era of MMP seats.
Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, September 30th, 2016 - 139 comments
Don Brash and a group of other predominately privileged white males are complaining that Maori may also be receiving some privilege.
Written By: - Date published: 11:12 am, May 12th, 2016 - 20 comments
A post to illustrate how fixed term parliaments work…off the back of some really woeful reportage.
Written By: - Date published: 11:03 am, March 20th, 2016 - 139 comments
Recent polling makes it clear that neither National or Labour can win power without the support of NZ First. So should the left be worried that Winston Peters will take his party back over to the blue team?
Written By: - Date published: 7:37 am, July 18th, 2015 - 195 comments
It was reported yesterday that “Labour would retain 90-day trial periods, but make them fairer”. Despite last minute claims to the contrary on Twitter, I think that this is probably correct.
Written By: - Date published: 3:47 pm, April 19th, 2015 - 48 comments
The Greens have closed their nominations for male co-leader, and are running a number of provincial meetings. I went to the second one in Auckland. The biggest issue for the Greens now after cracking the 10% electoral support in 2011 is that they didn’t grow their vote in 2014, and remain well below polling. Part of that is getting their public face right.
Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, March 30th, 2015 - 25 comments
Make a submission about how our voting system should be improved.
Written By: - Date published: 10:38 pm, March 28th, 2015 - 25 comments
Paddy Gower and Duncan Garner don’t understand our electoral system: “that’s MMP”. By-elections are pure First Past the Post – and that’s why Andrew Little didn’t need to do a deal, and Northland doesn’t stink like Epsom.
Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, March 9th, 2015 - 125 comments
Despite Mr Gower’s excitable tendencies, Andrew Little’s comments that Northland voters may wish to vote to send a signal to the government is not a “dirty deal”.
Written By: - Date published: 3:18 pm, September 22nd, 2014 - 165 comments
No Right Turn points out the underlying truth of voting in an MMP environment. For the party electorate seats don’t matter much. Running electorate only campaigns are not productive. He is wrong in ascribing them no value. They provide a base for campaigning.
Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, September 8th, 2014 - 112 comments
The choice for NZ voters is becoming clearer in the last days of the 2014 election. The irony is that after John Key’s scaremongering, our options are a three-headed coalition of natural allies versus a five-or-six headed hydra of extremists and sworn enemies.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, August 11th, 2014 - 82 comments
It seems like every time Labour (or the Greens) announce a policy the first question (after “what does John Key think about this?”) is “But the Greens (or Labour) have a different policy to the one you just announced! How can you possibly work together in government?”
Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, July 30th, 2014 - 94 comments
Key’s promised to do his best to bring in ACT and UnitedHairdo. Last election this brought us the likes of Charter Schools – unmentioned by any party during the campaign. What policies will National foist upon us through this outsourcing deal this time?
The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
Recent Comments