NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather forecasts

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
    • The Great NZ Road Trip
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
    • Cooking the Books
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • What the Actual
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / New Zealand

John Armstrong: Rotten smell rising from one-seat threshold

NZ Herald
7 Feb, 2014 04:30 PM6 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

National is likely to gift East Coast Bays to Colin Craig. Photo / Mark Mitchell

National is likely to gift East Coast Bays to Colin Craig. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Opinion by
National's brushing aside of electoral commission advice an act of self-interest which diminishes our democracy

If there is any such thing as karma in politics, then the National Party should deservedly pay a heavy price at some point for so blatantly putting naked self-interest ahead of the public interest with regard to the no small matter of reform of the MMP voting system.

You might well argue it was naive to have expected anything else.

But National's refusal last year to implement the recommendation of the Electoral Commission to rid MMP of the unnecessary, unfair and deeply unpopular one-seat threshold provision should forever be a large blot on John Key's Government.

Of course, eradicating this legal loophole, which exempts a party from having to meet the 5 per cent threshold if it wins an electorate seat, would have been to National's major disadvantage in making it much more difficult for its minor party allies to bring extra MPs into Parliament.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The one-seat threshold survives simply because it could yet be the difference between National staying in power and going into Opposition. But that does not make it right.

Instead of feeling chastened by its cheating voters of a change in the rules, National will most likely reach "electoral accommodations" not only in Epsom, where it has let Act take the seat in the two past elections, but also in two other electorates.

In Wellington's Ohariu, National will want to avoid splitting the vote for Peter Dunne and stop the Labour candidate coming through the middle.

Similarly, National is likely to gift East Coast Bays to Colin Craig, should his Conservative Party still be polling at only 2 to 3 per cent, to ensure votes for his party are not wasted ones.

However, it seems to have dawned on the Prime Minister just how manipulative all this is beginning to look.

The word "gerrymander"- one not usually associated with New Zealand's voting system - surfaced in questions at Key's weekly news conference on Monday.

Discover more

Opinion

John Armstrong: Fishhooks in the fine print for baby producers expecting a windfall

27 Jan 04:30 PM
Opinion

John Armstrong: Labour tries silent tactics

28 Jan 04:30 PM
Opinion

John Armstrong: Tough-talking Key drapes a flag over rival

31 Jan 08:30 PM
Opinion

John Armstrong: Act finally does something right

02 Feb 04:30 PM

In response, Key chose his words very carefully as he parried further questions about the likelihood and timing of accommodations.

While he wanted to be "transparent" about such deals, he was reserving the right to hold off announcing them possibly until as late as the early stages of the official election campaign.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The Prime Minister's remarks suggest he realises that National has become too blase in turning parliamentary seats into playthings akin to the "rotten boroughs" of old England and a return to more careful political management is in order.

A 3 News-Reid Research poll this week confirmed something which had long been suspected.

Voters do not like such deals where a major party urges its supporters, either by way of a coded statement, a symbolic get-together, an outright declaration or even withdrawal of its candidate, to cast their electorate vote for a minor party ally in order to engineer a parliamentary majority.

Close to 70 per cent of would-be Labour voters were opposed in principle to such deals. The rejection rate was even higher among supporters of the Greens and New Zealand First.

Perhaps most surprisingly and most significantly, some 35 per cent of National supporters also opposed the practice.

Those people along with the wider public are justified in feeling they have been cheated.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

They were promised a review of MMP if it survived the 2011 referendum on it continuing to be New Zealand's electoral system. It did survive. The review was conducted by eminent Electoral Commission figures of unimpeachable character who had no axes to grind.

Among other things, they recommended abolition of the one-electorate threshold, saying it unfairly gave voters in some electorates "significantly more influence" in determining the make-up of Parliament.

The German MMP system's equivalent of the one-seat threshold was introduced to ensure ethnic minorities concentrated in specific parts of the country had a voice in the Bundestag.

In the New Zealand context, the purpose of the one-seat threshold was never obvious. It is now seen by members of the royal commission which recommended MMP to have been a mistake.

The Electoral Commission also recommended the provision for "overhang" seats should be axed and Parliament be kept to a maximum of 120 seats.

This change would have rendered it pointless for National to let Act or other minor parties each secure even a lone seat as those would probably be cancelled out by National losing MPs to make room for them.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

National's response to those recommendations, which had wide support from those making submissions to the review, was cunning but also predictably self-serving.

Justice Minister Judith Collins loftily announced there would be no changes as the convention that there be an all-party consensus for measures altering aspects of the electoral system was lacking.

This seemingly principled stance played on public ignorance by conveniently neglecting to mention it was National and Act which were blocking such a consensus.

At least Act's new leadership has accepted that relying on National not fighting in Epsom is not a viable strategy for guaranteeing Act's parliamentary survival long-term.

Even so, National and Act are certain to test the patience of Epsom voters for a third consecutive time at the forthcoming election to ensure Act's new candidate, David Seymour, gets into Parliament as insurance should National need the slight mathematical advantage his presence would bring in increasing the odds of National remaining the governing party.

To his immense credit, Act's new leader, Jamie Whyte, has flagged his resignation should he fail to make hay from the accommodation - which will guarantee a party vote for Act is not a wasted vote - to lift Act's total party vote to a level which would see him join Seymour in the House.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

It may be a long shot, but giving Whyte time and breathing space to try to raise Act's poll rating to, say, 1 or 2 per cent, is probably one reason - along with the public antipathy towards accommodations - why Key is suddenly not being definitive about them.

He will also be conscious of the danger of National being associated too closely with the likes of Craig's Conservatives and their capacity to cause political embarrassment.

No one knows better than Key that giving voters a nod and wink as to how they should tick the ballot can come badly unstuck - as in the case of the Epsom "cup of tea" with John Banks which partially derailed National's election campaign in 2011.

Using such exercises as symbolic means of communicating how people should vote had some value when voters had to be gently prodded to tick for the first time the name of someone not from their favoured party.

Now that voters are far more conscious of what might be required of them, Key's desire to be more direct and transparent is the right call.

That is not sufficient excuse, however, to remove the stench of something rotten in the state of New Zealand's democracy.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Debate on this article is now closed.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from New Zealand

Business

Why Marlborough bach owners face soaring power charges

09 May 04:10 AM
New Zealand

New $28m sport centre opens in Tauranga with family fun day

09 May 04:03 AM
New Zealand

Meet the solo mums who are not single parents

09 May 03:56 AM

One tiny baby’s fight to survive

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from New Zealand

Why Marlborough bach owners face soaring power charges

Why Marlborough bach owners face soaring power charges

09 May 04:10 AM

Marlborough Lines says remote properties can’t access low-user plans.

New $28m sport centre opens in Tauranga with family fun day

New $28m sport centre opens in Tauranga with family fun day

09 May 04:03 AM
Meet the solo mums who are not single parents

Meet the solo mums who are not single parents

09 May 03:56 AM
'How they do it in the West Coast': Man disfigures family dog in drunken attack

'How they do it in the West Coast': Man disfigures family dog in drunken attack

09 May 03:36 AM
Connected workers are safer workers 
sponsored

Connected workers are safer workers 

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • What the Actual
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven CarGuide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP