No MMP referendum

Last year, Justice Minister Andrew Little teased us with the prospect of a referendum at the next election on the unfair MMP threshold. But buried in the announcement on their (not) "binding" cannabis legalisation referendum is some bad news: that won't be happening either:

The Justice Minister also confirmed there will be no other government initiated referendums at the next election.

So, I guess we're not going to see MMP made more democratic then. Not that Labour ever really cared about that - they're happy with a high threshold, because it limits political competition. But its another example of how they're wasting the opportunity of government, even when change would be pushing on an open door.

(I'm not sure if this means Little is also ruling out the proposed referendum on the End of Life Choices Bill happening at the next election, or whether that's not a "government-initiated" referendum).

The threshold has to go

Another election, and once again we've been reminded of the unfairness the two major parties built into MMP in an effort to stack it for themselves and prevent competition. ACT got 14,510 votes and one seat in Parliament, while the Conservatives got 86,616 votes - almost six times as many - and none. While I do not like the Conservatives, that is not fair and it is not right.

This is not about the "electorate lifeboat" (which this election benefited the Maori Party and no-one else). It is about the threshold. It is an anti-democratic measure whose sole effect is to limit political competition and silence small parties unless they are lucky enough to win an electorate seat (or, in the case of ACT and United Future, be patronised by a larger one). We've seen that small parties can function effectively in Parliament as a voice for their voters, and we've seen that this doesn't affect the stability of the government one bit (to the contrary - a plurality of options means the government has an easier time passing legislation). And the counterfactual cases show that there is nothing to be afraid of here (though of course people would vote differently in such cases, just as they voted differently when their votes counted under MMP). There is simply no reasonable argument for maintaining such an anti-democratic measure in a democracy. The threshold has to go!

MMP: Against the threshold

Now we've voted to retain MMP (by a bigger margin than when we first adopted it in 1993), the statutory review clause kicks in, and we get a chance to improve it. The review will be conducted by the Electoral Commission rather than politicians (though politicians will still get the final say, since they'll have to pass the legislation through parliament), and they'll release an initial consultation paper and call for submissions in February. It will focus on six specific questions, which do not include the Maori seats or the size of Parliament. The first of these is obviously the threshold, so here's my thoughts on it:

What thresholds parties should have to cross to qualify for an allocation of list seats in Parliament? None. The threshold distorts our democracy, preventing the natural rise and fall of parties, and creating perverse and downright toxic incentives for parties to either gift seats to others or attempt to disenfranchise large blocks of voters. Many European proportional systems have no threshold, and our system would work perfectly well applying the Sainte-Laguë formula directly to the party vote.

The "justifications" for the threshold - "extremism" and "instability" - turn out to be myths when examined closely. There simply are no political parties in New Zealand toxic enough to justify disenfranchisement (if it can ever be justified). Looking at the counterfactuals (with the caveat that voting patterns would undoubtedly change without a threshold), the 2011 election would have seen the Conservatives and ALCP gain representation; 2008 would have given us NZ First, the Kiwi Party, and Bill & Ben. None of these parties represent anything to be afraid of (well, no more so than ACT), and they are as worthy of democratic representation as you or I. And none of those results would have led to the feared "instability". While there would have been more small parties in the middle, there would also be easy governing coalitions available, and the presence of multiple possible support partners dilutes the power of each. The oft-cited bogeymen of Israel and Italy are the result of those countries' respective political cultures, not of their electoral systems.

Which is why supporters of the threshold seem increasingly to be relying on the idea of "effective parties" as a defence. The ideas is that a small party of less than six MPs cannot function effectively in Parliament, due to lack of debate spaces, primary questions, and select committee spots (not to mention punitive proxying rules). Against that, we've seen several small parties - the Progressives in 2002 - 2005, ACT and United Future in 2005 - 2008, ACT and the Maori party in 2008 - 2011 - do exactly that. But more generally, the question of whether a given party is "effective" or not can only be answered by the voters it represents. If Parliament's rules reduce the effectiveness of small parties, then the onus is on the House to change those rules, not on voters to change their preferences.

The Royal Commission on the threshold

I've been browsing the report of the Royal Commission on the Electoral System over the last few days, and found something worth noting. As people may recall, the Royal Commission originally recommended that New Zealand's version of MMP use a 4% threshold. They regarded a lower threshold as likely to endanger "effective government" - something that has both been proven false by subsequent developments in our political culture, and which is a highly dubious goal anyway (lest anyone forget, "effective government" gave us the Revolution. Consensus government under MMP stopped it). As for a higher threshold, this is what they said:

[W]e view a 5% threshold as too severe. Under such a proposal a party would need almost 100,000 [now 114,000 - I/S] votes to gain one list seat. In our view this would, in New Zealand, be too great an obstacle to the development of new and emerging political forces.

Naturally, Parliament overwhelmingly opted for a higher threshold, with only 13 MPs out of the 78 present opposing it (Hansard here). Its difficult to see this as anything other than an attempt by the two major parties to prevent the development of those "new and emerging political forces". Back in 1993, they were afraid of political competition - and likely still are.

As we've seen, a proliferation of small parties does not prevent Parliament from functioning. Rather, it ensures that more people are represented. The existence of the threshold undermines this. It also undermines one of the most important processes in a democracy: the rise of new parties to replace the old. Many political scientists are worried that the threshold is a recipe for de facto oligarchy, with new or breakaway parties facing a completely artificial barrier to representation and public visibility. The barriers are not as high as they were in the days of FPP - but when the aim is to ensure that as many viewpoints as possible are represented, they should not be there at all.

As for how to fix this, it would be nice if the government was to pick up the torch of electoral and constitutional reform again - but I don't expect that to happen. Which leaves us with the option of a Member's Bill. Unfortunately, these aren't really the right tool for the job: changes to the electoral system should be floated early and widely debated by the public, not literally drawn out of a hat to be voted on in a fortnight. OTOH, public debates don't come from nowhere, and putting forward such a bill would be a good way to start one.

What the Royal Commission really said about the Maori seats

Several people (including National Party spinmeister DPF) have sought to defend John Key's position on the Maori seats by referring to the 1986 report of the Royal Commission on the Electoral System, Towards a better democracy (finally online thanks to the Electoral Commission). The Royal Commission indeed recommended the abolition of the Maori seats if MMP was introduced - but they said a few other things as well. So as with the size of Parliament, I thought it would be worthwhile to review their thoughts on the matter.

The Royal Commission began its chapter on Maori representation [PDF] with a review of the history of the Maori seats. I've covered this topic before, so I'll skip that part and instead cut to the interesting bit. After public consultation, the Royal Commission found near-universal support for the seats among Maori, and thought that any discussion of their future should start from the position that the seats were highly symbolic:

The Maori seats have significance for Maori in ways that go beyond the issue of political representation... Although they were not set up for this purpose, the Maori seats have nevertheless come to be regarded by Maori as an important concession to, and the principal expression of, their constitutional position under the Treaty of Waitangi. To many Maori, the seats are also a base for a continuing search for more appropriate constitutional and political forms through which Maori rights (mana Maori in particular) might be given effect... It is in this context that Maori views concerning the seats should be understood.

They then move on to questions about the representation of minorities in democratic societies and of Maori political interests in particular. They conclude that while Maori share many of the same interests as other New Zealanders (interests in health, employment, the education system etc), they also have distinctive interests of their own related to both the Treaty and their poor socioeconomic position which should be represented in the political sphere. The Royal Commission concluded that these distinctive interests were best represented by Maori MPs. They then moved on to extract five principles of Maori representation:

1. Maori interests should be represented in Parliament by Maori MPs.
2. Maori electors ought to have an effective vote competed for by all political parties.
3. All MPs should be accountable in some degree to Maori electors.
4. Maori MPs ought to be democratically accountable to Maori electors.
5. Candidate selection procedures of the political parties should be organised in such a way as to permit the Maori people a voice in the decision of who the candidates are to be.

These principles must be applied in a manner which meets the requirements of electoral equality and fairness to all political parties, candidates, and voters.

Fairly clearly, separate Maori seats under FPP did not measure up. While they had resulted in Maori being represented by Maori (and Maori well-versed in tikanga at that), they ghettoised the Maori vote, and ensured separatism, not just of Maori, but also of Pakeha. The fact that general MPs were not accountable to Maori voters meant that the interests of Maori were routinely ignored - and not just by National. Labour's utter dominance of the seats meant they could take Maori voters for granted, and so had little incentive to develop policy to appeal to them. Despite all this, they thought that given FPP, they were better than the alternative (no Maori representation at all), and recommended that they be retained (though with a proper Maori option) if the electoral system was not changed.

Under MMP, the story was quite different: the list system would meet all the requirements of the principles, and so they recommended that the Maori seats be abolished if MMP was chosen. However, that did not mean the end of "special representation". Their elaboration of MMP in Chapter 2 included this twist:

In recognition of the special status of the New Zealand Maori population, and of the relatively small number of Maori voters, we have proposed that no threshold apply to parties primarily representing Maori interests. This waiver could be extended to parties representing other minority ethnic groups, such as Pacific Islanders, if this was thought desirable.

The exact criteria for a party "primarily representing Maori interests" was left undefined, but I have no doubt that the current Maori Party would qualify. For some reason, National's spinners prefer to forget this part - mainly because they're more interested in slapping down Maori to pander to the redneck vote than in ensuring fair electoral representation to all.

Finally, and most importantly, regardless of which electoral system was chosen, the Royal Commission recommended that Parliament and the government enter into a wide-ranging consultation with Maori "about the definition and protection of the rights of the Maori people and the recognition of their constitutional position under the Treaty of Waitangi". It was also noted that

The abolition of guaranteed Maori representation under any circumstances... would make [this] even more important and more urgent, given Maori views about the constitutional and symbolic role of the seats.

In other words, while they supported abolition, they explicitly opposed the sort of unilateral abolition by a Pakeha majority advocated by John Key and Don Brash before him. And if the seats were abolished, they felt that some other means would need to be found of ensuring institutional protection for Maori rights, to ensure a Pakeha-dominated Parliament could not continue its past (and sadly continuing) habit of ignoring them. So its rather misleading to say, as DPF does, that National is merely "stand[ing] up for the recommendations of the Royal Commission which recommended getting rid of them".

The politics of elimination

There's a perfect illustration of the problem with the 5% threshold in today's Herald: according to National Party environment spokesperson Nick Smith, what stopped National from gaining power last time wasn't the fact that not enough people voted for them - it was that too many people voted for the Greens. If National could have attracted just one in twenty Green voters, then the Greens would have been driven below the 5% threshold, and (all other things being equal) National would be in power.

I absolutely loathe this "feature" of our MMP system - but I loathe more those politicians who seek to game it to eliminate small parties from Parliament. This is a deliberate policy aimed at disenfranchising people and rendering their votes meaningless. Unfortunately, we're going to have to put up with it until the threshold is where it ought to be: at the level required to gain a single seat.

That aside, Smith is using this point to argue that National needs to compete more strongly for the Green vote, and proposing policy changes to try and capture those votes. This is something we should welcome. It is a Good Thing when parties actually compete for votes, and competition from National will force Labour and the Greens to respond in kind. But if National wants to capture some Green voters - or have a chance at gaining Green support after the next election - might I suggest they tackle the really big issue: climate change. Otherwise, they're simply tinkering around the edges, and literally fiddling while the planet burns...

Update: Smith's speech, "A Bluegreen Vision for NZ", is here.