Neville Lobb: Government of and by the party

Opinion

Last month the people of New Zealand witnessed the latest flaw in the MMP electoral system in the Mt Albert by-election.

Two prominent candidates for the Mt Albert seat, Melissa Lee, National and Russel Norman, co-leader of the Green Party, were soundly beaten by David Shearer, Labour Party. Regardless of this comprehensive electoral defeat, as sitting list members of Parliament they retain their seats in the House of Representatives.

This is a travesty of democracy carried out at the expense of the taxpayer. The structure of MMP is complicated, fatally flawed, undemocratic and not properly understood by many New Zealanders.

Under MMP half the members of Parliament are unelected and selected as list members by unknown processes by political parties. Under this system we are seeing some members, who have been rejected in constituency elections, entering or retaining their seats in Parliament as list members.

In last year's general election we saw some other members who were rejected by the voters in their electorate taking seats in Parliament. Examples are Darren Hughes of Otaki and Steve Chadwick of Rotorua, who have been installed as chief and junior whips of the Labour Opposition in the new Parliament.

Another example of this undemocratic process is Sir Roger Douglas being selected in a hurry by the Act Party as a list member and vigorously seeking to be appointed as a minister in the new Government. The National Party has also selected a number of members by an unknown process to enter the new Parliament as list members.

To cap this travesty of democracy, we saw Peter Dunne of the United Party jumping ship from Finance Minister in the Labour Government to become a minister in the new National Government. And finally, in the last Government, we witnessed an unelected list member in the New Zealand First Party, Winston Peters, entering the Labour Government as Foreign Minister.

Under MMP the government of the day is decided upon by the party vote at a general election. In other words government of the people by the party for the party.

An example of this was the recent passing of the Auckland Super City Bill, which was rammed through Parliament under urgency and passed in all its stages by the party vote, totally ignoring the time honoured "ayes and no's" lobby. Parties come and go as recorded in our parliamentary history but the electoral role of registered voters remains sacrosanct.

In any reformed electoral system, the practice of list members entering Parliament through the back door of MMP, which is wide open to cronyism or even bribery, must be eliminated. Any new electoral system chosen by a binding referendum must be based on the fundamental principles of true democracy which are simple, transparent and perfectly understood by the people:

1) One electoral roll of registered voters, regardless of colour, creed or race.
2) One vote for each registered voter.
3) A Government to be formed by a group or party of any political persuasion who register the largest number of votes in a general election.

In the simple words of Abraham Lincoln 164 years ago: "We here highly resolve ... that government: of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

In a true democracy it is vital that there be fair representation in Parliament. This can be simply achieved by ensuring that there are equal numbers of registered votes in each electorate or constituency.

The number of electorates should be proportional to the number on the total electoral roll to ensure a workable Parliament. As individual voters, groups or parties can stand for Parliament, it is important that a ceiling be placed on the amount of money that is spent on the promotion of each of their causes. This should also include outside organisations such as religious groups.

I doubt whether the public of New Zealand realise the enormity of the problem facing us as our democratic rights are being insidiously eroded by MMP.

In contemplating a change in our electoral system by a binding referendum, we are faced with two main problems.

The first is the general apathy of the public towards politics. For instance, only 50 per cent of the registered voters on the Mt Albert electoral roll turned out to vote on June 13. The second is that as MMP has been in operation for some time and as we have got used to it, it will require a massive public education campaign to alert the public to its many flaws and, moreover, to set out clearly in the referendum options, the basic principles of democracy, namely one electoral roll, one vote per registered voter and government by the party registering the largest number of votes.

An undue delay in holding a binding referendum on electoral reform will only exacerbate the gradual diminishing of our democratic rights.

The result of the referendum must ensure that New Zealand returns to government of the people, by the people, for the people.

* Neville Lobb lives in Tauranga.