Guide to the Initiative Process
Brochure
Forms Index
Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)
How Our (NZ) Government is Elected
How the Party List Seats are Distributed in New Zealand
New Zealand Ballot
New Zealand Virtual Election--Try It Out!
Election of list candidates (NZ)
Update on Proportional Representation in New Zealand
Lessons from 12,000 miles away
Democracy and Stability in New Zealand Politics
The 1999 Election in New Zealand
Official: Poll on New Zealand Electoral System in September 1993
Guide to the Initiative Process
Brochure
Forms Index
The party list is the mechanism which determine the political configuration of parliament. Each party's share of the list seats matches its share of the vote. There is a threshold to representation. In order to claim a seat, a party must win 5% of the list vote.
Proportional representation is compatible with both political and economic stability, as Germany has demonstrated. Economic reform in New Zealand over the past 10 years has been initiated by both Labour and National administrations. The two major parties, and most of the minor ones, agree on economic priorities: To firmly control inflation; encourage competition and competitiveness; diversify production; and attract investment.
If New Zealanders are dissatisfied with their new electoral system,
there is a provision for its reconsideration in 2002.
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How
Our (NZ) Government is Elected
At least once every three years, New Zealand holds a General Election
to choose its Parliament. The New Zealand Parliament is elected using the
Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) electoral system.
Under MMP, you have two votes:
How
the Party List Seats are Distributed in New Zealand
Electorate Seats
The MP for an electorate seat is the candidate who wins more electorate
votes than any other candidate.
Party List Seats
The number of Party Votes won by each registered party which has submitted
a Party List is used to decide how many seats overall each party will have
in Parliament.
If, for example, the Party Vote for the Grandstand Party entitled it to a total of 54 seats in Parliament and it won 40 electorate seats, it would gain 14 further seats which will be drawn from the Party List of the Grandstand Party. Candidates may stand for Parliament both in an electorate and on their Party's List. As a result, the first 14 candidates on the Grandstand Party's rank-ordered Party List who have not been elected to Parliament to represent an electorate will be declared elected as List MPs.
A procedure, known as the Sainte-Laguë formula (after its founder)
is used to decide the number of seats political parties are awarded.
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New
Zealand Virtual Election--Try It Out!
Using our interactive Virtual Election you can use MMP's Sainte-Laguë
formula to work out what would happen if New Zealanders cast their Party
Votes in a particular way.
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Election
of list candidates (NZ)
New Zealand Legislation
127. Election of list candidates---(1) At any general election
any
Secretary of a political party that is registered under Part
IV of this
Act may forward to the Chief Electoral Officer a list of candidates
for
election to the seats reserved for those members of Parliament
elected
from lists submitted under this section.
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Update
on Proportional Representation in New Zealand
by Curt Firestone, Independent Progressive Politics Network
New Zealand has conducted its first national election using the proportional
representation system: mixed member proportional (MMP). And it has worked
beautifully. The electorate understood what they were doing, the political
parties each have a proportion of the seats in Parliament in accord with
the results, more women and more Maori hold seats than ever before, and
a coalition government has been formed.
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Lessons
from 12,000 miles away
The Jenken's Report from the UK
Earthquake prone Wellington: seen political shake-up
New Zealand is giving the UK something to think about.
Just two years ago, it gave up on its Westminster-style elections in
favour of a system of proportional representation called MMP.
Based on the German electoral system, it was introduced in the hope
of bringing a new style of politics to the country.
But all has not gone smoothly. Instead of a new government being formed
overnight, as usually happened under the old system, it took eight weeks
of tough negotiations for a coalition to be formed.
And governing has not been straightforward, either, with Prime Minister
Jenny Shipley sacking her coalition partner and deputy, Winston Peters.
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Democracy
and Stability in New Zealand Politics
Keith Rankin, 25 August 1998
New Zealanders are very confused about what they want from their system of governance. We say we want democracy, but we seem more concerned about stability, which appears to be defined as "a minimisation of the differences of opinion of our politicians"; ie the exact opposite of representative democracy which requires the full spectrum of opinion and cultures to be represented.
I am now inclined to believe that the biggest problem with our current
proportional electoral system is that Parliaments are elected for a maximum
rather than for a fixed term. Norway is an example of stable democratic
governance, under proportional representation, in which early elections
are constitutionally forbidden. The result is a culture of participation,
whereas we have a culture of imposition and opposition. Our opposition
politicians (and especially Labour's front bench), unlike Norway's, try
to "collapse the scrum" rather than play to the "fulltime whistle".
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The 1999 Election in New Zealand
Votes were translated into seats by means of the Mixed Member Proportional
(MMP) electoral system. Electors cast two votes, one for a party, and one
for a candidate in a constituency (electorate, in New Zealand discourse,
of which there are 67). Under New Zealand's version of MMP, parties secure
representation by crossing a threshold of 5 per cent of the party vote,
or by winning one or more electorate seats. The party vote is normally
the only basis for calculation of total seat entitlements for parties that
have crossed the threshold. The process allocates seats from party lists
to top up the seats won in electorates to the number for each party determined
by the Sainte Lague formula
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Official: Poll on New Zealand Electoral System in September 1993
Two questions will be submitted to voters in September 1993. The first
will simply ask whether the voter is or is not in favour of a change to
the electoral system for the New Zealand House of Representatives. The
voter is to mark whichever of the following two statements is preferred:
The present system, which has existed since parliamentary elections
began in New Zealand, is a system of single-member electorates with first-past-the-post
voting and counting in each electorate.
The second question in September, to be answered by and counted for
all voters, regardless of their response to the first question, is to indicate
which one, of four particular electoral systems proposed, the voter would
prefer if the electoral system were to be changed.
The four systems, in the order they are to appear on the ballot-paper,
are:
A. Supplementary Member
B. Single Transferable Vote
C. Mixed Member Proportional
D. Preferential Voting
Most unfortunately, the voting on the choice of these four systems will
be decided by a first-past-the-post count.
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On 4 March 1989 electors in the Australian Capital Territory went to the polls to elect members of the new ACT Legislative Assembly. The electoral system used, termed modified d'Hondt, provided for a form of proportional representation not previously used in Australia.
There are now a number of different electoral systems used to elect
members to the various Parliaments in Australia. This paper provides an
outline of the electoral systems used in Australia together with some of
the systems used in other countries, the paper also provides details of
the method of scrutiny used in the Australian systems. The paper is solely
concerned with the mechanics of translating votes into seats and does not
cover other aspects of the electoral process, i.e. franchise arrangements,
candidate selection, the role of parties or manipulation of the electoral
process.
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On 4 March 1989 electors in the Australian Capital Territory went to the polls to elect members of the new ACT Legislative Assembly. The electoral system used, termed modified d'Hondt, provided for a form of proportional representation not previously used in Australia.
There are now a number of different electoral systems used to elect
members to the various Parliaments in Australia. This paper provides an
outline of the electoral systems used in Australia together with some of
the systems used in other countries, the paper also provides details of
the method of scrutiny used in the Australian systems. The paper is solely
concerned with the mechanics of translating votes into seats and does not
cover other aspects of the electoral process, i.e. franchise arrangements,
candidate selection, the role of parties or manipulation of the electoral
process.
more>>
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