I’ve embedded below the submission from Stephen Glaister on the MMP review. Stephen argues well against some of the other submissions (including my own) on various issues, so I thought it was worth highlighting his arguments. First he argues against lowering the 5% threshold too low:

But the micro-parties that have flourished under the 5% threshold in NZ (principally because of the one electorate seat waiver) have tended to be simpatico with at least one major party. The sorts of micro-parties that no (or minimal) thresholds would grant representation would be much more selfstanding, and we’d predict, much more fractious and problematic as partners than the sorts of tame micro-parties that have flourished under a waiver-encrusted 5% threshold have been.

A good point. He argues to retain the one electorate threshold saying :

(it) creates incentives for micro-parties to do proportionality-enhancing deals with (interested, politically compatible) larger parties rather than pure overhang, antiproportional deals

He also states:

The threshold expresses a phobia of micro-parties in parliament. But since MMP is a mixed electoral system, parties can get members into parliament anyway if they win electorates. But if a party is going to have a parliamentary delegation anyway (notwithstanding the threshold) then our phobia of micro-parties recommends allowing it to have as many MPs as possible compatibly with proportionality. Additional proportionality itself is valuable, of course, but so is non-trivial team-hood for parliamentary delegations.

This is the best argument for the one electorate threshold. I still don’t like it though because it encourages tactical voting, rather than people voting for the best candidate in an electorate. Stephen also deals with the argument that it is unfair:

A threshold+waiver regime is logically just a disjunction of two boundary rules. Standard, tempting, childish mewling about what are always, partially arbitrary boundaries [24a, 24b] is then sent into overdrive by the target-rich environment of a more complicated, disjunctive boundary.

I especially liked his use of “wah wah” in the submission. As I said I obviously don’t agree with Stephen on everything, but his submission is the best defence of the status quo I have seen.

Glaister

For those interested, I’ve got three speaking engagements next week.

On Monday evening I’m speaking in Auckland on the MMP review to the National Party’s Northern Region Policy Committee. That is open to party members only.

On Tuesday I’m speaking at a forum organised by the Legal Research Foundation on media and new media regulation. This is also in Auckland and open to the public. There is a fee to attend.

On Wednesday I’m speaking at the “Privacy in the age of big data” forum, organised by the Privacy Commissioner. This is in Wellington and open to the public. Also a fee to attend.

A somewhat diverse range of subjects. Hence, blogging may be lighter than normal next week.

Spent this morning at the Electoral Commission hearings into the review of MMP.

I’ve previously blogged on the party submissions, and these were reinforced in their oral submissions. with the exception of the threshold issue, most are calling for no significant change.

Graeme Edgeler submitted in favour of having no threshold, and there was some interesting discussion around that.

I was the only one (so far) who proposed ending dual candidacy and enjoyed when asked about electorate and list MPs saying they are “different but equal”. Yes, I was using an old US quote.

Almost everyone accepted that open party lists are impractical but the Electoral Commissioners did seem quite interested in whether to strengthen the requirement for parties to democratically rank their lists. I proposed that there should be a initial membership vote, which is made public, so the final list can be compared to it to make any changes transparent.

The Electoral Commission is holding hearings for its review of MMP. They are in Wellington on Monday 23 and Tuesday 24 April. Each submitter has 15 minutes.

On Monday at the Ministry of Justice Tribunals- Room 1, Level 1, 86-90 Customhouse Quay, some of the possibly interesting submissions are:

• National 9.15 am
• Labour 9.30 am
• United Future 10.00 am
• Campaign for MMP 10.15 am
• Me 11.15 am
• Graeme Edgeler 11.30 am
• NZ First 12.15 am
• Voters for Change 2.00 pm

I blogged yesterday the positions of the political parties on the MMP review. I’ve amended it for United Future as I had overlooked that they are the one party which supported open lists. Their submission said all list candidates should have to stand in an electorate, and they be ranked in descending order of the percentage of party votes in that electorate their party got. That encourages them to campaign for party votes then. Not a totally bad idea, but you wouldn’t want to be the Labour candidate in Helensville or National candidate in Mangere!

I should also make clear that you can still make written submissions to the review until 31 May 2012. The headline last week was for those who wish to also do oral submissions. These oral submission hearings will start in Wellington on Monday 23 April.

Also the Maori Party submission has now been published. They have some interesting proposals:

• That those of Maori decent be automatically enrolled on the Maori roll, with an option to transfer to the general roll. At present Maori choose when they enrol, rather than have to opt out.
• Lower the party vote threshold (they do not specify to what) as no Maori party has ever gained 5%
• Keep the one electorate seat threshold
• That like the general seats, no Maori seat can be split between the North and South Islands (Te Tai Tonga includes all of the South Island and parts of Wellington)
• To include tribal information in the electoral roll

As far as I know, the Mana Party have not yet put in a submission.

The Electoral Commission has also published the spending of the registered third parties, who spent over the disclosure limit.

The NZEI spent $280,000 campaigning against National and national standards.under

Just behind it was the PSA who also spent $196,000 campaigning against National, including texting people in the final week of the election to vote to support strong unions.

The big money was also with the Campaign for MMP (despite the hysterical claims about business funding the Vote for Change campaign. The Campaign for MMP spent $157,000 while Vote for Change spent a mere $80,000. There was also referendum spending pro MMP by some of the political parties and unions, but under the disclosure limit.

As with previous elections the spending by unions is a magnitude greater than that by business groups.

The Electoral Commission has all the submissions on the MMP review online. There are over 100 pages of them.

I’ve done a table showing the positions of the political parties on the various issues. While they will not necessarily carry huge weight with the Electoral Commission, they do show what there may or not be support for within the House, when it comes to dealing with any recommendations.

Before I go into each issue, I would comment that overall I thought the political party submissions were (perhaps inevitable) very self-interested, and not particularly well argued (little research quoted etc).

On the issue of the party vote threshold, National, NZ First and ACT support it remaining at 5%. I give credit to NZ First for supporting a 5% threshold, when when they failed to make it in 2008. A rare example of principle before self-interest.  Labour and Greens support it reducing to 4% (as do I), and the Conservatives opt for 3.5% and United for 3% – for fairly obvious reasons.

On the issue of the electorate seat threshold to get list MPs, National, Conservative, ACT and United support it remaining. Labour and Green support it going (presumably as a way to stop ACT or United ever gaining List MPs again), and NZ First say that if a party wins an electorate seat then their party vote threshold should drop from 5% to 4%.

On the issue of the ratio of electorate seats to list seats, National and ACT support the status quo. Greens say there should be a set ratio, without saying what. Labour proposes a change to an 80:40 Parliament (even thought that would probably make disproportional results more likely). United goes further and proposes 90:30, so long as there is preferential voting in electorate seats (they believe this means more proportional distribution of electorates, but I would suggest Queensland shows this not to be the case).

The overhang issue has all parties supporting the status quo.

On the issue of dual candidacy (where an electorate candidate can also be on the party list), all seven parties supported the status quo of allowing it. This is no surprise as dual candidacy works very well for political parties. Whether it is so good for voters is another issue.

The parties were also united on the issue of closed lists, with none of them (except United Future who says list ranking should be based on the percentage of party votes a candidate gets) wanting the public to be allowed to rank their lists for them. Again, no surprise.

And once again on the issue of List MPs standing in by-elections, no party wanted a change from the status quo.

In terms of other issues, National suggesting increasing the tolerance for electorate boundaries from 5% to 10%, and Labour and United suggested that List MPs who leave their party should have to leave Parliament.

So overall it is clear that there is no realistic possibility of changes around by-elections, list ranking, overhang and dual candidacy rules. No party supports change there, as it is not in their interests.

There are a couple of differing views on the ration of electorate to list MPs, but none of the parties has come up with a workable alternative to the status quo.

So in reality, the only area where there is a clash of views is on the threshold – 5% vs 4% and whether to have the one electorate seat threshold.

This is not to say that the Electoral Commission will recommend what the parties have submitted. In fact I hope they don’t. They will I am sure apply their own judgement to the issues. But the submissions do show that there is not a lot of parliamentary appetite for significant change.

Submissions on the review of MMP close today for those wishing to appear in person, so of course I finished by submission just after midnight this morning. If you wish to do a written submission only, you have until 31 May.

My submission is below. The summary of my recommendations are:

1. That the party vote threshold be set at 4%, as originally proposed by the Royal Commission.
2. That the electorate seat threshold be abolished, subject to the party vote threshold reducing to 4%.
3. That a party which gains an electorate seat, but does not make the party vote threshold, should be included in the St Lague calculations, but not allocated any quotients in excess of their electorate seats.
4. That sitting MPs be barred from contesting a by-election.
5. That dual candidacies be banned, with the possible exception of party leaders who should symbolically be placed at the top of their party’s list even if standing in an electorate.
6. That parties be required to allow all party members to have a vote on the party’s draft list, and that the results of the membership ballot be made public.
7. That the status quo with regard to overhangs should prevail.
8. That the Electoral Act should set a minimum proportion of List MPs to be 33% of Parliament to ensure proportionality and minimize overhang, and that the total size of Parliament should automatically increase if necessary to maintain that ratio.
9. That the tolerance for electorate seats be increased to 10%
10. That a superior court be given the power to revise the allocation of List MPs, should an electoral petition affect the eligibility of a party to List MPs.

MMP Submission

I have said many times that overall MMP is significantly superior to FPP. But the recent slaughter in Queensland reminds us of something that you don’t get under MMP – the satisfaction of seeing a despised Government crushed at an election.

Australian Labor won only 7 out of 89 seats, despite winning 27% of the vote. Now this is certainly unfair in terms of proportinality. But in terms of teaching a Government a lesson (being don’t lie and don’t run dirty smear campaigns), MMP reduces the impact of losing the public favour. You can’t actually throw out the top Ministers, as they did in Queensland, as they would all remain safe on the party list.

In fact under MMP it is possible Labor could have retained power in Queensland if they did a deal with Bob Katter.

Again don’t get me wrong, MMP is better than FPP overall. But I do miss losing the ability to really punish a Government as they have just done in Queensland.

In my blog at Stuff, I ask the question who should rank party lists?

At Stuff I blog on another issue in the MMP review, namely should List MPs be able to stand in by-elections.

My conclusion:

However I am firmly of the view that List MPs should not be able to stand in by-elections. I think the results of elections should be transparent, and someone from Dunedin should not suddenly become a List MP because of how the voters in Mana voted. The average voter won’t get to grips with the details of how a list MP becoming an electorate MP means a new List MP enters Parliament, and won’t be making an informed vote.

You can comment at Stuff, or here.

At Stuff I blog on the one electorate seat threshold for MMP, as part of a series on the possible changes to MMP. My conclusion:

Overall I think there is a case for removing the electorate threshold, but only if the party vote threshold is lower so that it is easier for parties to make it into Parliament. However, my mind is not yet made up on this issue, as if the threshold is made too low, then stable government is much more difficult, as we have seen in Israel.

You can comment at Stuff, or here.

Just been re-reading the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System which recommended MMP. Was surprised to read that at the time MMP was recommended, women made up only 13% of the NZ Parliament (which was horribly low) but in Germany which had MMP, they were only 10% of the Federal Parliament.

I guess it is a useful reminder that the electoral system by itself won’t determine how diverse the Parliament is.

In fact in 1986 NZ had higher female representation in Parliament than the UK, US and Canada (FPP), Australia (PV), Malta and Ireland (STV), Israel, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Austria and Switzerland (Party List) and Germany (MMP).

The only countries cited as having greater female representation in 1986 were Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

In my By the numbers blog at Stuff I look at the issue of what the party vote threshold should be for MMP. I note:

One of the most important issues is what percentage of the vote should a political party need to get, to gain list MPs in Parliament. Currently the threshold is 5 per cent. You can also qualify through winning an electorate seat, but I plan to discuss that issue in a seperate post.

There are basically four options for the threshold. They are to:

• (A) – Increase it
• (B) – Keep it at 5%
• (C) – Reduce it
• (D) – Abolish it

In general terms, the higher the threshold, the fewer parties will be in Parliament, and fewer parties will be needed to form a government. The lower the threshold, the more parties there will be in Parliament, and more parties will be need to agree to form a government. Also the higher the threshold, the more wasted votes you get.

The Electoral Commission has launched a website for the review of MMP. You can make a submission to the review online.

The review is not binding on Parliament, but will provide a set of recommendations. The timetable is:

1. Written submissions can be made up to Thu 31 May 2012, but if you wish to also make an oral submission then the deadline is Thu 5 April 2012
2. Oral submissions can be made from Tue 24 April to Fri 18 May 2012
3. A proposal paper released on Mon 13 August 2012
4. Submissions close on proposal paper Fri 7 Sep 2012
5. Report presented to Minister of Justice on Wed 31 Oct 2012

So I encourage people to have their say. If you remain silent, then you will be leaving it to unions and lobby groups to dominate the debate.

The issues the review will cover are:

• the thresholds for the allocation of list seats,
• list members contesting by-elections,
• the rules allowing candidates to both contest an electorate and be on a party list,
• the rules for ordering candidates on party lists,
• the effect of a party winning more electorate seats than its party vote share entitles it to,
• the effects of the ratio of electorate seats to list seats on proportionality in certain circumstances, and
• other matters referred to the Commission by the Minister of Justice or Parliament.

Two issues can not be considered, under the law which set up the review. They are the total no of MPs in Parliament, and Maori representation.

It is my intention to blog on each issue individually, and discuss the pros and cons of potential changes.

What I would also like to do is arrange some public forums in major centres, where a range of speakers can advocate for and against some of the significant possible changes. I think hearing a contest of ideas is one of the more effective ways to get people interested in the issues, and to come to a conclusion on them.

I don’t have the resources to do arrange the public forums myself, but am happy to work with some others to do so.

John Pagani blogs at Stuff:

The biggest change people are talking about is to remove the electorate winners’ bonus that allows a party winning one electorate seat to bring in other MPs. The loophole created the shoddy deals in Epsom and Ohariu by evading the rule that requires a party to get 5 per cent to get into Parliament.

As it happens no MP qualified for Parliament this way. The only List MPs are from parties that exceeded 5% party vote.

And why is it shoddy for National voters to vote for Peter Dunne but quite okay for Green voters to vote for Labour MPs in marginal seats?

The single worst feature of MMP is the quality of party lists and the frequency of MPs getting into Parliament with too little democratic mandate.

Lists must be compiled “democratically” but what does that mean? In practice, the people who put together lists are unaccountable. I’ve been involved in list selection in three different parties – small, medium and large – and I’m convinced that the missing ingredient is public input capable of vetoing backroom deals.

The best model is the Greens’ one, where the party’s high priests emit a draft that goes to members, who can rearrange it. This  resulted in Steffan Browning coming to Parliament this year, when the draft list had him unelectably low.

We need the public to have an opportunity for rearrangement of every party list. I am not a fan of so-called “open lists”, where voters can rearrange the list as they vote – they make  the ballot paper too long.

Why not have independently run primary list elections six months before the election? Individuals could get an independent mandate for their place on the list.

I can’t see open lists working, but requiring a party to let all members vote on the final list is a possibility.

Another improvement MMP needs is an increase in the proportion of electorate seats. We could easily have 85 electorate seats – 15 more than today, and consequently 15 fewer list seats –  without disturbing proportionality. That would give more local MPs, with the small parties still tending to keep their status intact. Eighty-five would leave room for about another five or 10 seats to be created with population growth, without needing to increase the size of the House.

John is wrong here on the numbers. If the House in 2002 had 85 seats (and assuming National and Labour won the same proportion), then Labour would have had a three seat over-hang. Also at 95 seats, Labour would have had a 10 seat over-hang and National a two seat over-hang.

Also the Maori Party has had an over-hang in 2008 and 2011, and an increase in electorate seats would possibly increase their over-hang also.

Ministries are big simply because party leaders need to hand out rewards. Now they’re getting even larger because the prime minister is struggling to cram in all his support partners. This is an abuse that we don’t need.

Repeating a lie told by Trevor doesn’t make it true. The Ministry is the same size as under Helen Clark. And in fact the 2011 Ministry has one fewer Minister from support partners than in 2008.

Ministers ranked below about 9 or 10 in Cabinet are not part of the real Cabinet anyway.

This is basically correct. Any group which has more than 10 or so members will inevitably form an inner circle.

Ten MPs would be enough to run super-portfolios, with another dozen as ministers outside Cabinet. That would help create pressure from new talent knocking at the door, and improve the quality of ministers. Most MPs would never make Cabinet – but voters don’t need them to.

This is basically what I have long proposed.

I would reduce the pay gap between MPs and ministers. If there were no financial penalty for losing their jobs, ministers could be fired and resign on a point of principle more easily. Support parties would see policy gains as more important than salary gains.

A highly attractive feature of MMP is it helps make Parliament more powerful relative to the government. If chairs of select committees were to enjoy as much responsibility and reward as, say, ministers outside Cabinet, then that would be an alternative career path for MPs.

I think this is just stupid. Is John saying Jim Anderton stayed a Minister because of the salary, rather than his ability to contribute?

As the result was obvious since election night, I’ve left posting until now. First the results of Part A:

• Keep MMP 57.8%
• Change 42.2%

A very clear decision, and as far as I am concerned MMP is here to stay and any future referendum on our basic electoral system should not occur for several decades. The focus should now go on how to improve MMP, and other electoral and constitutional issues.

Part B saw:

• Informal 33.1%
• FPP 31.2%
• SM 16.1%
• STV 11.2%
• PV 8.3%

The fact that so few were able to vote in Part B suggest strongly that the educational campaign and associated debate was inadequate. This is not a criticism of the Electoral Commission who had a limited budget, but more the media who failed to broadcast any serious debates on the competing systems. The best debate was on Sky News ironically.

There were other factors such as the RWC and the general election also. Plus the general satisfaction with the Government meant MMP was less of an issue as say in 1999 or 2008. I just think it is a pity we never had a decent debate about the merits of MMP vs STV.

Voters in the Maori seats were the biggest supporters of MMP (which is slightly ironic as under FPP there would be 12, not seven, Maori seats) followed by South Auckland. While not a perfect match, the pattern I see is the more left the electorate the more it supported MMP. Wellington was the next strongest area of support for MMP. Overall only 14 out of 70 electorates voted to change from MMP.

Of the four options, the highest and lowest support for each was:

• FPP – 58.1% in Clutha-Southland and Invercargill, 24.5% Wellington Central
• PV – 23.4% Waiariki, 8.4% Selwyn
• STV – 37.9% Wellington Central, 10.25 Clutha-Southland
• SM – 35.9% Epsom, 12.6% Ikaroa-Rawhiti

As a keen student of electoral and constitutional law, there are three major opportunities coming up to engage:

• The review of the 2011 election by the Justice & Electoral Select Committee
• The review of MMP by the Electoral Commission
• The constitutional review by the independent panel established as part of the National and Maori Party agreement in 2008

I’ll blog more on my thoughts re the MMP review next year.

Now that MMP is confirmed, attention will turn to how can one improve MMP. A big issue before the election result was whether the threshold should include gaining an electorate, or just be the 5% party vote. A related issue is should the 5% threshold be lowered or increased.

It is worth noting that not a single MP entered Parliament through the electorate seat threshold. The only List MPs are with National, Labour, Greens and NZ First – who all made 5%. I suspect this result will take some of the sting out of the issue.

I’m voting for STV, not SM, but I do like the cartoon!

I will be voting to change New Zealand’s electoral system from MMP to STV. Having spent many months considering the pros and cons of the five systems, I believe STV is the best system for New Zealand. It retains proportional representation, does away with List MPs, weakens the powers of party hierarchies, and effectively turns every electorate into a marginal seat.

Before I go into the full list of reasons why I think STV is the best system for New Zealand, let’s start with the pros and cons of MMP. As always I stress no system is universally good or bad. It is a trade off.

Good aspects of MMP

• Almost all votes count
• Votes are equal
• Proportional
• Fair to minor parties
• Increased diversity

MMP is definitely an improvement over FPP. But there are aspects of it I don’t like.

• List MPs are indirectly elected through party lists, rather than receiving a direct mandate from voters
• Party leaders and hierarchies have become far more powerful through their ability to rank the list
• MPs who get rejected by voters, can remain in Parliament
• Two classes of MPs – electorate and list, which receive different funding, status and treatment
• Stability of Government. In all five terms we’ve seen a Government minor party implode under the strain. NZ First 96 – 99, Alliance 99 – 02, United Future 02 – 05, NZ First 05 – 08, Maori Party and ACT 08 – 11.
• Minor parties are encouraged to be extreme to attract votes as there is no downside to alienating most voters
• The vast amount of time and energy spent on tactical voting, and coverage of it

So why am I backing STV? First a summary of how STV will work.

• 24 – 30 electorates with 3 – 7 MPs per electorate
• Just one vote for candidates
• You rank candidates in order of preference, or accept the recommended preference order of a political party
• Surplus votes from candidates get transferred to the next preference, as do votes from candidates who are eliminated as lowest polling

Here’s what I like about STV

• It is still a proportional system where basically all votes count, and treats votes equally. It is not as pure a proportional system as MMP, but it is definitely still proportional, not semi-proportional such as SM.
• All MPs get elected directly by the voters. No List MPs whose main accountability is to their party.
• While a party can list its preferred order, voters can ignore them and rank candidates as they see fit. Voters can over-turn a party ranking.
• Better access to electorate MPs. While electorates are larger, there are multiple MPs in each. 120 rather than 70 electorate MPs makes them more accessible.
• Every seat will have a National and Labour MP. Almost inevitably every (general) seat will have at least one National and one Labour MP. That means people can choose to go to the electorate MP they are most comfortable with.
• There will effectively be a cross-party caucus in each seat of MPs from National, Labour and sometimes a minor part. On common issues affecting their area, they will be able to work together to advance change as all of equal status.
• All seats are marginal! Well, not quite. But what I mean is that in every seat there is the potential for National or Labour (or a minor party) to gain an additional MP. This means every seat will be contested vigorously. Even in a safe Labour area like South Auckland, you will have say one definite National MP, five definite Labour MPs and a battle for the 7^th seat.
• The quality of candidates should be greatly improved. Under FPP you can put up a donkey in a safe seat and they get elected. Under MMP a baboon can be a highly ranked List MP and they are impossible to dislodge. However with almost every seat under STV being competitive, parties will be incentivised to select candidates who actually appeal to their local communities, rather than reward unelectable unionists and the like.
• Under MMP minor parties make it on 5% of the vote, which encourages parties like NZ First to appeal to a narrow segment, without concern for how much they offend the rest of the country (such as their attacks on Asian immigrants). Under STV a minor party will generally only get elected if people who are not first preference voters for them, are willing to still give them a reasonable ranking, so it should encourage less extreme policies.

So I am voting for change in Part A and voting for STV in Part B. I am firmly convinced that STV will be a superior electoral system for New Zealand, retaining many of the good aspects of MMP such as proportional representation, but getting rid of many of the bad aspects of MMP.

Incidentally STV does not advantage National, and in fact on the modelling done of 2008 and 2005 elections probably mildly disadvantages it. My preference is based on what is good for New Zealand, not what is good for National.

My Herald column looks at what happens if Winston decides again.

This means that Winston Peters will decide who gets to be Prime Minister of New Zealand for the third time out of six MMP elections. In 1996 he chose Jim Bolger over Helen Clark, in 2005 he chose Helen Clark over Don Brash and if he holds the balance of power in 2011, make no mistake he will choose Phil Goff over John Key, and there will be a Government that can only pass a law if it can get the Greens, Winston, Hone, and the Maori Party to all agree to it.

And imagine the blowout in spending and debt!

Again polls have shown a certain reluctance for National voters to tactically vote for ACT. I speak often to many National supporters in Epsom. To a person, they all want National to have a coalition partner to the right (economically) of National. The debate is whether ACT in its crippled state is worth saving, or whether you do the humane thing and put it to sleep with some electoral euthanasia, allowing a new party to arise phoenix like from the ashes.

The prospect of Winston Peters installing Phil Goff as Prime Minister should be sufficient to resolve that debate. If they do not vote for John Banks, then a change of Government becomes significantly more likely.

Epsom voters now have a clear choice.

MMP is perfect for demagogues such as Peters. He selects who will be on his party list, and they become MPs based on his personal popularity, despite the fact 99% of New Zealanders could not tell you who the top six candidates on his list are. Their loyalty is purely to him, not to the New Zealand public.

STV will still deliver broadly proportional results, but candidates will have to actually be someone whom voters rank high enough with their ballots, to elect to Parliament. This should result in a significant improvement of the quality of candidates, if there is no backdoor through a party list.

I will blog more fully next week on the merits of STV.

On Twitter and Facebook I did an informal survey asking people how they will vote in Part B of the Referendum. I did not ask about Part A. The results were:

The difference between the Facebook responses and the Twitter responses are interesting. Twitter people went massively for STV while Facebook went massively for SM. Very few people went for FPP or PV. Almost all those who chose FPP said they were doing so tactically as they were MMP supporters, and see FPP as the system least likely to win in 2014 if there is a second referendum.

Some tentative conclusions I draw.

1. Those on Twitter and Facebook (well those who follow me anyway) are far more politically astute than the general population, as FPP is by far the most popular option with the public who only know FPP and MMP, but very few picked it in this survey.
2. If one assumes that those who punted for SM tend to be more right leaning, it suggests that people on Twitter are more left-leaning. This reinforces my general impression over a couple of years.
3. I think those who are of a different political persuasion to each other are generally more willing to engage on Twitter, than on Facebook. You tend to see someone’s Facebook page as “their property” so don’t challenge them as much, while Twitter is seen as basically neutral ground and one gets far more challenging of views.
4. Most MMP supporters will vote for STV and most MMP opponents will vote for SM, at least amongst the politically aware. This is based on my general knowledge of those who responded. I didn’t ask about Part A as I didn’t want it to turn into a debate on MMP. I may do a later informal survey on Part A.

I’m still amazed that to the best of my knowledge there are no TV debates scheduled on the referendum. Sure there has been the odd segment on Breakfast TV or Close Up where proponents have exchanged views. But I think the referendum deserves the same scrutiny as the election. There should be a 60 to 90 minute debate or debates. I’d do it like a leader’s debates. Have a couple of proponents for keep MMP and change MMP and a panel of journalists questioning them. Pretty much like Radio NZ did it, but you know on TV where you reach massively more viewers.

This is David Cameron endorsing a vote against AV in the Uk referendum. Whale wants John Key to do the same here, but in terms of our referendum.

Jon Johansson takes the other approach. he blogs:

I was staggered to hear on television Prime Minister John Key say that although he was “not entirely unhappy” with MMP, he intended to vote for change. The PM said while he likes proportionality, he “slightly prefers the characteristics of Supplementary Member (SM)”.

I think Jon’s post is a massive over-reaction. The PM was asked a question and he answered it. He said over a year ago his preference was SM, so this is no revelation or surprise.

We have a Prime Minister who wishes to vote to turn back progress for women participating in parliamentary politics, and a Prime Minister who in defiance of our dramatically changing demographics prefers not to facilitate Asian New Zealanders, Pacifika New Zealanders, or other ethnic Kiwis participating in their own democracy.

Jon is absolutely entitled to his view of John Key, but he is being rather hysterical in his tone, and is overlooking the fact that with 30 List MPs, one can still have plenty of female, Asian, and Pacific representation. It is not minorities that get disadvantaged by SM, rather it is minor parties (or parties that do not win electorate seats).

Jon’s rant is a perfect example of what I have said many times with this debate. Supporters of MMP hysterically denounce anyone who disagrees with them as anti-democratic, when in fact all five electoral systems on offer are perfectly democratic. I do not include Sandra Grey from the Campaign fro MMP in my criticism – I have found her to be very upfront about acknowledging that all systems have strengths and weaknesses, and it depends on what you value most.

If I was a woman I’d be very unhappy that my Prime Minister, one who has seemed to make MMP work rather effortlessly, has decided to favour an electoral system that will make it harder for me or my daughters or grand-daughters to pursue a political career. If I was an Asian or Pacifika Kiwi I’d be concerned that the Prime Minister wants to limit my and my children’s ambitions in the expansion of his own.

I am also, apart from being a political scientist, an ordinary citizen and I am appalled my Prime Minister supports a system that will make my vote less equal than it is now under MMP.

I think Jon makes it very clear how he will be voting. Further Jon is all but advocating people not to vote National. He is in danger of being more of a political activist than a political scientist.

I should point out here that I will  not be voting for SM in Part B of the referendum. I’ll blog in a few days on how I am voting on both parts and why. What I object to is the extremists who condemn people for daring to say they support SM or FPP or any of the five systems. My advice to Jon is to take in a few deep breaths and relax.

I don’t seem to recall Jon objecting so strongly when Phil Goff and Metiria Turei stated their preferences. In fact they have both been far far more vocal than Key on their preference.

Readers will recall Labour’s Electoral Finance Act, and how they rammed it through Parliament despite massive opposition. This shattered decades of rough bipartisan consensus that significant electoral law changes should be decided by either the public, or with support from (at least) both major parties. The Electoral Act is not meant to be the ultimate prize for the winner, where they get to rewrite the rules in their favour.

Hence Simon Power gave Labour a veto over the changes to electoral finance laws. He allowed them to veto reform of the broadcasting restrictions. He went even further than that, and reintroduced third party spending limits, despite the opposition of his own party. He did this with the most noble of motives – to remove electoral law from partisan gerrymandering.

Today Phil Goff shattered that. Radio NZ reports:

“People see a system being rorted, but my advice is that if we vote for MMP, then it will be reviewed.

“If there’s a Labour Government, we’ll take that rort out the system. You’ll have to get five percent to get more seats than simply the electorate seat that you win – that stops the rort.”

Simon Power set up a review of MMP, in case it wins. Phil Goff has just announced that Labour will remove the electorate threshold regardless of what the independent review by the Electoral Commission recommends.

There is a legitimate debate to be had about the threshold, and if MMP is retained the independent review is where that debate should occur. But let us not pretend, this is about any high minded principle. Labour want to legislate away their opponents. Their motivation is to change electoral law, so they will get to form Government more often.

By announcing unilaterally what would happen if Labour is in Government, Phil Goff has shattered the hard won agreement Simon Power achieved that significant electoral law changes should have bipartisan support. Goff has shown that if Labour forms Government, they will make partisan changes to the Electoral Act, to help Labour retain power. They have learnt nothing from the Electoral Finance Act.

This is not about ACT. This is not about whether or not the one seat threshold is or is not a good idea. This is about Phil Goff pledging to ignore the independent review and to use the Electoral Act to favour Labour electorally.

It was a Labour/Green/NZ First voting bloc that gave the Electoral Finance Act. God knows, what they will do if they get to form Government.

John Roughan at the NZ Herald writes:

When Phil Goff called John Key a liar on television the election was over for me. Goff has no class. The more difficult decision on election day could be the referendum. Should we keep MMP?

Goff thinks calling the PM a liar is a good strategy because that what his most fervent activists think and believe. But it does not go down well with swinging voters. You think they would know that from 2008.

Key could have responded and said Goff lied over the SIS briefing. He could have said Goff lied when he ruled out raising the super age just three months ago. He could have easily lowered himself to Goff’s level.

I wish I could see the election result first. There is only one question to ask about any electoral system: will it give a result everyone can respect?

A number of people are saying that. If the election produces an outcome where Winston or the Maori Party decide the Government, then MMP’s popularity will plunge I predict. A vote for change will mean a second referendum in 2014.