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1.Retain the five percent threshold:
At present, if a party does not win a constituency seat, it has to
attain five percent of the total voter share to gain representation.
This should be retained. The threshold prevents extremist microparties
from gaining an electoral toehold and attacking the human rights and
civil liberties of vulnerable minorities, including ours. To abolish it
altogether or reduce it would open the door to the sort of shenanigans
that prevail in Italy or Israel when they try to form governments, given
the absence of such safeguards.
2. Raise/Abolish the one-seat subthreshold: There
is considerable resentment at circumstances where microparties have
polled under the five percent threshold yet are guaranteed additional
list seats because they have won a single electorate. In the past, this
has meant the Progressive Coalition and ACT secured additional list MPs
despite virtual electoral obliteration otherwise. In Germany, a
subthreshold party must win two constituency seats in the federal
Bundestag if it is gain top-up party list MPs, although the Bundestag is
three times the size of our own parliament, given its larger
population. Either the one-seat subthreshold should be abolished
altogether, or else increased to a minimum of two electorate seats, or
should only activate if a party has polled at four percent total voter
share or more.
3. Retain/Increase Maori Seats:
Maori seats should only be abolished if and when Maori themselves
consent to it. The proportion should be increased to reflect their
demographic proportion.
4. Retain closed party lists:
For strategic reasons, party lists should remain closed. Open party
lists would destabilise party discipline and cohesion and introduce
instabilities that would compromise the operation and efficiency of the
elected legislative branch compared to the executive branch. Closed
party lists prevent that undemocratic development.
5.Dual list/electorate candidacy:
At present, party lists reflect party rankings as decided by the caucus
and party leadership, with incentives to reflect social diversity. If a
particularly important MP loses their seat, she or he can retain their
parliamentary presence through high party list rankings. This has meant
that in the case of our communities, Maryann Street and Charles Chauvel
were returned to Parliament through the list, while Grant Robertson and
Louisa Wall won election as constituency MPs.
As
the Greens have no bolthole constituency seat, Kevin Hague and Jan
Logie were elected through their party list. Again, this should be
retained.
6. Reintroduce the Electoral Integrity Act:
During the first term of the Clark administration (1999-2002), the
government responded to public disdain for disloyal party list MPs who
defected from their party of origin through passing the Electoral
Integrity Act, which led to expulsion of party list MPswho did so
during that term. Amusingly, the ACT Party voted against the measure,
but then had to use it themselves when Donna Awatere-Huata defrauded the
Pipi Foundation of funds and they needed to eject her from Parliament.
Given Peter Dunne's anger at the defection of Gordon Copeland from
United Future after the latter Christian Right MP took exception to
Dunne's liberal conscience when it came to banning parental corporal
punishment of children. As a result, the Kiwi Party was born, despite
the
fact that it was never elected to Parliament in its own right over the
five percent threshold or as a result of winning a bolthole electoral
seat. Fortunately, Copeland failed to win Rongotai from Annette King in
2008 and was thus out of Parliament. Microparties should not be able to
hold major parties and their primary coalition partners to ransom if
they throw temper tantrums over legislative agendas.
What
should we bear in mind when making decisions about what recommendations
should be within our submissions? At the 2011 New Zealand General
Election, the fundamentalist Conservative Party would have won
parliamentary seats had it managed to win Rodney from National, despite
the fact that it only polled about three percent. Had that happened, it
would be able to obstruct progressive legislative reforms and hold
governing coalitions to ransom if it didn't agree to its extremist
citizens referenda proposals, which are a waste of public expenditure
which needs to be earmarked for welfare, health and education
provision. We need to place as many barriers as possible between the
Conservative Party's militant fundamentalist agenda and any possible
attainment of parliamentary seats that might mean that it can
implement them.
Recommended:
New Zealand Electoral Commission: http://www.elections.org.nz
Not Recommended:
Conservative Party: http://www.conservativeparty.
