Kicking the tyres of NZ's voting vehicle

Back in 1993 New Zealand changed its electoral system from First Past the Post to Mixed Member Proportional Representation.

After test-driving the process through five governments, on 26 November (along with a general election) voters will get the chance to maintain, modify or scrap a German import and used in only a few countries.

For anyone reared on Australia's federal bicameral system with its messy division of responsibilities between Canberra and the States, the Kiwi process looks refreshingly clean and green. One national one-house parliament, three-year terms, no state governments and no compulsion to vote.

But the impression is superficial. MMP, with its weird jargon of 'overhang seats' and the 'Sainte-Lague allocation formula', is not for ballot-box babes. Grossly over-simplified it gives every elector two votes – one for a candidate, the other for a party.

But a party that doesn't get a national five per cent vote doesn't get a seat, unless it can get a candidate elected. This has led to the bizarre situation where the right wing ACT scored five seats with only 3.65 per cent of the party vote in the last election, while anti-immigrant One Nation got no seats despite 4.07 per cent.

According to the NZ Electoral Commission the 'origins of electoral reform lay in the gradual breakdown of public trust and confidence in politicians, Parliament, and the simple certainties of the old two-party system.'

Other factors included 'decades marked by economic uncertainty and the emergence of new social and political movements' and that although Labour won most votes, National (the equivalent of Australia's Liberals) got most seats.

The other serious criticism was that FPP voting created a system that didn't reflect the reality of the world outside Parliament.

Here MMP has been a success. Almost 34 per cent of the 120 seats are held by women (the Australian figure is 25 per cent). Maori, Asian, Pacific Islanders and gays now feel comfortable in a debating chamber that once caged alpha males.

(There are seven dedicated Maori seats in Parliament, five held by the Maori Party. Altogether 23 MPs are of Maori descent.)

However minority interests can wield real power, leading to the criticism that one or two unlicensed passengers can steer the bus. The previous Labour minority government led by Helen Clark (NZ's first elected female PM) appointed NZ First leader Winston Peters as Foreign Minister to keep the government going.

In the 2008 election campaign John Key, the present PM, promised a referendum in his successful bid to get National into power so voters could, as he said, 'kick the tyres on MMP'.

Voters will get a two-part questionnaire. The first asks if MMP should be retained, the second offers four alternatives – FPP, Preferential Voting, Single Transferable or Supplementary Member.

If most reject MMP a second referendum will follow to select a new system. If voters stay with MMP as the polls hint, there'll be an inquiry into possible changes. The real test will be the turnout; too low and there'll be limited mandate for movement.

Understanding how each system works, the possible benefits and problems requires electors to be serious psephologists and political junkies.

The 1992 referendum that led to the present MMP system attracted a turnout of only 55 per cent. At the time social change was roaring drunk and the political landscape a battleground of ideas and ideals.

The grass has now grown over the sites of savage skirmishes involving race, equality, social justice and the environment. The issues remain but the protagonists have been disarmed by compromise, exhaustion, some victories and the realities of trying to cope in a sagging economy.

It would be difficult to find two countries so similar and close, yet so politically different as Australia and NZ today. The shaky isles have same sex civil unions, an emissions trading system and a popular PM who draws wide cross-class support.

There are no boat people to frighten the masses or big miners to threaten the government. The crisis issues are the price of milk and All Black jerseys.

The endless brawling brutality of Canberra is absent. The Christchurch earthquakes, the Pike River mining disaster and crazy weather that saw snow-smothering Wellington are the real concerns, not some esoteric voting system.

Then there's the Rugby World Cup, just before the election. In NZ they say that rugby isn't a matter of life or death – it's more important than that. Politics won't score after first kick at Eden Park.

The social factors that forced the original referendum have been neutered by time and discovery that Armageddon hasn't arrived because same-sex couples are recognised and polluters penalised.

John Key, 50, appeals because he's perpetually sunny, a latecomer to politics from business, unburdened by the baggage of ideology and hate that drive long-time practitioners of the black arts. As a middle-road liberal he's taken the toxins out of public debate, helped by toothless unions and an exhausted Opposition.

Key's single-parent State-home background should have made him a cloth-cap Labour die-hard. His English father, who died when John was six, fought in the Spanish civil war; his mother had a Jewish background. Instead Key became an international financial trader and a multi-millionaire. Despite this he's got none of the arrogance and aloofness that normally infects such men.

Labour, led by a 30-year veteran politician and nice guy Phil Goff (but not as nice as Jolly John) slumps further behind. He holds his job because there are no clear contenders with the charisma and style to match Key.

If the polls are correct National might end up with an overall majority, not needing the backing of the minorities that get their power from MMP. Which would make continuing debate about voting systems even more academic.