In conclusion, I would say that electoral reform, in terms of introducing proportional representation, does have a positive effect on levels of democracy. The greatest part of this is that it encourages the feeling that an electorate is actually participating in the government of itself and its country rather than just selecting the lesser of many evils and trying to ignore it until it is time to repeat the process. Instead people begin to question what is being done and why, therefore becoming more deeply involved with the democratic process.
It has also resulted in the electorate demonstrating their dissatisfaction if their chosen representatives fail to act in a manner in line with public opinion. This shows that there is increased awareness of the right of the electorate to hold representatives accountable. The demonstration of this should engender a far more consultative approach to the policy making process by the political parties as they begin to recognise that failure to do so endangers their prospects for re-election.
For New Zealand, the next few years will be very interesting and will undoubtedly see further developments in democracy. Two notable examples of public pressure to increase accountability and the ability of the electorate to influence policy are the M-Pact campaign, which aims to get MPs on contracts that clearly state their responsibilities to their constituents, and the campaign for greater use of referenda. The M-Pact campaign intends that MPs be treated as employees of the country and that their responsibilities be enshrined in contractual documents. If an MP failed to honour the terms of the contract, they would obviously be held accountable, the clear setting down of their responsibilities in the contract making this easier to do. The pressure for greater use of referenda takes two forms, greater use of referenda in general and greater opportunity for referenda to be held at the behest of the electorate. In the first case, a method of voting that is easy to use would be required, the suggestion being that voting should take place through the use of a telephone voting system, which would bring elements of direct democracy into a modern state. The introduction of this system would entail a high initial cost, but once in place would be fairly cheap to administer provided it was possible to guarantee the security of the system against hackers who could either attempt to tamper with results or undermine the importance of secrecy in voting. The introduction of more Citizen Initiated Referenda (CIR) would require high administrative costs unless they were held via the telephone voting system outlined above. However, the fiscal cost would be outweighed by the democratic benefit of greater levels of involvement in policy decisions, with results that are almost immediate. The immediacy of this system is important, as it would mean that interest in the political process could be sustained as voters feel they have the opportunity to influence it at more frequent levels, thus bringing policy to the grass roots level.
However, these are all possibilities for the future and so, for the time being, New Zealand will just have to wait to see if these ideas or others like them come into fruition but at least there is hope for the continued development of democracy.