This year marks the 30th anniversary of the historic referendum to change our voting system from first past the post to MMP (mixed-member proportional). Since our first MMP election in 1996, the look and shape of the country’s parliaments and governments have changed considerably.
Under the first-past-the-post voting system, we usually had single-party governments. Now, coalitions and other governing arrangements are the norm. Indeed, even when larger parties win majorities or near majorities, they often still seek out the support of smaller parties to ensure their government represents a broader range of voters.
Our parliaments are also more demographically diverse than under first past the post, with many more women, Māori, Pasifika, Asian and rainbow MPs.
This all means that our parliaments and governments are now more representative of voters than in the past. But some challenges remain. In particular, although more smaller parties now sit in parliament, nine elections under MMP have demonstrated just how high the bar is for new parties to meet if they want to gain seats. The votes these parties receive – about 225,000 in the 2020 election – are not represented in the final make-up of parliament.
Last year, He Arotake Pōtitanga Motuhake – the Independent Electoral Review was asked by the government to look at ways to improve how elections in Aotearoa New Zealand work, including how MMP could be improved. We’ve recently released our interim report, which sets out our findings and draft recommendations for how to make the electoral system clearer, fairer and more accessible so that as many people as possible can take part.
We’ve found that MMP rules could strike a fairer balance between making sure representation in parliament reflects the votes cast by New Zealanders, while also ensuring governments and parliaments can operate effectively.
Our two main recommendations to improve MMP are about the thresholds that political parties need to meet to win seats. Currently, they must win at least 5% of the nationwide party vote or one electorate seat to get into parliament.
We think the party vote threshold is higher than it needs to be. It could be lowered without too many very small parties being elected to parliament. A lower threshold would also make MMP fairer for supporters of small parties. We’re recommending lowering the party vote threshold to 3.5% – this would be the equivalent of about 100,000 votes in the 2020 election.
If the party-vote threshold is lowered, we recommend the one-electorate seat threshold is abolished at the same time. We heard from people that this rule is unfair, and we agree. It gives voters in some electorates more say than other voters about which parties get represented in parliament.
In combination, we think these changes will make it easier for smaller parties to enter parliament and make parliament more representative, without affecting how well our parliament and government can function.
Our interim report sets out our views and reasoning in more detail, along with some other changes we consider necessary to ensure MMP is as effective as possible. Ahead of delivering our final report to the government in November, we’ve been canvassing the views of as many New Zealanders as possible on how MMP could work better for them.
In two previous referenda, New Zealanders voted for MMP. Now, we need to make sure it remains as strong and healthy as possible for the future.
Deborah Hart is the chair of He Arotake Pōtitanga Motuhake – the Independent Electoral Review panel.
More information about the review can be found at electoralreview.govt.nz.
