New Zealand Adopts Proportional Representation by Keith Jackson Alan McRobie

Author:Keith Jackson, Alan McRobie [Keith Jackson, Alan McRobie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General
ISBN: 9780429680304
Google: tqqbDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-04-26T04:54:02+00:00

The CBG’s case against MMP

The nub of the CBG’s case against the adoption of MMP was, at first, overwhelmingly negative. MMP, it argued, would result in an increased number of MPs and therefore additional costs to taxpayers. Second, larger electorates would greatly increase the workload of constituency MPs, especially those representing rural areas, and, as a direct consequence, substantially reduce their effectiveness — local areas would lose local representation. Third, since political parties would determine the shape of party lists, list MPs would be answerable only to their party and electors would thus effectively be denied their right to choose nearly half of their MPs — this, claimed the advertisement, was undemocratic. Fourth, coalition governments would result in small parties holding the balance of power. Fifth, the economy would react adversely to coalition governments. All of these disadvantages, the CBG contended, would increase the power of political parties at the expense of electors. Nor would there necessarily be an improvement in the performance of the political system; less accountability was likely to result in a continuation of broken promises, and it was doubtful if the public’s trust and confidence in its MPs and the political system would improve (CBG, 1993a, 1993b; Canterbury Digest, 1993:26; NZH, 23 October 1993). It also claimed that Maori spokespeople had stated that FPP gave better representation for Maori because “if Maori did not fit into a party they would be effectively barred” (CBG, 1993b:21 October 1993), and that there was no guarantee that MMP would be good for women because parties would continue to control the candidate selection process — a changed political culture was required (ibid., 24 August 1993).

In its first issue of Referendum Review (1993a: I) the CBG claimed that the Electoral Reform Coalition had “consistently failed” to explain how improvements to the political system would result from the adoption of MMP: “MMP won’t change MPs, won’t make them more honest, won’t stop them from breaking promises.” The third issue asked: “Why should we trust the political parties any more than we do now?… Once having gained the power to appoint Members of Parliament the ‘king makers’ of the political parties will have no trouble in gerrymandering the system to suit themselves” (ibid.). Predictably, these attacks prompted the advocates of MMP to challenge the CBG to detail how it would bring about an improvement in the political process. Shirtcliffe responded by announcing that the CBG would propose a plan for reforming parliament (Press, 10 July 1993). The effect of this was to force the CBG to inject positive proposals for reforming the existing electoral system into the public debate.

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