Saturday, September 12, 2009
Why National supports Supplementary Member and the Greens oppose it
Heres how the New Zealand House of Representatives would have looked under the Supplementary Member electoral system, with the current seat numbers in brackets for comparison.
New Zealand National Party - 65 seats (58)
New Zealand Labour Party - 40 seats (43)
Māori Party -6 seats (5)
Green Party - 4 seats (9)
Act New Zealand - 3 seats (5)
Jim Anderton's Progressive - 1 seat (1)
United Future New Zealand - 1 seat (1)
National would have governed alone, may as well have had FPP, with no bridle on executive power.
If the five percent threshold was to be removed:
Under SM, only National and Labour would be affected, both losing a seat to New Zealand First. Under MMP, National would have 3 fewer seats, Labour 2 , the Greens 1 , with Act getting an extra seat. Three additional parties will enter parliament: New Zealand First with 5 seats, with Bill and Ben and the Kiwi Parties gaining one seat each.
Had the 2008 election been under SM, Act would have still have got more seats than NZ First- even without a threshold - and with 10,000 fewer votes.
So, does anyone else think that, in the context of discussing electoral systems, a reduction of the MMP threshold would be preferable to the adoption of the SM system, with or without a threshold.
