The 2011 referendum on the electoral system

Here's a few thoughts on the referendum on the electoral (voting) system.

At the general election there will be a referendum giving you the chance to have your say on the voting system. The Electoral Commission has been working on its publicity campaign and is to post out information on each electoral system starting today.

On election day you`ll be given two voting papers. One will be the standard voting paper, the other one will be a purple voting paper and you`ll be asked two questions:
• The first question asks whether you want to keep MMP (our current voting system) or whether you want to change to another voting system.
• The second question asks which of four other voting systems you would choose if New Zealand decides to change from MMP.

The four alternative voting systems you can choose from are:

First Past the Post (FPP) - the person with the highest plurality of votes in each of the 120 electorates wins – i.e. a candidate can win if he gets fewer than half of the votes, provided he gets more than the others.

Preferential Vote (PV) - the person with the highest majority of votes in each electorate wins, as the candidate must get over 50 percent of the votes to be elected.

Single Transferable Vote(STV) MPs are elected by receiving a minimum number of votes (called a quota – based on the number of votes in each electorate and the number of MPs to be elected in each electorate).

Supplementary Member (SM) - Candidates in 90 electorates are elected the same way as in First Past the Post. The remaining 30 seats in the 120-member Parliament are called supplementary seats. MPs are elected to these seats from political party lists, the same way list MPs are currently under MMP.

If at least half of voters opt to keep MMP, the second question is irrelevant and the Electoral Commission will review MMP in 2012 to recommend, with public input, any changes that should be made to the way it works.

If more than half the voters opt to change the voting system, Parliament will decide if there will be another Referendum in 2014 to choose between MMP and the alternative voting system that gets the most support in the second question in the 2011 Referendum.

The following outlines the split of electorates under the different systems – and how each system compares with the others:
Under MMP we’d have :
16 South lsland electorates
47 North Island electorates
7 Maori electorates
The remaining 50 will be list MPs proportionally allocated from closed political party lists.

Supplementary Member will lead to more North Island, South Island and Maori electorate MPs as there will be fewer list MPs. There are:
21 South Island general electorates
60 North Island general electorates
9 Maori electorates

Once all candidates who receive the highest number of votes are elected, the remaining 30 seats in the 120-member Parliament are called supplementary seats. MPs are proportionally allocated these seats from closed political party lists and are likely to be called List MPs. This system is sometimes called First Past the Post “in drag” as the government outcome is almost identical - and is why many politicos who support National like this system

First Past the Post and Preferential Voting will have even more North and South Island electorate and more Maori electorate MPs as there are no list MPs. We’d have:
•27 South Island general electorates
•81 North Island general electorates
•12 Maori electorates

So given that under FPP and PV, we’d have the same number of electorates in each island and the same number of Maori electorates, what’s the difference between the two systems?

The difference is in the way each MP is elected.

Under FPP, the person with the highest plurality of votes in each electorate wins; under PV, that MP must get over 50 percent of the votes to be elected– and here’s how they do it.

Candidates are preferentially ranked ( 1,2,3 etc) and a candidate who gets more than half of all the first preference votes (that is votes marked "1") wins – as would happen under the other electoral systems..

But it is where no candidate gets more than half the first preference votes that things change. If that was to happen under FPP and MMP, that candidate with the highest number of votes will be elected. However under PV, as candidates are ranked, the candidate with the fewest number of “1” votes is eliminated and their votes go to the candidates each voter ranked next.

This process is repeated until one candidate has more than half the votes.

The Single Transferable Vote system will have the same spread of MPs as FPP and PV but fewer electorates as follows:
• About 6 South Island general electorates with a total of 27 MPs
• About 18 North Island general electorates with a total of 81 MPs
• About 4 Maori electorates with total of 12 MPs

So each electorate will have between 3-5 constituent MPs as, with FPP and PV, there are no list MPs.

Where STV differs with the other electoral systems is that there are fewer electorates ,but up to five people can be elected in each electorate, and parties can have two candidates elected from the same electorate, so if you are a National supporter in a Labour constituency you may not appreciate ending up with two Labour MPs, a Green MP and a NZ First MP. Like PV, voters still rank individual candidates ( 1, 2, 3, etc) , but MPs are elected by receiving a minimum number of votes (called a quota).

Candidates who reach the quota from first preference votes are elected. As there are electorate seats to fill after first preference votes are counted, a two-step process follows.

First, votes the elected candidates received beyond the quota are transferred to the candidates ranked next on those votes. Candidates who then reach the quota are elected.

Second, if there are still electorate seats to fill, the lowest polling candidate is eliminated and their votes are transferred to the unelected candidates ranked next on those votes.

This two-step process is repeated until all the seats are filled.
So, if the country wants to keep MMP, then all we need to worry about is how to change it – i.e whether the threshold remains at 5%, whether MPs who lose their seats can come in off a safe list seat, whether list MPs should also stand as candidates for a constituency etc. If voters decide to change to another electoral system it’s a long drawn out process which will then need electorate boundary divisions quickly drawn up once we know what system is chosen.

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Why Don Brash supports the Supplementary Member electoral system

New Act leader Don Brash today announced his support of the Supplementary Member (SM) electoral system - and no one should be surprised. It's the only electoral system that gets him what he wants.

Although he doesn’t like MMP much, he doesn’t want to go back to First Past the Post either. Entry to Parliament via the list is effortless if you have party backing for a high list place, as Brash did under National. He thinks Supplementary Member should be able to let smaller parties be represented in Parliament, and likes the fact that the list has let people like himself into parliament, but prefers that there are fewer list place. He welcomes under SM, that there will be fewer places, and that minor parties on the Left would get disproportionately fewer of them.

That is because under SM, only the list seats are proportional, and the electoral system guarantees a huge majority for a party that wins both a lot of electorates and a large share of the party vote. MMP is a proportional representation system.

Brash does not support proportional representation, or the recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Electoral System in 1986, that rejected supplementary member. While he wants to see limited and disproportionate power of minor parties in Parliament, he is aware that, under current polling, changing to SM won’t make too much difference to Act if it wins Epsom.

Not so the Greens. If Act were to win Epsom under SM, it would have about the same number of list MPs under SM and MMP, whereas if the the Greens were to get 10 percent, they'd have a proportionately bigger reduction of MP numbers under SM compared to MMP.

Brash also noted that it was not fair that in 1981, Social Credit got 21 per cent of the vote but only two seats. It is also not fair that Social Credit would have got proportionally fewer list seats than other parties under Supplementary Member. Of course, the electoral system is a factor on how people vote, so the 1981 vote may have been slightly different under a MMP or SM electoral system.

Actually, in both 1978 and 1981, the winning party, National, got more than half of the seats with less than half the vote and that was the catalyst behind the electoral system change to MMP.

Here's an illustration from The Standard blog that compares the MMP vote to what the SM vote would have been in both 1999 and 2008.
As you can see, the number of Alliance MP's would have halved under SM in 1999, and the Greens,while having a higher share of the vote in 2008, would have the same number of seats after both elections.

According to the Greens, had the 1996 election been held under Supplementary Member with 100 seats, the 35 list seats would have also been unevenly distributed, National and Labour would have had about the same number of seats they would have in a 120 member parliament, to the detriment of the smaller parties, who overall would have had proportionally fewer. NZ First elevated its share of the vote due to its hold on the Maori seats.

Don Brash wants to reduce Maori representation – which will be less under SM and FPP - and then scrap the Maori seats.

That’s why Brash likes Supplementary Member and wants the Maori seats gone. Under First Past the Post he would never have been an MP as he admitted he would not have resigned from the Reserve Bank to be selected as a candidate.

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MPs like Jami-Lee Ross are exactly why we need Maori seats in Parliament

Last week new National MP Jami-Lee Ross gave a good maiden speech. A proud Ngati Porou Maori, he also commented on the Maori seats.

I don't subscribe to the view that I, or any New Zealander of Maori descent, requires special seats to be elected to Parliament, to councils or to any other body in this country. It’s my hope that the people of New Zealand will be given the opportunity in the near future to examine the role of Maori seats in Parliament by way of referendum. I am a New Zealander of Maori descent, and am proudly so, and I hope to challenge the status quo in my time here. I will be criticised along the way. But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with saying that all New Zealanders should be treated equally.

The criticism has already started with Massey University lecturer Veronica Tawhai calling him “ ignorant”, pointing out that equal treatment does not automatically lead to equal outcomes.

For quite some time policies in New Zealand have focused on achieving ‘equal outcomes’, which puts in place protective measures for vulnerable or alienated groups, like Māori” states Ms Tawhai. “The Māori seats are an example of this, protecting the political voice of our indigenous people, often under-represented in mainstream political processes”.

Tawhai appears to view a referendum as a threat to the protection of that political voice and taking way the protection that would lead to unequal outcomes for Maori.

Jami-Lee Ross doesn’t want an “examination” of the role of Maori seats – he wants a referendum to see them ditched. We already have a referendum – it’s called the Māori Electoral Option, where Māori have the choice as to whether the seats stay or go. Given that more Maori have exercised the option to go on the Maori roll, they must still want the Maori seats.

The question many are asking, is notwithstanding Maori views on the seats and the Option, do we need the Maori seats now that we have 23 Maori in Parliament. Jami-Lee Ross is a good example why we do. It is clear that he has no intention of being an effective representative of the Maori people – he is a MP for Botany and judging by his first speech he will be a good National Party MP, too. But he appears to have little interest in actively furthering Maori political aspirations, unlike MPs such as Pita Sharples. Maori need people in Parliament that are willing to effectively represent the Maori people and their political aspirations.

If many of the 23 Maori in parliament are more interested in seeking a promotion to a Ministerial position or an increase in their list placing than advocating for their own people; if there is tension between political party and representation of Māori interests and they side with the party every time – i.e acting like party delegates instead of representatives - they are no more of a representative of Maori than most of their non-Maori colleagues. They are not aiming to provide fair and effective representation of the Maori people and their political interests. Until they do, the Maori seats should remain to provide Maori representation that is guaranteed.

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The politics of Maori seats and Maori appointments

Some appear annoyed that Maori officials can vote on council committees without being elected by Aucklanders. Others are annoyed that the Government has refused to provide Maori seats in the Auckland supercity.

While the Auckland supercity legislation does not permit specific Maori seats in the Auckland City Council, it does permit unelected and advisory members of Maori statutory boards being able to vote on council committees – including having a casting vote. Two members from the nine-member board had been nominated for each of the majority of 20 council committees, and have advisory roles, notwithstanding the ability to have the casting vote, and thus be full decision makers.
However if a Maori representative did provide the casting vote, there is nothing to stop the full council overturning the decision.

Act Leader and Local Government Minister Rodney Hide said he would resign if the council had specific Maori seats. Perhaps he didn’t threaten to resign if there were appointed Maori who could enact a casting vote on council committees because he was aware that the Select Committee hearing the Super City legislation could well approve that decision, giving them “membership rights” – which Act voted for, while not agreeing with it.

It seems that not everyone realised that full membership rights also meant full voting rights.

But the Select Committee snubbed the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, who wanted two Auckland Councillors elected by voters on the Maori roll and another appointed by mana whenua - local Maori with ancestral ties to the land. This decision is why Maori were given a separate forum called the Maori Statutory Board, while retaining the one electoral roll instead of an additional Maori roll, like we have for general elections.

Maori seats normally have a rationale based on indigeneity. Decisions on appointing Maori voting rights are not made on the basis of indigeneity. Even if you accept the indigeneity argument, most Maori in Auckland came from areas outside of Auckland so are not mana whenua – they are taura here and have ancestral ties to other areas. This was probably why the Royal Commission recommended a better compromise: One appointed mana whenua representive, and two others elected from the Maori roll.

This also has problems, as the appointed mana whenua representative would not be elected; and the two elected members will also be elected in part by mana whenua, as well as other Maori who reside in Auckland.

All this has led Labour – who supports Maori seats, while having a bill in the ballot to remove Maori parliamentary seats - to criticise the Government for not appointing Maori seats, but giving unelected Maori voting rights. Providing appointed voting rights sounds less democratic – although more politically tenable - that the provision of democratically elected Maori seats. Act supports neither, and has said so. National is quietly happy as it has Act on side on the prevention of Maori seats (which the Maori Party opposed, but voted for), and the Maori Party on side on the issue of voting rights ( which Act opposed, but voted for).

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MMP is better for New Zealand than every other electoral system. Here’s why.

warning: longer than usual post
The upcoming referendum on the electoral system next year will end up being a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) walkover, or a choice between two electoral systems: MMP and either First Past the Post (FPP), or Supplementary Member (SM). Either way MMP should remain and then be modified.

Incidentally, the ‘first past the post’ label is completely misleading because there is no fixed winning post. The system was not designed for national elections, and is unlikely to enhance democratic accountability when a significant proportion of the population wishes to vote for parties other than National and Labour. Under FPP, what you need to win a local seat is just a ‘plurality’, namely more votes than anyone else. So the more parties compete in each seat, the lower the winning ‘post’ gets, and the greater the likelihood that most of the the voting public will vote for a party other than the governing party. Consequently political scientists call this system ‘plurality rule’, a much more accurate label.

MMP is proportional in that proportionality extends to all elected members – both on the list and through constituents. The SM electoral system - a bastardised FPP system which was comprehensively rejected in the 1992 referendum - has all of the claimed disadvantages of MMP, such as the status of list MPs, plus the disadvantages of FPP, including parties getting most of the seats with a minority of the votes. SM allows for a relatively small number of list MPs which “top up” the electorate MPs.

The big difference between the SM and MMP lists is that, under MMP the list is used to offset the distortions to proportionality that are inherent in the FPP electorate system, as the party vote only determines the composition of the list seats. Under MMP the party vote determines the composition of parliament. SM, however, uses the list to reinforce those distortions, and this list gives token representation to minor parties. List MPs are way outnumbered by electorate MPs, with list MPs only providing the proportionality. This means that a smaller percentage of list MPs would lead to decreased proportionality than is currently the case, and single party government will be the norm, as it is under FPP.

The advantage of a mixed-member proportional system arises because voters can indicate a preference for a candidate without supporting that candidate's party. A good candidate in an unpopular party has a stronger chance of election.

As an electoral system, SM is closer to FPP than MMP. FPP will only survive as a functioning electoral system if a high majority of people in the electorate support the two main parties, and the voters for these parties have sufficient confidence in their party to form a single party government. In most cases since 1996, SM would have produced the same government outcome as FPP, based on current voting, although minor parties would have had fewer MPs. In 1996 SM, under a 90/30 electorate/list top-up split, as proposed by the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System, would have generated the same government outcome due top NZ First’s capture of the Maori seats. But in 1999, in one of the lowest election turnouts, Labour’s share of the seats was over two percent higher than its share of the party vote and had NZ First and the Greens not crossed the threshold, that share would have been higher.

Supplementary Member is likely to lead to Māori being disproportionately represented in parliament. While it won’t affect how Maori electorate seats are elected, due to split voting it may influence allocation of supplementary seats. Overall proportionality would not exist as the “top-up seats” are likely to be as low as 30 percent of total parliamentary seats. Alternative Vote is likely to rely on second choice preferences, as is STV; FPP is majoritarian in the extreme, is disproportionate, and is likely to “waste” votes. Perhaps this was among the reasons why the Royal Commission on the Electoral System, in its 1996 report Towards a Better Democracy, recommended that MMP was ‘to be preferred to all other systems’. FPP would lead to winners being over represented and losers under represented. This is particularly the case in the Maori seats, where, for example, in 1990, Labour won all the electorates with 65.4% of the vote. More than one in five Maori electorate voters voted for Mana Motuhake, which won no seats. If voters behaved the same way, the party would not be under represented as its share of the nationwide vote, nor would it have won a supplementary seat under SM either, as its overall vote was only 0.6% ( which is also under the MMP 5% threshold).

Single Transferable Vote (STV), in single member districts, as we have in New Zealand, is better than FPP, but not as proportional as MMP. Under this system candidates are ranked and the candidate with the lowest number of votes drops out and votes are reallocated among the remaining candidates and so on until a candidate gets the majority of votes. It is unclear whether this would lead to single party or coalition governments, but it would require a national top up to guarantee full proportionality between the larger parties.This system was rejected by the Royal Commission in 1986.

MMP is the better bet provided the proportion of list seats does not go below 40% - i.e. 48 seats in a house of 120. Currently under MMP it is 70/50.When discussing the choices between electoral systems, the discussion should not be which of the electoral systems - FPP, STV, MMP, SM etc – is preferable. Rather it should be whether one supports single party government or multi-party government – or whether one considers that the party with the most votes should get the most seats. Most supporters of single party government will probably prefer FPP. But when they realise that single party governments are less likely to do what the people want and are less likely to keep their promises, FPP support starts to diminish among those that value democratic ideals. Furthermore, as FPP was never designed for national elections it cannot guarantee that the party with the most votes will get the most seats. Indeed, in 1978 and 1981, the winning party, National, got more than half of the seats with less than half the vote. In 1981, National governed with just 38.8% of the vote. Had these elections been held under a Supplementary Member system (SM), with that vote, this would have still been the case.

There has been some discussion over recent years regarding the 1990 election. That year National got 67 seats for just 48% of the vote, and Labour got just 29 seats, as New Labour got the other one. That was more disproportionate than Labour’s 1972 result. That year Labour also won 48% of the vote but got 63% of the seats and Social Credit got its lowest ever election result (6.7%). Just three minor parties have since got a higher share of the party vote, all whom had leaders with parliamentary experience. Similarly, in 1951, the UK Labour Party lost the election despite outpolling the Conservatives and winning a majority of the popular vote. In 1974, Labour won the election despite the Conservatives gaining most of the votes. So FPP fails to ensure that the party with the most votes gets the most seats. FPP is not a fair system when 21% of the electorate can vote for one party and be represented by fewer than 2% of the members of parliament, as did Social Credit in 1981.

In fact, of four electoral systems - FPP, STV, SM, and Preferential Voting (PV), not one guarantees that the party with the most votes gets the most seats because some seats are allocated to parties who have not won them based on their share of the vote. The non-proportional preferential voting system maintains the basics of the Westminster system intact, but allows second-place votes to count towards determining the winner if no party wins more than fifty percent of the vote. FFP is likely to foster majoritarian extremes. Only MMP guarantees that the party with the most votes gets the most seats, and without these extremes.

While MMP makes it easier for a greater number of parties to enter parliament, it is not without problems. In the 2008 election, NZ First got more votes than Act, United Future and the Progressives combined, yet NZ First was out of Parliament because it failed to have its threshold effectively lowered by securing a constituency seat to gain representation. The others remained in Parliament purely because they did. All four parties- along with the Māori Party, polled less than the 5% threshold. Had the MMP threshold been 4%, NZ First would have relied on the threshold for their parliamentary existence, as would have the Christian Coalition when it gained 4.3% in 1996.

Open lists; or either lowering or removal of the threshold – which would prevent the situation where Act got fewer party votes than NZ First, who got no seats - is preferable to introducing a new electoral system such as SM. Also, as the population increases, this will lead to a greater number of electorate seats – and a fewer number of list seats, if the number of South Island electorate seats continues to be pegged at 16. Currently there are 52 list seats ( down from 55 in 1996) and 70 electorates (up from 65 in 1996) – including the seven Māori electorates which currently provide a two seat overhang.

But the fact remains: To the average voter, MMP, STV, FPP, PV and SM are not electoral systems, they are merely letters without much meaning. Prime Minister John Key has said that any change to the electoral system requires a major advertising campaign. "We can't ask people to make constitutional changes without understanding what the options are."

Politics is often seen as two sections: the left and the right. Act will go with National and the Greens with Labour. Many other PR systems are like this. New Zealand is different as we have centre parties that can go either way - United Future and even the Maori Party. So the left/right splits are not so relevant, as we have seen with New Zealand First when they held the balance of power in 1996, and chose National to govern when most thought Labour would have been picked.

There are a lot of matters on our electoral system options that need to be understood. The task of making sure any possible changes are understood will fall on the Electoral Commission.

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Constitutional review

The Government has finally announced details of its constitutional review.

The review will include matters such as the size of Parliament, the length of the electoral term, Maori representation, the role of the Treaty of Waitangi and whether New Zealand needs a written constitution. Bill English and Pita Sharples will lead the review in consultation with a cross-party reference group of MPs. They will write to all party leaders in the next few days and ask them to nominate a representative for the cross party reference group.

This will be followed by a public consultation process, with a break during the second half of next year for the MMP referendum and general election.

The whole process will be completed in 2013. This is after the next Maori Electoral Option and when we know what our electoral system will be after the referenda. It is also after the Electoral Commission’s review of MMP should we decide to stick with it. The Government then has six months to respond to the final report . This is five and a half years after the agreement to undertake such a review.

The only part of this process that will occur before the 2011 election is one of clarifying the issues and developing strategy for engagement. So the public won’t be involved until after the election.

The following will be part of the review:

Electoral matters including:
• The size of Parliament.
• The length of terms of Parliament and whether or not the term should be fixed.
• The size and number of electorates, including the method for calculating size.
• Electoral integrity legislation.

Crown-Maori relationship matters including:
• Maori representation including the Maori Electoral Option, Maori electoral participation and Maori seats in Parliament and local government.
• The role of the Treaty of Waitangi within New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements.

Other constitutional matters
• Whether New Zealand should have a written constitution.
• Bill of Rights issues.

What won’t be part of the review is a discussion on binding referenda, or whether NZ should become a republic.

Any proposals to reform elements of the constitutional framework will only be decided after securing broad cross-party agreement in the House or the majority support of voters at a referendum.

The Cabinet paper is here. Details of the last review are here.

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The Maori Party bill to entrench the Maori seats

So, Hone Harawira, on his second day back in parliament, tried to submit a bill in the ballot to entrench the Maori seats. The bill is in breach of the confidence and supply agreement between the Maori Party and National, as neither party is to pursue entrenchment or removal of the Maori seats.

Harawira claims the bill he submitted was "drafted up to three years ago".

I know for a fact that the final draft -at least for a similar bill - was some time after October 2008 - and possibly well into 2009, assuming Harawira's bill was drafted properly. That's because I had a copy of the bill, but the bill while entrenching the seats, did not entrench the Maori electoral option. You can read what I wrote about that at the time here and here.

After those two posts, which I was told that all Maori Party MPs read, they decided to amend the bill to entrench the Maori Electoral Option, which was the correct thing to do. But of course National won the election and the bill was shelved. Instead Labour put one in, but, under standing orders, the bill requires a 75% parliamentary majority to pass, which means both major parties have to support it to enact it.

Now, Harawira has said the bill had been entered by "mistake". Did anyone else in the Maori Party know he put it in the ballot? If not, why not?

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Rodney Hide to resign over Maori seats

post has been updated
Rodney Hide says he will have to resign as minister if Auckland gets Maori seats on the super council, as it is fundamentally against the culture of New Zealand. He even said it won't threaten the stability of government as Act will still provide confidence and supply.

He's wrong about the seats. He's partially right about the stability; as the Maori Party also provides confidence and supply, stability wont be threatened even if Act withdraws its support.

My take is simply this: Auckland should get the seats.If Hide wants to resign it is up to him, but he`d be a hypocrite not to if Auckland get the seats. Audrey Young said this in October last year

Act's Rodney Hide put his weight behind the Maori Party last night, supporting any move to entrench the Maori seats on the basis that what was good for the general seats should apply to the Maori seats too.

Whereas here he says the Maori seats are " just wrong". If they are just wrong, why support entrenchment and stand ACT candidates in the Maori electorate at the 2008 election?

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Labour's friends are deserting them

Matt McCarten has written a pretty good column in which he notes that Labour is lacking prospective coalition partners. The Greens realised this a while back which is why it is trying to rort the system to give the left more votes.

But Labour losing its friends is the fault of Helen Clark. That's what happens when you go into Government with support of the only parties that won`t last if their leaders go - NZ First and United Future. The Greens and the Maori party rely on different cleavages for their support - post-materialistic and ethnic - and these cleavages are rising in New Zealand's version of multi party politics. Plus, the Greens have seen themselves as Labour's natural coalition partners - but were snuffled when UnitedFuture and NZ First said they would not be part of any coalition with the Greens.

But any future majority coalition government may well need the support of the Maori Party or the Greens - or both. But its the Greens who are the "last cab off the rank" at the moment. The Maori Party is the centre party of this election - the only party that is pissing them off is the party that needs them the most - the Greens.

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