NZ Centre for Political Research

This week's poll asks:

Do you believe MMP delivers a disproportionate influence to minor parties?

*Non-Maori in New Zealand are becoming the Jews of the Pacific, discriminated against because the majority of us are relatively successful. Shame on you John Key. Murray

*As far as I can tell, as long as we've got MMP it will be almost impossible to get rid of MMP!! Sounds ridiculous I know, but the minor parties and list MPs (what a waste of space they are) spend all their time spreading propoganda and feeding it to the general public, some of whom, are gullible enough to believe it. All I can say is God Help the UK if they adopt our system. Too many minor parties having too big a say, and no really important decisions being made. There is absolutely no accountability with MMP - how can there be if you're voted out by your Electorate and then you get back into Parliament as a list MP. I live in hope that commonsense will prevail eventually, but am not holding my breath!!! Margaret

*Act would not be in Parliament without MMP, although I have never voted for that system. We need to insist the two most contentious issues of Electoral Review of MMP-racist Maori seats & number of MP's need to be addressed-otherwise the review is another John Key slick trick. Monica

*That this MMP continues passeth understanding. Eneka

*1. Agree with Dr Newman & Peter Shirtcliffe.
2. Interestingly, one of the reasons for MMP was to allow Coalitions to form. The UK election indicates that Coalitions can form in any political system. Nick

*We can no longer depend on our elected reps doing what they promised. Much worse that the old MMP. It has changed the fabric of NZ society and has to be repealed. Robyn

This week's poll asks:

Do you believe MMP delivers a disproportionate influence to minor parties?

*Minor parties have no mandate but blackmail larger parties into accepting their pet policies. Ron

*It is ridiculous how those who are supported by such tiny numbers get such a massive say and influence. Hardly anyone shares their viewpoint but we all pay to give them what they want adn what we disagree with. Colleen

*We have to look for better ways of governance than the present. Ian

*But surely no worse than the first past the post system e.g. the recent slection in the UK. I still favour MMP but I do not like the abuses. Mike

*At least MMP has given us the chance to see John Key for the conniving liar he really is, still waiting to see Maori seats abolished. Peter

*We have the Government we deserve: a 3 year dictatorship by a powerful prime minister ruling a sovereign and powerful government, with ministers passing personal whim, fancy and foreign ideology into law. We increasingly see the Government as the fountain of wealth and wisdom. We, the people, have to change this. Alan

*NZ is being governed by the wiles of minor parties and MP's who were appointed by their politcal friends. This is undemocratic and is restricting progress. Peter

*I have always favoured STV. Phil

*Yes, I have long felt unhappy about the "tail wagging the dog" under MMP. Democracy has become almost non-existent: a bad joke! Rob

*Yes, too much "horse-trading", as you put it, and not enough time spent on thinking out sensible law-making. God help the British if they go that way, look at the mess they are in already! Tony

*And too many politicians for the size of the country. Carol

*Unelected members of parliament should not be there. Max

*Yes but since every MP believes they are in parliament because of MMP don't hold your breath for a rapid change to a better system of democracy. John

*Very evident in legislation such as: Bradford/Greensiniquitous "anti-smacking" legislation aimed at de-stabalising parental authority and the Family Unit; Clark/Wilson and the removal of appeals to the Privy Council. These are just two major abuses but there are many- more pushed through the House which often would not become law without this hopeless,'tail-wagging' MMP system. Key & Cos. cosy arrangement with the Maori Party exemplifies this as an ongoing consequence of a crazy system! Frank

*MMP is undemocratic in many ways with the 5% threshold but MMP has very rarely prevented government policy by either major party with forces on the left, centre and right that governments can work with. Alex

*SM system sounds a much better deal to me. The original referendum was based on the govt's choices and thus their terms. We were so fed up with the FPP antics, and a lot of people didn't truly understand the alternatives offered, and didn't anticipate what would happen under MMP. Ron

*Tail wags dog which means that at present the National Party is a dog. Agree or disagree. Can't argue with that. They should all be microchipped. Mike

*John Key is the biggest disappointment of a Prime minister in the history of NZ. He should just announce he is giving the whole of NZ to the Maoris and get it over with. That goes for his personel wealth as well. As for the MMP debacle, why would any MP want to lose the goose that lays the golden egg. They will do their best to make MMP stay. Chris

*I prefer single transferable voting, then the electorats would get better representation. under MMP we get disproportional representation. Some get more say and over influence by intimadation. Rawiri

This week's poll asks:

Do you believe MMP delivers a disproportionate influence to minor parties?

*Of course MMP is disproportionate influence. Just look what happens when a brainless activist teams up with an out and out Red to pass an anti-smacking law. Now we are seeing the same thing from Key and a Maori activist continuing to screw the country. Reminds me of a "joke" that passed thru my email the other day which I sent out to everyone... "In South Sydney, a fire destroyed a multi story block of flats. A Polynesian family of six con artists lived on the first floor, and all six died in the fire.

An Islamic group of seven Pakistani welfare cheats, all illegally in the country, lived on the second floor, and they, too, all perished in the fire.

Six Maori ex-cons lived on the 3rd floor and they too, died.

Four Aboriginal families in the 2 flats on the 4th floor also perished.

One white couple lived on the top floor. They survived.

Relatives of the deceased and local do-gooders were furious. They flew into Sydney and quickly demanded a meeting with the fire chief. On camera, they loudly demanded to know why the Islanders, Muslims, Maoris and Aboriginals all died in the fire and only the white couple survived.

The fire chief quietly replied, "They were both at work.""

Of course that joke is an Australian joke and in NO WAY reflects the New Zealand situation!!??? Neil

*OMG yes!! How many times have we seen it so far? Unfortunately we behave lackadaisically about it - let's all remember...who works for whom? Peter

*It seems that the minor parties, present their own agenda, and stop more important issues being dealt with. The number of M.P's is too high for the size of our country. Jane

*Of course it does, or else the question would not arise. Grahame

*Absolutely. The greens have as foreign policy spokesman one Mr K.Locke. This man, if correctly reported, once spoke well of Pol Pot. What more needs be written? Peter

*Mr Shirtcliffe has had a bee in his bonnet over MMP since before the first referendum. He sounds like a broken record. We need to modify MMP not get rid of it. His comments are entirely negative and he does not tell us what he would like as as alternative. K

*Excessive, unwarranted, and utterly unmerited influence. Jim

*It is so disproportionate that we saw NZ First use it to the extent of extortion. John

*Emphatically - yes, it does. First the Greens and now the Maori parties have virtually blackmailed the gummint of the day into adopting blatantly unpopoular legislation. Ron

*I believe that this system is not only damaging the Country but the support for both the National and Maori Party.
It is also setting Race Relations in this Country back 20 years with average New Zealander's being turned against each other. Barry

This week's poll asks:

Do you believe MMP delivers a disproportionate influence to minor parties?

*The threshhold is too low for minor parties. Don

*It is a real laugh that the Poms are looking to New Zealand for guidance on how to manage mixed member government. What bullshit have they been listening to...The Swiss system advocated by Amy BROOKE seems to me the only truly democratic option in dealing with co-alition governments. Rocky

*Of course it does, cast your mind back to some of the 'unskilled has beens' of the past ie Alamein Kopu, etc etc that have had far too much influence in crucial Government matters. Tony

*Hold a referendum and get rid of it. Warren

*I cannot believe the arrogance of the National Party in the decisions that they are making wihout any reference to the people of NZ. We did NOT vote them in to take us down the road that they seem determined to take us! It is very scary and I and many others feel absolutely helpless! We somehow need to drum up support and have hundreds of thousands of NZers marching in all the Cities and Towns, against what this Government is doing! We must stop being apathetic, but unfortunately I fear it is too late as we have dumbed down so much in this Country and the Media do not seem to have any Journalists who are prepared to really question anything that the Government does - it badsically reports what they want us to think and what the Government wants us to think and believe!! Dallas

*This was always the intention of those who put the most effort into promoting the idea of MMP. The lunatic fringe would control government. Bob

*A look at history will show that this form of MMP gives a greater emphasis to the minority Parties. Harry

*Our Parliament is certainly burdened with MP's (of the list variety) that would never stand up to public scrutiny and therefore do not deserve to be in Parliament. Why have any list MP's? As for having to work your way up through the Party ranks to get into Parliament ... that is rubbish. Look at John Key. Basically he proved he had good leadership qualities and good decision making capabilities and there he is leading the country in short order. Must say though that I am not liking his decisions re Maori Sovereignty Agenda issues. What are you doing John??? Dianna

*This is absolutely the case. MMP also makes it extremely difficult for the Government to passsensible, but possibly not popular laws. look at the drinking age. The age to gain a drivers licence. All are watered down to gain support from the minority parties. Sick system, sick policies, sick government. David

*And furthermore it makes MPs out of some people who have not been voted for. Paul

*And now we are going to get it the UK! God save us all. Selwyn

*Yes, but the answer is not FPP - a totally undemocratic system which conversely gave disproportionate power to the winner of the majority seats, but which often fell well short of a majority of the total vote. Brian

*Best system uses the method of eliminating the lowest polling party and distributing their supporters votes to the party they preferred until there is a majority party. Then that party takes all responsibility and has to stand up for itself. Smaller parties will get elected but it avoids the idiocies of MMP. Hugh

*Politicians don't give a damn about the wishes of voters, so I'm not going to hold my breath. Graeme

*Having witnessed the results, could anything be more obvious? Ian

*All the minor parties - whether Green, NZ First, Maori et al - have manipulated MMP to their personal advantage. Bruce

This week's poll asks:

Do you believe MMP delivers a disproportionate influence to minor parties?

*It was obvious from the start that MMP would result in the tail wagging the dog. All the time Nz is ham-strung by this method it will fall further and further behind Australia because no politician will be willing to enact the changes necessary to make a real difference. Gary

*Of course it does, would be interesting to do a vote on how many people wish now that they had voted National into power while Brash was leader, would have saved NZ from another 3 years of Clark/Cullen and we would not be going down the plug hole as we now are. It is quite amazing how quickly Key has assumed to politician cloak, "catch up with Australia" what a joke! he is doing everything he can to sink us. John

*As we are seeing this now. Not a very good representation and minorities seem to get priority cos they can hold the others to ransom. Aphrodite

*Its nothing more than pc promoting professional parasites among Maori and little wonder. Gordon

*It allows a minority to hold the majority to ransom. Gerd

*You would only need to look superficially at the current situation where five racist radical Maori M.P.'s can impose enormous clout on a weak National Party who obediently bow to their wishes and don't even bother to seek a mandate from their former supporters. Colin

*MMP is just about as big a scam as global warming and the stupid ETS. Any system that takes MP's away from the possibility of being dumped by the electorate deserves to be stopped immediately. John Key has proven himself and his government to be scam artists and now have to go - but who would you replace them with? The whole damn lot are totally untrustworthy and a basic liability to the country. Maybe we should elect a top businessman to run NZ Inc as a business and dump all MP's - most are irrelevant anyway and not worth the money they're paid - lets all demand an accounting of each individual member - if they don't meet a certain level of achievement they go and can't stand again. Maybe that would get rid of some of the dead wood - about 120 of them at the moment. Grant

*John Key did not need the Maori party to govern and he is way out of his depth. Lorna

*The Preferential Voting system offers the best of both worlds. Major parties must include in their Manifestos the aspirations of one or other of the minor parties in order to secure their 'Preference Votes'. Alliances are therefore declared before the election. All parties issue recommended voting slips which indicate where the preferences should go. It has worked well in Australia for many years, why is it ignored here? The real benefit of the Preferential System is that a Government is elected with a real mandate - under MMP no N.Z. Government has a mandate, hence the mess we are getting into now. Owen

*The Maori Party is an example. With just over 2% of the vote they have obtained concessions from a weak Government far out of proportion to their support. Doug

*No need for MMP in NZ!, not at all good for the country, example=greens, Maori party, frankly its divisive. Rick

*I wanted change from FPP but what is happening is not good. Further change is necessary! Bruce

*It allows the tail to wag the dog. Philip

*For the minor parties its a wonderful way to blackmail the rest of the population into getting what they want...we need to get rid of MMP FOR GOOD. Audrey

This week's poll asks:

Do you believe MMP delivers a disproportionate influence to minor parties?

*Why can't we have a more realistic form of democracy? - It need be perceived as a threat by weak politicians! Pater

*MMP needs to be dumped! Rob

*It allows minority parties with no mandate to govern at all to have a disproportionate say in what happens in the country. Wolfgang

*MMP - a very unbalanced system to our detriment. Charles

*AND it allows unelected people into Parliament who in my opinion have NO right to be there!!!! We need another form of Govt, not FFP or MMP. PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!! Dave

*My preference is for STV which gives a fairer balance to democracy than SM. But of course what would I know, a genius rated IQ counts for nothing in NZ. Chris

*National and labour have far too much power, anything that can be done to reign them in has to be good. Viv

*Oh YES! Under this system we have tails wagging dogs, governance held up by "king-makers", Below the bench in-secret deals, people who have no given mandate to govern inforcing views that the majority reject,and trade-off after trade-off with none being openly and honestly debated. I voted for MMP because I was of the belief that a wider view was needed to run this country fairly but what we ended up with was FPP by default. The political animal was not able to adjust and use the wider view points introduced to parliment for the betterement of this country, they kept to the narrow party view must win at all costs FPP attitude. Toadying up to any to get "Their" views in print. List Mp's should be either banned or done away with, or better still relagated to being a support to the govt, eyes and ears to elected MPs. They should not be able to draft nor introduce any legisaltion not vote in parliment. There pay should be the same as the basic dole. If they have been elected before their list MP staus does not count towards their pensions, benefits and substidies. MMP has not been a successful experiment, unfortunately. Wendy

*I didnt vote for the Maori party yet they are telling me what to do, against my wishes! Allan

*If we persist with this form of government the country is doomed. Robert

*MMP is by far the best system and with the rapid decline of minor parties they have little influence. Yes the Maori seats need to be removed to make the system fair to all races but as far as democracy is concerned MMP means my vote counts and as it continues to settle down as our means of holding elections we have the best. Small parties have important views and as ACT will tell you they seldom get their views adopted in real depth. Jim

*MMP is the worst thing o happen to New Zealand. All thinking people in this country must make a combined effort to get rid of John Key and his National lackeys and return NZ to sanity. Ernest

*MMP is a nonsense and must go. Ronmac

*It's hard to believe that we live in such a crap country nowadays. How I would love to be able to overthrow this mess, pack all the politicians off to Iran for some "re-education" (permanently: they can be human shields on the Iranian nuke sites...), and bring about some true law & order. Anyone got a spare, revolutionary army I could borrow?... Peter

*The problem is not MMP, it is the existence of the Maori seats. Without them the Maori Party would be lucky to get any seats, let alone the disproportionate number they presently enjoy. Ironically, the Maori Seats are a corruption of First Past The Post. The Supplemetary Member system proposed by Shirtcliffe & Hunt is the most minimalist change from FPP and would deliver the same cosy old two party system which is much easier for powerful interests to manipulate behind the scenes. Shirtcliffe has as much concern for our democracy as the fox has for the welfare of the chickens! Brian

*Another fine example of Wellingtons' predictable stupidity! Richard

*Certainly not. Minorities have a right to be heard and at times have the better ideas for governing the country. EJ

This week's poll asks:

Do you believe MMP delivers a disproportionate influence to minor parties?

*MMP has had some good points, but the disadvantages have been huge. No mainstream party under the old first past the post system would have risked bringing in racist policies and things like the smacking law as they would have been afraid of being thrown out on their ear. In those days, public opinion mattered. Now it doesn't because the system is too complicated and everyone can blame coalition partners and list MPs are not accountable to everyone, the power of public opinion has been eroded. We don't live in a democracy anymore but a dictatorship where politicians do what they like even if thy have no mandate. It is tragic. Sam

*I voted for First Past the Post in the first mmp referendum and still believe in it. Kerry

*Minor party influence is causing a huge rift in our Democracy. Sarah

*It is outrageous what has been going on in NZ - it is not democracy at all but dictatorship by minorities and radical ones at that! Jim

*No question National is willing to pay a high ransom to be a three term government. JD