Philip Temple writes that our representatives need to remember MMP belongs to us, not them.
Prime Minister John Key, when asked if he thought the Act debacle over David Garrett would affect voter attitudes, answered: "I think it will increase the likelihood that people will vote MMP out ... The public might say, 'Look, very small parties are consuming quite a lot of time', and maybe they will take the view that MMP fundamentally isn't working so well."
This is hypocrisy at the highest level. Mr Key and the National Party colluded actively with Rodney Hide to see he was elected as the member for Epsom, bringing several Act list MPs into Parliament in order to provide a support partner for National in government.
The National candidate for Epsom in 2008, Richard Worth, was promised a list seat and ministerial post if he did not campaign heavily, and Epsom electors were sold the proposition that they could get two members of Parliament for the price of one. Instead, in this National/Act gerrymander, they were sold a pup.
Dr Worth soon left Parliament in disgrace and we have now witnessed the continuing Act debacle involving perks-buster Hide, superannuitant extremist Roger Douglas and law-and-order pitbull David Garrett.
Mr Key believes all this means MMP "isn't working so well". What it really means is that National's gamble has not paid off.
They should have fought an honest campaign in Epsom and reduced the chances of the Act debacle.
Mr Key is also being disingenuous in not admitting that MMP is not an electoral system cast in stone, and that the one-electorate rule, which allowed Act MPs Douglas, Garrett, Heather Roy and John Boscawen to ride into Parliament on Mr Hide's back, is unique to New Zealand's form of MMP.
We don't need to have this rule. For years, it has been apparent that this is a flaw in our system that should be fixed.
Mixed Member Proportional is the most flexible and adaptable electoral system in the world.
Scotland and Wales have their own versions. Germany has a federal MMP system as well as different versions for state elections.
But Mr Key and the National Party would have us vote next year on whether or not to keep MMP as if the version we began with in 1996 cannot be modified and improved.
We will not be given the opportunity beforehand to discuss the current structure of MMP and to decide what we can do to make it a better fit for what we want now in our electoral system.
We will have to vote for what we have before we can vote to make it better.
So we should be wary we are not being sold another pup by Mr Key and the National Party in presenting us with a "yes" or "no" on the present form of MMP, while offering a choice of other systems which are inflexible, less proportional and fundamentally less democratic.
Why would we want to give up our two votes for just one? MMP means that politicians and parties work harder, have to be more open and flexible.
We have not had weaker government as a consequence. We have had better consensus and we can hand bouquets to Mr Key and Helen Clark for managing it so well.
Another thing that no one seems to remark on - MMP is self-regulating. If a party or a politician doesn't work, we get rid of them.
Where is the Alliance now? New Zealand First? The Progressives disappear next year with Jim Anderton.
United Future is down to Peter Dunne on a small majority. Act is almost certainly for the high jump, if National kicks the gerrymander into touch and stands a strong candidate in Epsom.
MMP works because the voting public has the choice and power under the two-vote system to elect the parties and people we want in Parliament.
MMP belongs to us, not the politicians and what they want.
All of us, and Mr Key, need to remember that.
Philip Temple is a Dunedin writer and electoral commentator. He was recently in Germany and Scotland studying MMP.
