The Christian Vote (5)

Good Morning and Welcome to this week’s Gospel and Culture update, by Alan Vink
The Christian Vote (5)
Tuesday 1st August 2023

MMP – An Explainer

Here is a brief explainer of how New Zealand’s mixed member proportional (MMP) representation electoral system works and it’s implication for the Christian vote. It is written by Dave Crampton. Dave is a Wellington journalist who writes sport for Newsroom, and has covered four elections. He has an Honours degree in Politics from Massey University, where he wrote on electoral systems and parliamentary representation, and has previously worked at Parliament.

We could have a change of government come October 14, the date of the general election. Yet we are not, in fact, going to elect the government unless at least half of us vote exactly the same way as we did in 2020 – resulting in a landslide victory for Labour. Ordinarily we are simply assisting elected MPs to choose among themselves who is to govern by the way we cast our votes.

That’s because since 1996 we have never elected a government – we elect a parliament. The government is decided by the group of MPs who get to govern, usually the largest parliamentary party.

Under MMP, you get to cast two votes — a party vote and an electorate vote. One vote elects a parliament – i.e the number of candidates from each party that become MPs. The other vote decides which person in the area you live in will be your Member of Parliament, just like we used to do for all MPs under the first past the post electoral system .

The party vote is the most important vote, as it helps decide who the governing party is likely to be . We effectively vote for a party whose MPs are ranked on a party list in the priority order that the party wants those candidates to be elected. If a party’s top five MPs on the list are elected via an electorate vote, but the sixth one isn’t, that person becomes the party’s highest ranked list MP provided the share of that party’s vote is high enough. If it is not, that party has no list MPs.

Some candidates may wish to contest an electorate and also be on a party list, so if they don’t win an electorate they can be elected to parliament anyway (provided the party’s share of the vote is high enough). Others, like Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson this year, may just want to stand only for the party list. Still others may contest an electorate seat only, meaning if they are currently a sitting MP they`ll be out of parliament if they don’t win.

If a party gets less than 5% of the party vote, it only gets represented in Parliament if one of that party’s candidates wins an electorate seat, which is what happened in 2005 when Peter Dunne’s United Future got enough votes to get list MP Gordon Copeland elected. Dunne won his seat.

If a party gets more than 5% of the party vote, it gets some seats. In 2002 United Future got 6.69% of the party vote and seven list seats as well as Peter Dunne who won his electorate. .

If a party gets less than 5% of the party vote and no electorate seats, votes for the party, and the candidates. are wasted, or effectively disregarded. In 1999 the Christian Heritage Party's 2.38% of the party vote was wasted - as was the Christian Coalition’s 4.33% of the vote in 1996.

Had there been no threshold, the Christian Coalition would have had several list MPs in 1996. I think the 5% threshold is too high and should be halved to 2.5% after the upcoming review of MMP and the one seat rule should be removed.

A new party, such as a Christian-based party, is unlikely to get 5% of the vote or an electorate seat, but may get parliamentary representation if the 5% threshold is significantly lowered. Unless a party has a sitting MP or has been part of a collective with one, it has never entered parliament under MMP. In 1999 Alliance MP Frank Grover defected to Graham Capill's Christian Heritage Party, briefly giving the party a sitting MP before the 1999 election.

So, in my opinion it’s unrealistic to expect a new party with Christian values in parliament after this year’s general election, and somewhat futile to vote for such a party if you want your vote to count, even if Christians were to speak with one platform and one voice. Even if the 5% threshold was removed, once inside Parliament such a party will have to work with others, probably in opposition and that would inevitably mean that negotiation (and probably compromise) on policy settings and proposed legislation would be required by all parliamentarians.