The Electoral Commission will today make recommendations on three major points of MMP. Conservative commentator Matthew Hooton, political scientist Bryce Edwards and CTU president Helen Kelly spar over the issues.
The Electoral Commission will today (in a briefing from 10am) make recommendations on three major points of MMP:
1. The 5% threshold for getting MPs into Parliament via the party vote. Labour wants the threshold lowered to 4%. National and, counter-intuitively, NZ First want it kept at 5%.
2. "Coat-tailing", or bringing in other MPs, proportional to your party vote even if it's below 5%, if you win an electoral seat.
3. The ratio of electorate to list MPs. Maori interests, including National's coalition partner the Maori Party, favour a lift in the number of electorate seats.
On TVNZ's Q+A, conservative commentator and lobbyist Matthew Hooton, political scientist Bryce Edwards and Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly sparred over the issues.
Watch the panel here. A transcript:
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Hosted by GREG BOYED
GREG Our panel Bryce Edwards, Helen Kelly and Matthew Hooten. 5% looks like it’s probably going to go to 4%.
Dr BRYCE EDWARDS – Political Scientist
No one really knows what’s coming on to this report tomorrow, but everyone’s talking about 4%. I think it’s tinkering. It’s not much different. It’s an arbitrary figure – 5%, 4%. I think Hone Harawira was just making a very good case for getting rid of the threshold. There are no good democratic arguments in favour of having a threshold. It’s a way of— It’s incumbency protection. It’s keeping the parties that are in Parliament there and protecting against new parties coming up. And we haven’t seen any new parties come into Parliament under MMP that haven’t already had an MP, so we need to shake up the party system.
GREG He made a really good point as well, I though, Matthew, you know, using the Bill and Ben example. If people thought there was no threshold, they would vote differently; they would think differently.
MATTHEW HOOTON – Political Consultant
Yeah. Well, it also wouldn’t be the end of the world if there were one or two joke MPs in our Parliament as a result of a 0.8% threshold.
GREG Some could argue there was some there now.
MATTHEW Yeah. But I think there is a coherence to what Hone Harawira was saying – 0.8% makes a certain degree of sense. I think, however, in the end what’s going to be recommended is a 4% threshold and getting rid of the coat-tail issue, and they’ll be the two main aspects of the report.
GREG Helen, do you agree? Coat-tailing gone and 4%?
HELEN KELLY – CTU President
I think that is going to be the recommendation. I mean, it’s always hard to get a perfect balance, isn’t it? And I think the issue about whether you have a threshold at all really is an important one in terms of stability. I do think there are examples where that doesn’t work, but also whether people can buy themselves a seat. You know, if there’s no threshold, you can just get enough money to get enough publicity to push yourself over the line, so there is an argument that having some threshold requires a collective effort, a community effort to get a party over the line.
GREG All of this, though, you have to say who is going to benefit most, 5% being the best example. You know, it’s going to be great for various parties if it doesn’t, because they’re not going to be able to get in because the threshold is there; we’re going to be able to take them on board. Is it going, Bryce, to be any better for voters? Really, is it going to make much difference?
BRYCE Well, in the last election we had a turnout rate of 69% of eligible voters, so people were turning away from elections in droves. And the party system isn’t exciting them and inspiring them, so I think we should be creating some sort of system where minor parties, new parties might rise up and knock out some of the boring ones, but that’s not happening. So it’s self-interest in terms of what the political parties have been submitting to the Electoral Commission, and tomorrow we find out whether, you know, they’ve been dominated by the parties.
MATTHEW Except there’s not. The irony here is that the National Party has opted for a 5% threshold in its submissions, and the Labour Party has advocated 4%.
BRYCE Well, they might change their mind.
MATTHEW But if you look at their narrow political interests for the next election, it’s National that will gain, in my view, by a reduction to four, and it’s Labour that would gain by keeping it at five, so I wonder if we’ll see the two main parties flipping their positions on that issue.
GREG On the Tory side of the ledger, though, if it stays at 5%, wonderful news for Winston Peters. As far as United Future and ACT go, it couldn’t— you know, going on the last election couldn’t be much worse, could it?
MATTHEW Well, no, and, I mean, Winston Peters, I think his party will get over 5%, so I think he’s in either way, and that could be perhaps something behind his support for 5%.
BRYCE I think so.
MATTHEW The issue is the Conservative Party. The Christian Coalition of Graham Capill got 4.6% in 1996. Christian parties seem to be in that four to five. Now, Colin Craig’s Conservatives got 2.65% with a very short campaign—
HELEN A huge budget funded by him. A personal budget to get himself into Parliament.
MATTHEW Yeah, but it was— I think with more money and more time – more important than the money would be the time – I think he would get 4%. And, of course, that creates, in my view, the most likely outcome of the next election, which is National, Sir Winston Peters as Deputy Prime Minister and the Conservatives Party.
BRYCE Which is why the Government might accept the 4% threshold being advocated tomorrow by the Electoral Commission.
GREG Bryce, going back to a point you made earlier on – actually, it may not have – one of you made earlier on – there has been no new political movement really since the start of the system. You know, off the top of my head, you’d think there’d be a Pacific Island Party.
HELEN Mana. Mana’s new.
BRYCE But they had existing MPs.
GREG They had an existing MP, and they’re along the Maori lines.
HELEN Yeah, but they’re a new party and a new movement.
BRYCE Yeah, but you can’t get into Parliament unless you’ve got an existing MP is the lesson. So new movements can’t come up organically from outside of Parliament, and that’s a great misfortune—
HELEN But they got in through one MP. You said United Future couldn’t get worse. Well, they’ve only got one MP and he won the electorate, so, you know, it’s probably not going to get any better is a better description of what’s happening there.
MATTHEW I don’t think ACT and United Future are really part of the future—
BRYCE They’re dying—
MATTHEW They’re finished.
GREG Let’s talk about the parties voting for the list. This is something we didn’t actually touch on with our politicians before. That needs to change, do you feel?
BRYCE Well, I think we could be surprised tomorrow by the report that it might suggest a shake-up in how the parties invent their lists. In the case of there might be some provision parties, you know, mandatorily making them have elections – internal elections – to decide the lists.
GREG The utopian hope for this is that more people are going to join political parties so they can have a say. Is that realistic, Matthew?
MATTHEW No, not really. I mean, the law requires it to be a democratic process.
BRYCE Which is vague.
MATTHEW In the National Party, there is a very highly democratic process that they begin with their regional conferences and then their national conferences and then the list gets ordered through this highly democratic process. And then in the final meeting of the list-ranking committee, the leader says what he wants.
BRYCE Exactly.
GREG Would this change the unions and the Labour Party – the involvement, the relationship there? Will that change that?
HELEN Well, of course the Labour Party is looking at how it selects its list. I think if you want to get more people voting, you have to actually change the way – the access of people to the voting system. And that includes things like mobile voting electorates, perhaps compulsory voting, which no one’s actually discussed, but, you know, a whole range of opportunities to get more people participating. You know, why can’t we have buses driving around shopping malls and workplaces and things on Election Day with polling booths in them, rather than expecting people to go to them, going through small towns, having a longer time to vote, you know, than the one day? There could be a whole lot of ways to get people to participate.
GREG Okay, we don’t know the exact what we’re going to see tomorrow, but just briefly, Matthew, what do you think will— the Government will go for, will give a green light to on this one tomorrow?
MATTHEW I think they will decide to accept the recommendations of the report. As I said, that will serve their political interests too.
BRYCE We’ll see self-serving all around, I think, from the political parties’ response to this.
HELEN I think they’ll accept the recommendations, yeah.
GREG Right across the board?
HELEN I would say so, yeah, unless there’s something very very unexpected in there that any party that does it will look self-serving, and probably if they’re self-serving recommendations anyway, why not?
MATTHEW It’s actually been quite a good review process. There’s been people— I did a one-minute submission. It’s a good way—
GREG We will leave it there. We’re running— We’ve run out of time, actually. All three of you, thank you very much.
