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In
the lead up to last year’s referendum on our voting system,
New Zealanders were re-assured that if MMP was successful, the
system would be reviewed and improved. This promise persuaded
many people who were considering voting for change, to stick
with the status quo and vote for MMP.
That
promised review process was launched by the Electoral
Commission in February. Nearly 5,000 submissions were
received, as political forces – it is alleged - mobilised
their supporters to proactively engage in the process. The
Electoral Commission’s report, which outlines the proposed
recommendations to the government, appears to have been
strongly influenced by these submissions, more so than some of
the wider, more enduring concerns that have been expressed
about MMP over the years.
The
Electoral Commission’s report is available for public
comment until 5pm this Friday, September 7th - full
details on the report and how to put in a submission can be
found here
>>>. Following consideration of public feedback,
the Commission will present its final report to the government
at the end of October. The recommendations will then be
considered by Cabinet before being drafted into law, without
any further reference to the public (apart from the normal
Select Committee process). In other words, it is the
politicians who plan to have the final say on how they are
elected!
A
country’s voting system is central to a democracy. It plays
a key role in constitutional arrangements by creating a
pathway for the transfer of power from citizens to their
elected representatives in Parliament. The election cycle
provides a vital system of accountability back to citizens –
every three years they get to continue with their support for
a candidate and a party, or withdraw it.
Given
its fundamental role in protecting the public from
self-interested politicians, it is convention that voting
systems are only changed with the express approval of
electors. That means that if our constitutional arrangements
are to remain under the control of voters - free from tainting
by self-serving politicians - New Zealanders must demand that
voting system changes should only go ahead if there is
majority support through a public referendum process.
Having
said that, it would be easy for voters to feel a sense of
electoral fatigue at present – after all it wasn’t long
ago that we all voted in the MMP referendum. But as President
Thomas Jefferson warned, “The
price of liberty is eternal vigilance” and it is no
different for New Zealanders in the 2012. Unless we monitor
and assess changes of a constitutional nature extremely
carefully, and demand that a public referendum is held to
approve or reject any recommendations, we may well end up
seriously regretting our carelessness in the years to come.
Casting
our minds back, there are a number of significant problems
associated with MMP that have arisen over the years, that we
should be using to assess whether the Electoral Commission’s
proposals will make MMP better or worse.
First
and foremost has been the long-standing concern over the lack
of a stable, decisive government as a result of the MMP voting
system - since it is almost impossible for a single party to
win majority support under MMP. It is a matter of fact that
multi-party governments are more inherently unstable than
single party governments, and it can be far harder for them to
pass reforming legislation or even survive for their full
term.
In conjunction with this instability problem that afflicts
minority governments, there is serious public concern over the
excessive power that is delivered to minor ‘king-maker’
coalition partners. Such political arrangements all too often
lead to accusations that the ‘tail is wagging the dog’,
when minor parties with limited public support are able to
impose their minority agendas onto New Zealanders.
We
have seen this only too clearly with the excessive demands of
the Maori Party, who represent the sovereignty movement in
government. Although they won only 1.4 percent of the party
vote, they are determined to use their position and the power
of their office to seize control of public resources for the
tribal elite – first it was the foreshore and seabed, right
now it is the ownership of our water, and unless they are
stopped, they will soon be dictating the terms of a new New
Zealand constitution. By conceding to these agendas the
National-led government is letting the public down and
exposing them to a dangerous aspect of MMP. Without a
safeguarding mechanism, that gives voters the right to demand
a binding veto on such treacherous legislation - where the
public interest has been sacrificed for political favours -
New Zealanders’ right to good governance is being
compromised by MMP.
Another
problem that has challenged voters since MMP was first
introduced is the question of how to remove an MP from public
office. A key part of a representative democracy is the
ability for the public to sack an elected representative
through the ballot box. That’s not the case under MMP, where
an MP can get tossed out of an electorate by their voters only
to remain in Parliament as a list member (Labour’s Clayton
Cosgrove for example). What this means is that under the MMP
electoral system, political party bosses who determine list
placings, are more important than electors. That’s wrong.
Then
there are concerns over thresholds. If set too low they could
lead to greater instability as ‘minnow’ parties gain
parliamentary representation. New Zealand is not short of
political choices at election time. In 2005, there were a
total of 19 parties to chose from: 99 MP Party, ACT New
Zealand, Alliance, Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, Christian
Heritage Party, Democrats for Social Credit, Destiny New
Zealand, Direct Democracy Party, Green Party, J. Anderton’s
Progressive, Labour Party, Libertarianz, Maori Party, National
Party, New Zealand Family Rights Protection Party, New Zealand
First Party, OneNZ Party, the Republic of New Zealand Party,
United Future.
By
2008 some of the smaller ones had dropped out but were
replaced with an equal number of new parties including: the
Family Party, the Kiwi Party, the New Zealand Pacific Party,
RAM – Residents Action Movement, the Bill and Ben Party, and
the Workers Party.
In
2011, when National was strongly contesting a second term, the
fact that only 13 parties contested the election reflects a
similar pattern in 2002 when Labour was riding high, when only
14 parties stood.
Many
ardent MMP supporters would like no threshold at all for
parliamentary representation. If that were the case in 2008
the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, the Kiwi Party, and the
Bill and Ben Party, would have gained seats and potentially
held the balance of power!
While
the current party vote threshold for parliamentary
representation is set at 5 percent, the Electoral Commission
has decided to heed the call from the majority of submitters
and reduce the threshold down to 4 percent. They appear
unmoved by the argument that the lower the threshold the
higher the likelihood that the government will be unstable and
Parliament fractious and ineffective.
Voters
have never been in favour of deal-making at election time.
Jack-up deals with Jim Anderton, Peter Dunne, Rodney Hide, and
then John Banks to bring in list MPs on the coat-tail of an
electorate win, has been a serious cause of concern. This
escalated, of course, to the absurd after the infamous cup of
tea between John Key and John Banks in the Epsom café in the
lead up to the last election.
Such
political deal-making exploits the anomaly whereby all party
votes count for a party that wins a single electorate seat -
even if they don’t cross the 5 percent threshold. This of
course led to the anomaly in 2008, where ACT New Zealand
gained 3.65 percent of the party vote along with the seat of
Epsom to deliver 5 MPs to Parliament in total, while New
Zealand First, which gained 4.07 percent of the party vote but
failed to win an electorate seat, gained no parliamentary
representation at all.
So
what is it that the Electoral Commission is recommending
should be done to sort out these problems? Essentially it has
made the following recommendations:
1. The party vote threshold for the
allocation of list seats should be lowered to 4%.
2. The one electorate seat threshold for the allocation of
list seats should be abolished.
3. Candidates should continue to be able to stand both in an
electorate and on a party list
4. List MPs should continue to be able to contest
by-elections.
5. Political parties should continue to have responsibility
for the composition and ranking of candidates on their party
lists.
6. The provision for overhang seats should be abolished for
parties that do not cross the party vote threshold.
Unfortunately
these recommendations go only some way towards addressing
public concerns over MMP. In terms of the crucial problem of
the potential for political instability under MMP, the
Electoral Commission’s recommendation to lower the 5 percent
party vote threshold to 4 percent will make the problem worse.
With a lower threshold, there will be more potential for
smaller parties with even more radical agendas to get elected
and hold the balance of power. And without the right of public
veto on new legislation, to protect the public interest –
something the NZCPR strongly argued for in our submission here
– New Zealanders would remain vulnerable to extreme policies
being traded off in coalition deals.
I asked
Jordan Williams, who led the campaign against MMP to share his
view of the electoral Commissions recommendations, and he was
particularly scathing, explaining that the changes being
proposed would make MMP worse:
“The New Zealand public have been duped. Kiwis supported
keeping MMP at last year’s referendum in a large part due to
the promised ‘MMP Review’.
We were told that MMP would be improved by the
Electoral Commission. We
were promised an MMP 2.0, a version that would address its
weaknesses. Instead, what we’re likely to get is an MMP more
suited to the interests of political insiders, worse at
holding MPs to account and even more susceptible to tails
wagging dogs.”
He
concludes with a word of warning for the government, “As
with the referendum, the unions and left wing interests have
mobilised their base. Most
of the suggestions made in submissions and the resulting
preliminary recommendations are focused at “fairness” and
“representation” rather than accountability.
The proposals, if implemented, would be beneficial to
the small parties and the left. National’s hands-off
approach first to the MMP referendum and now the review, may
come back and bite it with a voting system that helps the
opposition and results in less stable government.” To read
the full article click
here >>>.
If you feel strongly about the changes being proposed by the
Electoral Commission – especially the fact that they do not
believe that changes to our key constitutional arrangements
need to be approved by voters through a public referendum –
then please put in your submission here
>>>.
This
week’s poll asks: Do
you support the Electoral Commission’s recommendation to
reduce the party vote threshold to 4 percent? Click here for poll >>>
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