Electoral reform in New Zealand has been a political issue in the past as major changes have been made to both parliamentary and local government electoral systems. A landmark reform was the mixed-member proportional (MMP) system, implemented in 1996 following a public referendum.
National elections in New Zealand were first held in 1853 and were conducted over a period of two and a half months. At this time, the country was divided into 24 electorates, who elected one, two or three members () depending on their population. In the multiple-seat districts, block voting was used; in the single-seat districts, basic first-past-the-post (FPP) was used.
This mixed system was in use for a long time, with major diversions being only a change to the second ballot system (a type of two-round system), used for the and and swiftly repealed in 1913.
In referendums in 1992 and 1993, New Zealanders voted to adopt the MMP system, a form of proportional representation combining single-member electorates and list MPs. This was first used in . Proportional representation led to an increase in minor parties entering Parliament, making multi-party governments the norm. Since the introduction of MMP, there have been occasional proposals for further reform or reversal of PR. In a 2011 referendum, New Zealanders voted to retain MMP.
Overview
The first-past-the-post voting (FPP) electoral system, used in New Zealand for much of its history, was a simple plurality system, in which voters marked their preference for the candidate they wish to represent the electorate they live in. The candidate or candidates that garners the most votes through this process is then elected to Parliament. Generally, elections conducted in this manner result in an absolute majority, in which the party who wins the most votes wins a majority of seats and has the absolute power in the house. The only deviation from this in New Zealand during the FPP era was before the 1890s during which each member was independent and as such no political parties existed.
A bill was put forward in 1887 to divide the country into two districts, each of 20 members, and to use STV to elect the members. However, it failed to pass.
With the appearance of a New Liberal Party and the Independent Labour League, the old-time two-party system crumbled significantly. As early as the 1890s, in such ridings as Ashburton the successful candidate had been elected with less than half the votes cast in the district – in 1893 with as few as 32 percent of the vote.
In the 1905 election, for the first time, all members were elected in single-member districts. Concern for fairness and avoidance of the bad effects of vote spitting led NZ to try out a majoritarian system of voting.
The second-ballot system used from 1908 to 1913 was a modification of the existing FPP system. A first election was held same as under FPP, but it guaranteed that a candidate to be elected, must garner over 50% of the votes in their district. If no one reached this threshold in the first count, a new round of voting was conducted featuring only the two highest polling candidates, this ensured one or the other received more than half the vote. This was discontinued in 1913, NZ reverting to FPP in single-member districts, the successful candidate winning by plurality, which in many cases was less than half the votes. As well, FPP was producing majority government but not since 1935 has a government been elected by a majority of the votes.
Many NZ voters became dissatisfied with this voting by the 1990s. Mixed-member proportional (MMP), as seen in New Zealand from 1996 onward, is a type of proportional system wherein each voter has two votes. One of these is for the candidate in their electorate and one is for the overall political party. The party vote is what ultimately decides the number of seats each party gains in parliament, with any shortfall between the number of electorates won and the party's overall percentage of the party vote made up by list party members elected.
The impetus to change from FPP to MMP was largely due to the excessive disproportionality FPP elections are prone to. Prominent examples of this include the 1966 election, in which the Social Credit Party gained 9% of the vote and yet won only a single seat. Furthermore, this disproportionality often lead to the successful party winning less overall votes than the opposition, but gaining more seats. An example of this is the 1978 election, in which the Labour Party won more than 10,000 votes (0.6%) more than the National Party but gained 11 fewer seats in Parliament.
Another major factor that highlighted the weaknesses of FPP was the potential abuse of power that could occur. New Zealand does not have a written Constitution, and as such it is subject to change. Under FPP the power is concentrated with the leader of the winning party. Prime Minister Robert Muldoon showed this clearly when he illegally abolished the Superannuation scheme upon his election in 1975. Though the Judiciary ruled this move illegal, they were unable to halt the action and Muldoon faced no repercussions for this abuse of power.Fitzgerald v Muldoon and Others 2 NZLR 615
Due to these factors, in 1979 the Labour Party adopted policy to seriously consider the adoption of proportional representation in place of the contemporary FPP system. While changes resultant from this were extremely delayed, the undercurrent of support for electoral reform continued and were bolstered by the commissioning of the Royal Commission on the Electoral System in 1985 which ultimately recommended a change to MMP. Finally, both the Labour and National parties entered the 1990 election with policy for a referendum on electoral reform. (The National Party won majority government in the elections of 1990 and 1993 with less than half the votes – evidence of the effects of vote-splitting under FPP, a system not well-suited to the multi-party system that NZ had.)
With both major parties calling for referendum on reform, a referendum to test public sentiment was held in 1992. The 1992 referendum represented the first tangible governmental step towards electoral reform. The results of this referendum overwhelmingly supported change and selected MMP as the preferred electoral system to replace FPP. Due to this a binding referendum was held the following year in 1993, offering a choice between these two systems. MMP was selected by a vote of 53.9% to 46.1%, a majority in favour of change. and was implemented before the next election in 1996.
Parliamentary electoral reform Authority for government in New Zealand is derived from Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi), which was signed in 1840. The meaning of Te Tiriti is complicated by the fact that the Maori and English texts of the agreement are not entirely consistent in their meanings. While the English version is generally interpreted to have ceded absolute sovereignty, the Māori version only cedes governorship. Practically, in the years since 1840, the English interpretation was generally privileged. Thus, New Zealand officially became a British colony and was ruled by a governor until 1852, when the British government passed the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852. This Act established settler self-government in New Zealand by the way of a bi-cameral Parliament consisting of an appointed Legislative Council and a House of Representatives. Following this, the first government was elected using a simple first-past-the-post electoral system, with single and multi-member districts. Importantly, political franchise was only extended at this time to male land owners over the age of 21, which disqualified many Māori due to their communal ownership of land. Furthermore, no women were extended the right to vote. However this changed in 1893 when New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to allow women the right to vote.
Establishment of Māori electorates In response to Māori antagonism towards the governments of the time due to their general lack of franchise, in 1867 the Māori Representation Act was passed, which established four additional Māori electorates throughout the country. Each of these would each elect a single member to Parliament, who was mandated to be full blooded Māori. However, all Māori males over the age of 21 were allowed to vote in these electorates regardless of their bloodline. Initially, these seats were created on an interim basis with a provision for their removal after five years had passed. Despite this, the Māori seats have remained even to this day as a part of the New Zealand political framework and have even been expanded in the Electoral Act 1993.
Introduction of universal suffrage Universal male suffrage was introduced in 1879 by the passing of the Qualification of Electors Act, which abolished the previous requirement to own land. As such, all European men aged over 21 were now eligible to vote in New Zealand's elections. The only qualifiers to this were that to be eligible to vote, one must have resided in New Zealand for 12 months and in a specific electorate for 6 months. This had an immediate and profound effect on the number of registered voters as they rose from 82,271 (71%) of the adult European population in 1879 to 120,972 (91%) in 1881. Furthermore, this allowed for election of people of different class to Parliament, including many 'working men'.
Under huge pressure from suffrage campaigners led by Kate Sheppard, universal women's suffrage followed in 1893 with the passing of the Electoral Act 1893. With this, New Zealand became the first self-governing nation in the world to grant women the vote. However, women still had not gained the right to stand for Parliament. Women's suffrage only allowed women to vote for existing male candidates and as such, there was still a great deal of progress required until women had the same legal rights as men in these regards.
Second-ballot system 1908–1913 The second-ballot system was introduced in the Second Ballot Act 1908 and was one of the first substantive reforms to the mechanism by which winning candidates are elected to Parliament to be seen in New Zealand. This system modified the original first-past-the-post electoral system to require the winning candidate in each electorate to have gained over 50% of the overall votes cast within their constituency. When the leading candidate did not achieve this, a second ballot would be held a week later featuring only the two leading candidates, to assure an absolute majority of votes was achieved. This method is otherwise known as runoff voting. However, this system only remained in place for five years as it was abolished in 1913 due to its supposed inequitable nature in the emerging party environment of Parliament.
Return to first past the post Subsequently, New Zealand elections from 1914 to 1993 returned to the first-past-the-post system for parliamentary elections. However, in the newfound party context that had solidified throughout the second-ballot era it had somewhat unforeseen effects. While initially three main parties existed (the Liberal, Reform and Labour parties), the system quickly solidified into a two party system wherein the Reform and Liberal parties combined to create the National Party to oppose the Labour Party. This ushered in an era wherein National and Labour parties dominated New Zealand politics, with only a small number of independent and other party candidates being elected.
Debates around electoral reform