Pointless byelection held in Port Waikato shows law’s failings - it could swing an election unfairly

Neil Christensen died a week before the general election.

Editorial

EDITORIAL

There has possibly never been a more pointless byelection in this country than the one just held in the Port Waikato electorate. This needs to be said, and it is said with due respect for the late Act candidate, Neil Christensen, who died a week before the general election.

He would not have entertained much hope of winning the seat, and his party obviously did not. Act, like Labour and the Greens, did not put a candidate into the byelection required by the Electoral Act 1993 in these circumstances.

This little-known provision, Section 153A of the act, surprised even political practitioners. Even more surprising, the seat would be additional to the winning party’s proportional tally at the general election. “Who knew?” said National’s deputy leader Nicola Willis.

National Party finance spokesperson Nicola Willis. Photo / Jason Oxenham

The byelection was won on Saturday night, absolutely predictably, by National incumbent Andrew Bayly, with a massive majority of 11,245 votes over his nearest rival, Casey Costello of New Zealand First.

It increases the size of Parliament to a record 123 MPs, adding to the overhang created by Te Pāti Māori winning more electorates than their proportion of the party vote.

Thus, it adds not only the cost of an unnecessary byelection to the public purse, but the ongoing cost of an additional MP. Labour, Act and the Greens did not think it worthwhile to waste their party funds on a byelection so soon after a general election, and the same prudence should apply to public funds.

Cost, though, is not the only consideration. The outcome of general elections in this country can turn on one seat. That was more common under first-past-the-post when every electorate result counted, but MMP has proved capable of producing one-seat margins too.

When the Electoral Act was rewritten for MMP, the legislators of the day obviously did not review the need for a byelection in the event of the death of a registered candidate before polling day. That made sense when the death of a candidate could have changed the Government. It makes no sense when a nationwide vote decides the Government regardless of electorate results.

Electorate contests attract many candidates who have no realistic hope of winning. Many stand in the name of obscure causes, presumably to promote them. To cancel an electorate ballot and go to the expense of a byelection in the event of the death of any of those candidates is absurd.

For the law to stipulate that the byelection result must add to the size of Parliament - rather than simply turn one of the winning party’s list seats into an electorate seat - is doubly absurd. The result need add to the size of Parliament only in the unlikely event the byelection is won by a party that does not have a list seat to transfer.

But really, there is no reason for a byelection unless the deceased candidate had received the most votes. The law, as it stands, saddles voters with needless trouble and the country with needless costs, and could swing an election unfairly. The new Parliament should fix this absurdity before it does real harm.