tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/mmp-43366/articlesMMP – The Conversation2023-11-24T02:08:27Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2176732023-11-24T02:08:27Z2023-11-24T02:08:27ZThree parties, two deals, one government: the stress points within New Zealand’s ‘coalition of many colours’<p>It might have taken <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/11/20/how-long-does-national-have-to-negotiate-a-coalition/">six weeks to decide</a> the shape of New Zealand’s next government (or three if you count from the final results), but in the end that is the nature of proportional representation. Compromise, trade-offs and haggling are the price of an <a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/what-is-mmp/">MMP electoral system</a> designed to avoid single-party rule.</p>
<p>So, after some intermittently <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/11/election-2023-christopher-luxon-david-seymour-fly-back-to-auckland-after-no-show-from-winston-peters.html">passive-agressive political posturing</a> and much striding through airports, the deals were done and signed off in Wellington today. Both the ACT and NZ First parties have agreed, with exemptions, to National Party’s fiscal plan, tax plan and 100-day plan. </p>
<p>With two of the three coalition parties having run on campaign slogans about “taking back” the country and putting it “back on track”, there was a predictable sense of a return to <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/503153/coalition-details-at-a-glance-what-you-need-to-know">policies of the past</a>.</p>
<p>The Reserve Bank will again be focused on price stability, schools will be required to teach the basics, red tape and civil servant numbers will be cut, the “three strikes” provision will be restored to the Sentencing Act, te reo Māori in government agency names will be reduced, landlords will enjoy interest deductibility, and tax “relief” is again front and centre.</p>
<p>Not everyone got their way, of course. National has had to drop its plan to fund income tax cuts with a levy on foreign property buyers. And ACT’s proposed referendum on the Treaty of Waitangi becomes a Treaty Principles Bill that will go through the select committee process.</p>
<h2>Unpredictable internal dynamics</h2>
<p>Unsurprisingly, in this coalition of many colours, National secures the lion’s share of the <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/503156/cabinet-lineup-for-new-government-unveiled-who-gets-what">30 positions in the executive</a> (including positions within and outside cabinet), holding 19 roles. ACT and NZ First both have three positions inside cabinet, with their leaders sharing the deputy prime minister role in turn.</p>
<p>Past coalitions have tended to comprise one major party flanked by a smaller partner on its left or right. Sometimes, too, those governments (single- or multi-party) have been supported on confidence and supply by parliamentary partners who formally sit outside cabinet but occasionally get executive spots.</p>
<p>But this will be the first formal three-party coalition New Zealand has had: one government based on two agreements wrapping together three parties. A government can only ever speak with a single voice, but this one has multiple moving parts. </p>
<p>It will also have an unpredictable internal dynamic. A single relationship between a senior and junior partner is one thing; this government has three discrete relationships, and they will not always be in harmony. </p>
<p>Incoming prime minister Christopher Luxon had the phrase “strength and stability” on high rotation during negotiations: the structural design of his government will test the bar he has set.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-a-red-tide-in-2020-to-blood-on-the-floor-in-2023-nz-slams-the-door-on-labour-215430">From a red tide in 2020 to blood on the floor in 2023 – NZ slams the door on Labour</a>
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<h2>Dispute resolution</h2>
<p>The shape of the administration, and the <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/301006069/it-will-be-hard-work-former-pm-jim-bolgers-warning-for-christopher-luxon">chequered coalition history</a> of NZ First leader Winston Peters, mean the processes put in place to ensure the effective day-to-day management of the government take on added significance.</p>
<p>Those arrangements are surprisingly thin. A coalition committee will monitor progress against the contents of both agreements. But it will only meet once during each House sitting period. This is a strategic committee, not one established to deal with the routine political challenges associated with keeping a three-way coalition on the rails.</p>
<p>Nor is it entirely clear how the daily conversations required in multi-party governments – including finding time on the legislative agenda to get through two coalition agreements’ worth of work, let alone all of the other policy challenges the next three years will deliver – are going to be structured. Surprisingly, there is no reference to holding regular meetings of the party leaders.</p>
<p>Instead, beyond a beige agreement to “undertake their best endeavours to achieve consensus on Cabinet decisions”, and the now standard MMP commitment to a “no surprises” policy, the parties’ respective chiefs of staff will be the key players. </p>
<p>They are the ones to whom disagreements between parties will be referred. Only if they cannot resolve the issue will the party leaders be drawn in. It is a reactive rather than an active model.</p>
<p>Beyond that, there is the standard commitment to maintain collective cabinet responsibility, and to the long-established “agree to disagree” provisions contained in the Cabinet Manual. And that’s it.</p>
<h2>Potential fault lines</h2>
<p>It is already possible to discern some of the challenges the coalition is going to face. The first will be finding an equilibrium point. </p>
<p>ACT’s more doctrinaire MPs will chafe at being dragged to the economic centre by NZ First. Likewise, NZ First’s social conservatives and economic nationalists will not enjoy aspects of ACT’s libertarianism.</p>
<p>Luxon will be constantly reminded that being a prime minister in a three-party coalition is not like being a corporate CEO – and not all his challenges will come from Peters or ACT leader David Seymour.</p>
<p>For instance, there will be National MPs who were spokespeople during the previous parliament but who now see an ACT or NZ First minister in “their” cabinet seat. In time, ambitious people who missed out on ministerial appointment can become restive. </p>
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<p>More broadly, tensions may well emerge between cabinet’s role as the centre of policy and political decision making and the prerogatives of individual ministers. It is not hard to envisage, say, a National minister pressing ahead with policy in their department rather than having always to run the coalition gauntlet in cabinet. </p>
<p>If this happens on any serious scale, not only will the fundamental principle of <a href="https://www.dpmc.govt.nz/our-business-units/cabinet-office/supporting-work-cabinet/cabinet-manual/5-cabinet-decision-3">collective responsibility</a> come under pressure, whole-of-government coordination (which is likely to be tested anyway by plans to cut the public service) will become challenging.</p>
<h2>A loose federation of parties</h2>
<p>Finally, small parties that prop up larger ones in office have often fared badly at the next election. </p>
<p>Having returned National to office in 1996, for example, NZ First came within 63 votes in Tauranga from tumbling out of parliament in 1999. In 2020, three years after installing a Labour-led government, it was turfed out. </p>
<p>ACT has no comparable record. But if the past is any guide, if polls start looking shaky for the smaller parties, watch for toys being ejected from political cots.</p>
<p>Today was all about the choreographed unveiling of a new government. But the extent to which the administration’s promises come to pass will depend on how the three parties get on once the gloss has come off and the pressure is on.</p>
<p>The coalition agreements are full of policy. But read the documents carefully and it is hard to escape the impression that, when it comes to the back-office arrangements that make governments tick, this is less a single government in lock-step than a loose governing federation of three parties. Now we get to find out if three parties can fit into one government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217673/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The country’s first formal three-party coalition will test Christopher Luxon’s promise of ‘strong and stable’ government – and the minor parties’ patience if things don’t go their way.Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2170452023-11-05T22:15:30Z2023-11-05T22:15:30ZWinston Peters back in the driver’s seat for coalition negotiations<p>Here we go again. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/national-drops-2-seats-on-nz-final-results-and-will-need-nz-first-to-form-government-215995">final results of this year’s election</a> have delivered two more seats to te Pati Māori, thereby increasing the size of New Zealand’s 54th Parliament to 123 seats (once the <a href="https://vote.nz/port-waikato/about/2023-port-waikato-by-election/">Port Waikato by-election</a> has taken place). </p>
<p>The double effect of this “<a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/500221/election-2023-what-special-votes-and-the-overhang-mean-for-deciding-the-new-government">overhang</a>” is to erase the narrow election night majority held by National (who have lost seats via special votes for the seventh election on the trot) and ACT, and to hand the balance of power to NZ First.</p>
<p>The irony that te Pati Māori’s performance forces three parties who are, at best, <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/nga-mangai-maori-representation/page-3">lukewarm on the idea of Māori seats</a> into formal negotiations won’t be lost on anyone. The larger point, however, is that the results fundamentally change the dynamics of the process required to form the next government.</p>
<p>Until now, contact between National and NZ First has been framed as a means by which Chris Luxon and David Seymour <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/10/08/national-warns-of-second-election-if-nz-first-talks-fail/">shore up the narrowest of parliamentary majorities</a>. But National and ACT cannot now get to that majority without NZ First. </p>
<p>Once again, as he was in 1996 and 2017, Peters is in the veto position, holding the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-beginners-guide-to-new-zealands-strangest-election-31632">balance of responsibility</a>” (as he called it in 1996, and will likely start doing so again) and central to the process of government formation.</p>
<h2>A brief history of Winston</h2>
<p>Given this, it is worth recalling what happened the last time Peters put National in office. The parallel discussions NZ First held with National and Labour following New Zealand’s <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/fpp-to-mmp/1996-and-beyond">first MMP election in 1996</a> took two months to complete, and Peters’ decision to go with National was made just hours before the public announcement of the coalition. </p>
<p>Prime Minister Jim Bolger was informed of this after Peters’ televised press conference had begun, but Helen Clark, Labour’s leader, learned of the decision at the same time the rest of the country did.</p>
<p>The process <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/97807416/that-was-then-what-now-the-1996-nz-first--national-deal">produced the most detailed coalition agreement</a> New Zealand has seen. The document ran to some 50 pages and included detailed commitments in 36 policy domains, a statement of fiscal parameters for the new government’s operations and a supplementary agreement on a range of matters that were not resolved during negotiations.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/long-live-the-kingmaker-winston-peters-and-the-nz-election-24119">Long live the kingmaker: Winston Peters and the NZ election</a>
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<p>Peters secured five Cabinet seats and a further four positions outside Cabinet, as well as a commitment – somewhat bizarrely – that NZ First would take three more seats at the top table in 1998. The government didn’t survive that long, but you can see why this provision angered many within National. </p>
<p>Peters also took on the specially created role of Treasurer, the offer of which swung his decision to go with National. In fact, the books were run by the Finance Minister, National’s Bill Birch, but the splitting of the finance portfolio gave NZ First leverage without making Peters an associate to Birch.</p>
<p>And the whole thing fell apart within two years. Jim Bolger was rolled by Jenny Shipley a year after the election, and the relationship between the new prime minister and her deputy rapidly deteriorated: <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/dismissal-rt-hon-winston-peters">Shipley sacked Peters</a> and formally dissolved the coalition in August 1998.</p>
<p>Given this history, you imagine that Chris Luxon, Nicola Willis and the rest of National’s senior leadership will be approaching the next few weeks warily.</p>
<h2>Where to from here?</h2>
<p>There is much to be done, including establishing the precise shape of the government. Will it be a formal three-party coalition, or will one of the smaller parties sit outside the executive, supporting it on confidence and/or supply?. </p>
<p>Ministerial portfolios will also need to be distributed – members of three parties will probably be competing for a limited number of positions. This means there there are going to be some very disappointed people – who might, over the long-term, become disruptive.</p>
<p>Just as important will be any decisions taken regarding the arrangements for the day-to-day management of the government. These will attract less public attention, but the rules that coalition partners agree to play by are critical – and were at the centre of the collapse of the National/NZ First administration in 1998.</p>
<h2>Negotiation likely to take time</h2>
<p>While there is no constitutional requirement to have negotiations wrapped up by the December 21, which is the last date by which the new parliament must meet, there is a strong political incentive to do so. It will be a bad look if Luxon cannot get his administration organised by Christmas.</p>
<p>One thing is clear: while Peters can negotiate governing arrangements in his sleep, Seymour has little experience of what it takes to form a government and Luxon has none whatsoever. Indeed, the last time Peters sat down to hammer out a deal with the National Party, Luxon was just three years into his time at Unilever and Seymour was 13 years old.</p>
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<p>Adding to the intrigue – especially given the <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/301001519/tova-podcast-relationships-respect-and-resentment--getting-to-know-winston-peters">premium Peters apparently places on respect</a> – is the <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/25-09-2023/winston-peters-vs-david-seymour-their-15-most-venomous-insults-ranked?">animus between Peters and Seymour</a>. Luxon’s pre-election position on talking with Peters – which might generously be characterised as tepid – will also not have gone down well at NZ First headquarters. </p>
<p>And while Peters has, in the past, professed disdain for the baubles of office, he might well demand his beloved Foreign Affairs, or another stint as Treasurer (to the fortunate Nicola Willis’ Minister of Finance). Or seek to deny others – Seymour, perhaps – those baubles.</p>
<p>No one knows what the coming days (or weeks) have in store. We are now at that point in political time when bottom lines become guidelines, and conversations that were <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/501639/act-s-david-seymour-reverses-rule-out-of-working-with-winston-peters-in-cabinet">categorically ruled out</a> start taking place. But we should expect the unexpected when Winston Peters does eventually exercise the “balance of responsibility”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>National and ACT will need to get past their animosity towards NZ First, and its mercurial leader Winston Peters, if the right wing coalition is to have any hope of forming a government.Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2159942023-10-30T23:33:33Z2023-10-30T23:33:33ZSpecial votes mean National and ACT will likely lose their majority<p>This Friday at 2pm (12pm AEDT), New Zealanders will find out the final results of the October 14 election. This tally will include the estimated 567,000 special votes not reported in the preliminary results on election night.</p>
<p>Special votes tend to take a long time to count because they include <a href="https://vote.nz/2023-general-election/about/2023-general-election/facts-about-new-zealand-elections/">votes cast outside a voter’s home electorate</a>. These votes need to be posted back to the home electorate and checked against the electoral roll before they can be counted.</p>
<p>The decision to release the results on a predetermined day three weeks after the election, rather than providing progress updates as the count is completed, <a href="https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/mike-hosking-breakfast/audio/pollies-mps-megan-woods-and-mark-mitchell-on-the-time-taken-to-count-special-votes/">has been criticised</a>. Rolling updates during the counting process, much like Australian state and federal electoral commissions, are preferable. </p>
<p>In past elections, <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/15-10-2023/nz-election-2023-when-will-the-special-votes-be-counted-and-a-government-formed">special votes have favoured left-wing parties</a>, costing the right one or two seats from the preliminary results.</p>
<p>It’s expected 2023 will follow the same pattern. If it does, this will mean the two party coalition made up of the National Party and ACT will need to expand to include NZ First. </p>
<p>So what are the possible combinations New Zealand could see when parliament sits next? </p>
<h2>Special votes likely to hurt National</h2>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2023_preliminary/">preliminary results</a>, National won 50 of the 121 seats in parliament, Labour 34, the Greens 14, ACT 11, NZ First eight and te Pāti Māori/the Māori party four. This gave the right-wing coalition of National and ACT 61 seats, just enough for a majority.</p>
<p>But the results, as they stand, point to the distinct possibility of an “overhang”. An “overhang” occurs when a party wins more single-member electorates than their party vote should entitle them to. </p>
<p>This year, te Pāti Māori won four of the seven Māori-roll electorates on a party vote of 2.6%. They were entitled to three seats, but kept their fourth seat with parliament expanded to 121 seats from the normal 120.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2023-labour-out-national-in-either-way-neoliberalism-wins-again-214723">NZ election 2023: Labour out, National in – either way, neoliberalism wins again</a>
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<p>Some <a href="https://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/election-23-the-special-votes/">commentators believe the most likely outcome</a> after counting of special votes is for National to lose two seats, one to Labour and one to te Pāti Māori. However, the seat gained by te Pāti Māori would entitle them to four seats, eliminating the overhang.</p>
<p>If this happens, National would end up with 48 seats out of 120 and ACT would stay with 11. The right wing coalition would end up with 59 seats out of 120 – not enough for a majority. </p>
<p>Even if National, as expected, wins the November 25 <a href="https://vote.nz/port-waikato/about/2023-port-waikato-by-election/">by-election in Port Waikato</a> that was triggered by the death of an ACT candidate after early voting had begun, the right coalition would hold 60 of the 121 seats, one short of a majority. Labour, the Greens and ACT won’t contest the by-election, so National’s only significant opponent is NZ First.</p>
<p>In this likely scenario, National would need NZ First as well as ACT to achieve a parliamentary majority.</p>
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<h2>The close Māori seats</h2>
<p>There are two close Māori electorate seats where Labour is leading te Pāti Māori by under 500 votes in the preliminary results. While the outcome in an electorate seat is usually unimportant for determining seat entitlements, if te Pāti Māori won one or both of the electorates where they currently trail, the overhang would be extended.</p>
<p>If the 2020 vote pattern holds up in both these seats, <a href="https://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/election-23-the-special-votes/">Labour will narrowly win both</a>. However, the other Māori electorates were much more favourable to te Pāti Māori in 2023 than in 2020. Labour won six Māori seats in 2020 and te Pāti Māori one. </p>
<p>But in 2023, te Pāti Māori has won four electorates while Labour has won one. The other two are too close to call until the results of the special votes have been released.</p>
<p>It is important to note that votes cast outside a voter’s home electorate may reflect the general disposition of the electorate they are cast in. It’s therefore possible that special votes in the close Māori electorates that are cast elsewhere will be better for te Pāti Māori than expected.</p>
<h2>A possible but unlikely scenario</h2>
<p>There is the outside possibility of a National–ACT majority. </p>
<p>To achieve this, National would need to lose just one seat, and that seat would need to go to te Pāti Māori. At the same time, te Pāti Māori would need to fail in gaining another electorate. This scenario would give National and ACT a combined 60 seats out of 120, as there would be no te Pāti Māori overhang. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-makes-a-good-political-leader-and-how-can-we-tell-before-voting-214351">What makes a good political leader – and how can we tell before voting?</a>
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<p>National would then need to win the Port Waikato by-election, giving the right coalition parties a total of 61 of the 121 seats – enough for a majority.</p>
<p>This is possible but, based on previous elections, unlikely. About 20% of the overall vote comes from special votes. In 2020, <a href="https://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/election-23-the-special-votes/">National performed 22% worse</a> in the special votes compared with those counted on the night. </p>
<p>So, the most likely outcome is that NZ First will be needed for a right-wing governing majority.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215994/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ahead of Friday’s final election results, the most likely outcome is National and ACT will need to add NZ First to form a right-wing coalition government. These are the results and seats to watch.Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2154302023-10-14T23:30:03Z2023-10-14T23:30:03ZFrom a red tide in 2020 to blood on the floor in 2023 – NZ slams the door on Labour<p>Close, but so far no “<a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/baubles-come-back-to-bite/T5AYOXKSVQLFAGDZDU7PVQLEPU/">baubles of office</a>” for Winston Peters and NZ First. “We have done the impossible,” he told supporters on election night. But as the old saying goes, politics is the art of the possible. </p>
<p>For the past two weeks, as the polls showed NZ First climbing towards and then past the 5% threshold for securing seats in parliament, all the talk was about how Peters – the great survivor of New Zealand politics – might exercise the balance of power.</p>
<p>In the event, many things now hang in the balance. New Zealanders will have to wait until the variables and peculiarities of the <a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/what-is-mmp/">MMP electoral system</a> shake down once special votes are included in the final results.</p>
<p>But there’s no denying the laurels on the night went to Christopher Luxon’s National Party. It outperformed recent polling to secure 38.9% of the vote and 50 seats in the new parliament. All that, plus an <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby-world-cup-2023/300989415/rugby-world-cup-all-blacks-triumph-over-ireland-in-epic-quarterfinal-in-paris">All Blacks victory</a> the next morning too.</p>
<p>The ACT Party will reflect on a night which, if not quite as good as earlier polling might have delivered, still resulted in 8.9% of the vote and 11 seats.</p>
<p>For Chris Hipkins and the Labour Party, however, it was a terrible evening. Labour’s 26.9% of the vote is barely half what it achieved just three years ago, and its second worst performance since 1969. </p>
<p>Labour lost a slew of electorates – including seats such as Rongotai, Wellington Central and Mt Roskill – which have rarely not been red. The road back for Labour will be a long one, and it begins with a much-diminished caucus. </p>
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<h2>End of an era</h2>
<p>Ironies abound in this election. Under MMP, the party vote determines the overall outcome, but the votes cast in constituencies have shaped the size of the next parliament. </p>
<p>The unfortunate death of an ACT candidate means NZ First’s leader may yet be kingmaker. Parties hostile to the very existence of Māori seats may have to work together because of what happened in those electorates.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-national-on-the-night-as-new-zealand-turns-right-2023-election-results-at-a-glance-214560">It’s National on the night as New Zealand turns right: 2023 election results at a glance</a>
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<p>But beyond those minutiae, something else happened last night. Three years ago, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party won the largest share of the popular vote since 1951, largely on the basis of the trust voters placed in her political leadership and her government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>Last night, a New Zealand that no longer wishes to be reminded of those dark times closed the door on the government that led the country through them.</p>
<h2>Not so ‘minor’ parties</h2>
<p>Behind the raw numbers lies another story. The combined two-party vote for National and Labour was just 65.9%, the lowest since 2002. It may soon be time to retire the “minor” shorthand used to refer to the other parties now embedded in the political landscape.</p>
<p>The Greens have real cause for celebration, adding four seats to the ten they secured in 2020. The party held the key urban seat of Auckland Central and also picked up Wellington Central, comfortably winning the party vote in that electorate too.</p>
<p>Te Pāti Māori’s performance in doubling the number of its parliamentary seats to four was striking: reward for confident, assertive leadership from Rawiri Waititi (the incumbent for the seat of Waiariki) and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer (the new MP for Te Tai Hauāuru). </p>
<p>At just 21 years of age, new Waikato-Tainui MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke – who toppled foreign affairs minister Nania Mahuta – becomes the youngest representative ever elected in Aotearoa New Zealand.</p>
<p>NZ First, on the other hand, will be feeling frustrated. Yes, it is back in parliament with eight seats, after three years on the sidelines. But Winston Peters is not (yet) in the kingmaker position most major polls were predicting just days ago.</p>
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<h2>The maths of MMP</h2>
<p>Te Pāti Māori’s strong showing means the 54th Parliament will probably have 122 MPs, including the additional seat that will be added following the Port Waikato by-election to be held on November 25.</p>
<p>Crucially, this means at least 62 seats will be needed to form a government. National and ACT currently control 61. Assuming National holds Port Waikato, between them they will be able to cobble together a bare majority. </p>
<p>However, if either National or ACT lose seats when the official results are announced on November 3, Port Waikato would become irrelevant: if he hasn’t already done so by then, Christopher Luxon would have to pick up the phone and speak with Winston Peters.</p>
<p>And it’s worth pointing out National has routinely dropped seats once special votes have been counted at each of the past six elections: two in 2017 and 2020, and one in every election between 2005 and 2014. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2023-polls-understated-the-right-but-national-act-may-struggle-for-a-final-majority-215528">NZ Election 2023: polls understated the right, but National-ACT may struggle for a final majority</a>
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<h2>Forming the next government</h2>
<p>It is possible, therefore, that the business of stitching together the next government will not be entirely straightforward.</p>
<p>That process is unusually permissive under New Zealand’s election rules. Parliament must meet within six weeks of the return of the writs (November 9), but there is no formal requirement that a government be in place at that point.</p>
<p>Moreover, the shape, substance and duration of the process is for the political parties to determine. The Governor-General steers clear of proceedings, and some of the arrangements that apply elsewhere – the appointment of a “formateur” to oversee the process, for instance, or the requirement that the largest party is included in the government – do not apply in New Zealand. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-pebble-in-the-shoe-to-future-power-broker-the-rise-and-rise-of-te-pati-maori-212089">From 'pebble in the shoe' to future power broker – the rise and rise of te Pāti Māori</a>
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<p>It’s all a <a href="http://briefingpapers.co.nz/how-mmp-works-freestyle-bargaining/">little freestyle</a>, which explains why the country has had such different government formation processes and outcomes since the first MMP election in 1996.</p>
<p>If National and ACT maintain the number of seats they won on election night, the only barriers they face to the formation of a government are internal ones. </p>
<p>Negotiations will likely have been concluded by December 22, the day the Governor-General will deliver the Speech from the Throne containing the incoming government’s policy priorities.</p>
<p>But any slippage and all bets will be off. NZ First’s support will be required to form a government. And if Winston Peter’s chequered history with the National Party is any guide, negotiations could quickly turn difficult. But for now, NZ First – and New Zealand itself – must wait.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215430/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The final outcome of the general election may not be known for two weeks. But one thing is clear: the country has resoundingly rejected the government that led it through the pandemic.Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155282023-10-14T21:00:41Z2023-10-14T21:00:41ZNZ Election 2023: polls understated the right, but National-ACT may struggle for a final majority<p>While the tide well and truly went out on Labour on election night, there are still several factors complicating the formation of a National and ACT coalition government. Special votes are yet to be counted, with the official final result still three weeks away.</p>
<p>In past elections special votes have <a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2023-final-polls-suggest-nz-first-likely-kingmaker-as-the-left-makes-late-gains-214462">boosted the left</a> parties. If that is the case this year, we won’t know by how much until November 3. Consequently, the preliminary results may be slightly skewed against the left. </p>
<p>On <a href="https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2023_preliminary">these figures</a>, National won 50 seats (up 17 since the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_New_Zealand_general_election">2020 election</a>), Labour 34 (down 31), the Greens 14 (up four), ACT 11 (up one), NZ First eight (returning to parliament), and Te Pāti Māori/the Māori party four (up two). There are 121 seats overall (up one from the last parliament).</p>
<p>While National and ACT currently have 61 combined seats, enough for a right majority, if past patterns hold they will lose one or two seats when the special votes are counted – and thus their majority.</p>
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<h2>Several variables in play</h2>
<p>There are two other complications. First, there will be a November 25 by-election in Port Waikato after the death last Monday of an ACT candidate. The winner of that by-election will be added as an additional seat. National is almost certain to win the by-election.</p>
<p>Second, Te Pāti Māori won four of the seven Māori-roll electorates and Labour one. In the other two, <a href="https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electorate-status.html">Labour is leading</a> by under 500 votes. If Te Pāti Māori wins both these seats after special votes are counted, it would win six single-member seats, three above its proportional entitlement of three.</p>
<p>The new parliament already has one overhang seat due to Te Pāti Māori’s electorate success. If it wins six, the new parliament will have 124 members (including the Port Waikato by-election winner). That would mean 63 seats would be needed for a majority.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-national-on-the-night-as-new-zealand-turns-right-2023-election-results-at-a-glance-214560">It’s National on the night as New Zealand turns right: 2023 election results at a glance</a>
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<p>National, though, would be assisted if Te Pāti Māori’s party vote increases from the provisional 2.6% to around 3% after special votes are counted, but it wins no more single-member seats. That would increase Te Pāti Māori’s seat entitlement to four and eliminate the overhang. </p>
<p>Then, if the right drops only one seat after special votes and National wins the by-election, National and ACT would have a majority.</p>
<p>While National performed better than anticipated given the late trend to the left in the polls, National and ACT are unlikely to have a combined majority once all votes are counted, and National will likely depend on NZ First in some way.</p>
<h2>Polls understated the right</h2>
<p>Party vote shares on the night were 39.0% National (up 13.4%), 26.9% Labour (down 23.1%), 10.8% Greens (up 2.9%), 9.0% ACT (up 1.4%), 6.5% NZ First (up 3.9%) and 2.6% Te Pāti Māori (up 1.4%).</p>
<p>For the purposes of this analysis, the right coalition is defined as National and ACT, and the left as Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori. NZ First has sided with both left and right in the past, and supported the left from 2017 to 2020, so it is not counted with either left or right.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2023-from-one-way-polls-to-threats-of-coalition-chaos-its-been-a-campaign-of-two-halves-213650">NZ Election 2023: from one-way polls to threats of coalition ‘chaos’, it’s been a campaign of two halves</a>
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<p>On the preliminary results, the right coalition won this election by 7.7 percentage points, enough for a majority despite NZ First’s 6.5%. In 2020, left parties defeated the right by a combined 25.9 points. But it’s likely the right’s lead will drop on special votes.</p>
<p>The two poll graphs below include a late <a href="https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/9362-nz-national-voting-intention-september-october-2023">poll release from Morgan</a> conducted between September 4 and October 8. I have used September 22 as the midpoint. This poll gave the left parties a two-point lead over the right, a reversal of an 8.5-point right lead in Morgan’s August poll.</p>
<p>The current result is comparable to the polling until late September and early October when there was a late movement to the left.</p>
<p>Overall, it looks as if the polls <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2023_New_Zealand_general_election">overstated the Greens</a> and understated National. The polls that came closest to the provisional result were the 1News-Verian poll and the Curia poll for the Taxpayers’ Union. </p>
<p>In 2020, <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-election-year-nz-voters-should-beware-of-reading-too-much-into-the-political-polls-198508">polls greatly understated</a> the left; this time the right was understated. </p>
<p>It’s possible media coverage of the possibility of NZ First being the kingmaker drove voters back to National in the final days. By 48% to 26%, respondents in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/11/guardian-essential-new-zealand-poll-labour-picks-up-steam-days-out-from-election?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">Guardian Essential poll</a> thought NZ First holding the balance of power would be bad for New Zealand rather than good. For now, any such concerns are on hold.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215528/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With final results awaiting the inclusion of special votes, the shape of New Zealand’s next parliament hangs in the balance. Here are the variables in play.Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2145602023-10-14T11:06:43Z2023-10-14T11:06:43ZIt’s National on the night as New Zealand turns right: 2023 election results at a glance<p>From winning a single-party majority in 2020, Labour’s vote has virtually halved in 2023. Pre-election polls appear to have under-estimated support for National, which on the provisional results can form a government with ACT and won’t need NZ First, despite those same polls pointing to a three-way split.</p>
<p>While the Greens and Te Pāti Māori both saw big gains, taking crucial electorate seats, it has been at the expense of Labour. Special votes are yet to be counted, and Te Pāti Māori winning so many electorate seats will cause an “overhang”, increasing the size of parliament and requiring a larger majority to govern. </p>
<p>There will also be a by-election in the Port Waikato electorate on November 25, which National is expected to win. So the picture may change between now and November 3 when the official result is revealed. But on tonight’s count, the left bloc is out of power and the right is back. </p>
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<h2>Big shift in the Māori electorates</h2>
<p>Te Pāti Māori has performed better than expected in the Māori electorates – taking down some titans of the Labour Party and winning four of the seven seats. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="This map shows the boundaries of Māori electorates" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553764/original/file-20231014-17-v2jj61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553764/original/file-20231014-17-v2jj61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553764/original/file-20231014-17-v2jj61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553764/original/file-20231014-17-v2jj61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553764/original/file-20231014-17-v2jj61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=994&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553764/original/file-20231014-17-v2jj61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=994&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553764/original/file-20231014-17-v2jj61.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=994&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Māori electorate boundaries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>The party vote remained at 2.5% – consistent with 2020.</p>
<p>One of the biggest upsets was 21-year-old Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke’s win over Labour stalwart Nanaia Mahuta in the Hauraki-Waikato electorate. Mahuta has represented the electorate since 2008 and has been in parliament since 1996. </p>
<p>This was a must-win race for Mahuta, the current foreign affairs minister, after she announced <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/132366309/nanaia-mahuta-wont-stand-on-labour-list-goes-all-in-on-hauraki-waikato-seat#:%7E:text=Foreign%20Minister%20Nanaia%20Mahuta%20won,stand%20on%20the%20party%20list.">she would not be running</a> on the Labour party list. </p>
<p>Labour won all seven Māori seats in 2017 and six in 2020.</p>
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<h2>Advance voting</h2>
<p>In 2017, 1.24 million votes were cast before election day, more than the previous two elections combined.</p>
<p>In 2020, this rose to 1.97 million people – an extremely high early vote figure attributable to the <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/record-numbers-vote-early-in-2020-new-zealand-election-almost-2-million/XHBAMERHAXPH4MX5DLDPH3TMMU/">impact of the COVID-19 pandemic</a>.</p>
<p>This year, more than 1.3 million New Zealanders cast advance votes before election day – higher than 2017 but significantly lower than 2020. </p>
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<h2>The comeback kid</h2>
<p>After a dismal showing at the 2020 election, NZ First’s Winston Peters has yet again shown himself to be the comeback kid of New Zealand politics. Peters and his party have provisionally gained nearly 6.5% of the vote, giving them eight seats in parliament. </p>
<p>On the current numbers, the National Party will not need NZ First to help form the government. But the result is still a massive reversal of fortune for Peters, who failed to meet the 5% threshold or win an electorate seat in 2020. </p>
<h2>The heart of Wellington goes Green</h2>
<p>Urban electorates in Wellington have resoundingly shifted left, with wins for the Green Party’s Tamatha Paul in Wellington Central and Julie Anne Genter in Rangotai. Chlöe Swarbrick has retained her seat in Auckland Central. </p>
<p>The Wellington electorates had previously been Labour strongholds. But the decision by Grant Robertson to compete as a list-only MP opened Wellington Central to Paul, currently a city councillor. </p>
<p>Genter takes the seat from outgoing Labour MP Paul Eagle. </p>
<p>Both Wellington electorates have also seen sizeable chunks of the party vote – 30% in Rongotai and almost 36% in Wellington Central – go to the Greens. </p>
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<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214560/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
New Zealand has swung decisively back to the right at the 2023 general election. With official results pending, it seems National and ACT can still form a government without the help of NZ First.Veronika Meduna, Science, Health + Environment New Zealand Editor, The ConversationFinlay Macdonald, New Zealand Editor, The ConversationDebrin Foxcroft, Deputy New Zealand EditorMatt Garrow, Editorial Web DeveloperLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2144622023-10-11T22:35:27Z2023-10-11T22:35:27ZNZ Election 2023: final polls suggest NZ First likely kingmaker as the left makes late gains<p>After political polls between March and August showed a <a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2023-combined-poll-trends-now-show-a-clear-rightward-shift-since-june-213536">clear trend towards the right</a>, polls since late August have shown the reverse. Remove a resurgent NZ First from the mix, and the left and right blocs are now polling closely.</p>
<p>The emergence of NZ First as potential kingmaker has seen warnings, particularly from the National Party, of an indecisive result and even the possible need for a <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/10/08/national-warns-of-second-election-if-nz-first-talks-fail/">second election</a> if coalition negotiations broke down. </p>
<p>We’ll only have a clearer picture once <a href="https://vote.nz/2023-general-election/about/2023-general-election/key-dates/">polling booths close</a> at 7pm (5pm AEDT) on Saturday, when all ordinary votes cast at early voting centres or on election day will begin to be counted. </p>
<p>There are also “<a href="https://vote.nz/2023-general-election/about/2023-general-election/facts-about-new-zealand-elections/">special votes</a>”, usually cast by voters outside their home electorate (similar to absent votes in Australia). In the past, these have benefited parties on the left, which can take another one or two seats over the preliminary results.</p>
<p>If past practice is a guide, however, there will be no updates to the published results after election night until the official results (which include special votes) are released on November 3. </p>
<p>If NZ First is just above or just below the 5% threshold on election night, we’ll have to wait three weeks to know if it has made it into parliament – and what that means for the balance of power.</p>
<h2>Left and NZ First gain in final polls</h2>
<p>For the purposes of this analysis, the right coalition is defined as National and ACT, and the left as Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori/the Māori party. NZ First has sided with both left and right in the past, and supported the left from 2017 to 2020, so it is not counted with either left or right.</p>
<p>Although Te Pāti Māori is well under the 5% threshold normally required to enter parliament, it is expected to win single-member seats on the <a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-an-electoral-roll/what-is-the-maori-electoral-option/">Māori electoral roll</a>. In fact, the party could benefit from an “overhang” (see below).</p>
<p>Since my <a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2023-latest-poll-trends-show-the-left-regaining-some-ground-and-nz-first-as-possible-kingmaker-214460">previous analysis</a> two weeks ago, there have been two <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2023_New_Zealand_general_election#Party_vote">1News-Verian polls</a>, a Newshub-Reid Research poll, a Guardian-Essential poll, a Curia poll for the Taxpayers’ Union, and a Talbot Mills poll.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2023-from-one-way-polls-to-threats-of-coalition-chaos-its-been-a-campaign-of-two-halves-213650">NZ Election 2023: from one-way polls to threats of coalition ‘chaos’, it’s been a campaign of two halves</a>
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<p>Other than the Talbot Mills poll (which appeared to have been a leftward outlier last time), there has been a clear trend of a fall in the right’s lead over the left. Essential and Reid Research now have the left just ahead.</p>
<p>But with NZ First between 6% and 8% in all recent polls – above the 5% threshold – neither right nor left are likely to have a majority, and so NZ First will be the kingmaker.</p>
<p>Two graphs illustrate these poll trends. The first, as before, shows all polls conducted since March. As the right made gains in July and August, the trends still suggest it is gaining.</p>
<p>The second graph only covers polls conducted since late August, showing a clear trend to the left in all except the Talbot Mills poll.</p>
<p>Fieldwork for the Verian and Reid Research polls ended Tuesday, four days from the election. Voting intentions can still change in these final days.</p>
<p>In international elections, there have sometimes been large poll errors. Where they have occurred, the right is often understated – such as at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_May_2023_Greek_legislative_election">Greek election</a> in May. But at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2020_New_Zealand_general_election">2020 New Zealand election</a>, the left was understated. The left parties in 2023 will hope the results are more favourable than polls imply.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-read-the-political-polls-10-things-you-need-to-know-ahead-of-the-nz-election-208738">How to read the political polls: 10 things you need to know ahead of the NZ election</a>
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<h2>Te Pāti Māori could benefit from an ‘overhang’</h2>
<p>In New Zealand’s mixed member proportional (<a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/what-is-mmp/">MMP</a>) system, an “overhang” occurs when a party wins more single-member seats than its total seat entitlement would be on the party vote alone. If this occurs, that party is allowed to keep its extra seats and the size of parliament is increased.</p>
<p>There are seven Māori-roll single-member seats. At the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_New_Zealand_general_election#Results">2020 election</a>, Labour won six and Te Pāti Māori one. But Labour’s vote has crashed since 2020, so it’s plausible Te Pāti Māori could win more single-member seats.</p>
<p>In 2020 the party won 1.2% of the party vote, but its one electorate victory entitled it to two of parliament’s 120 total seats. But if it picked up five single-member electorates and less than 2% of the party vote, for example, it would result in a three-seat overhang: parliament would be expanded to 123 seats, with Te Pāti Māori holding five.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-the-election-christopher-luxons-real-test-could-come-from-his-right-not-the-left-209393">After the election, Christopher Luxon’s real test could come from his right – not the left</a>
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<h2>Candidate’s death will help National</h2>
<p>To add to the uncertainty, there will be a November 25 by-election in Port Waikato after the death on Monday of an ACT candidate. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/10/10/what-act-candidates-death-could-mean-for-the-election-result/">electoral rules</a>, only the party vote in that seat will be counted on election night. The by-election will determine the electorate candidate, meaning parliament will be expanded to 121 seats (ignoring any other overhangs).</p>
<p>Saturday’s election will only allocate seats in proportion to the 120 total seats that will be elected at that time. The winner of the Port Waikato by-election will take the additional 121st seat.</p>
<p>Although the 2020 election was a Labour landslide, National held <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Waikato_(New_Zealand_electorate)">Port Waikato</a>, so it will almost certainly win the by-election, giving the party one seat more than it should be entitled to on the party vote. But current polls indicate this one seat won’t be enough for a National-ACT majority.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-makes-a-good-political-leader-and-how-can-we-tell-before-voting-214351">What makes a good political leader – and how can we tell before voting?</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With two days of the campaign left, what had earlier seemed like a relatively predictable election has narrowed considerably, with several variables potentially influencing the outcome.Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2136502023-10-10T17:55:03Z2023-10-10T17:55:03ZNZ Election 2023: from one-way polls to threats of coalition ‘chaos’, it’s been a campaign of two halves<p>After weeks of policy debate, disputed fiscal plans, sloganeering and no small amount of <a href="https://theconversation.com/campaign-trail-threats-and-abuse-reinforce-the-need-to-protect-nzs-women-politicians-before-they-quit-for-good-214828">rancour</a>, the election campaign has come down to a single, uninspiring contest of negatives: use your vote to avoid uncertainty, “chaos” and even a second election.</p>
<p>On one level, this is a reaction from both National and Labour to the <a href="https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/nz-first-needed-national-and-act-govern-poll">rise of NZ First</a> and the potential for difficult coalition arrangements on the right or (less likely) the left. But at another level it feels quite in keeping with the generally dour tone of the campaign so far.</p>
<p>Perhaps this partly reflects a kind of exhaustion in the electorate after a difficult few years, including the economic after-effects of a global pandemic. But much of it has to do with the nature of the party political leadership on offer.</p>
<p>The former British Conservative politician Rory Stewart <a href="https://shows.acast.com/these-times/episodes/rory-stewart-an-interview-with-the-man-who-still-wants-to-be">recently argued</a> that politics is a vocation. What people expect from its practitioners are commitment, principled behaviour, new and good ideas – vision even. </p>
<p>Whether you agreed with it or not (and plenty did in 2020, including many who <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/where-did-nationals-votes-go">voted for Labour</a> for the first and possibly last time), former prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s ability to articulate a vision of a better world set the emotional climate at the past two elections. </p>
<p>Neither of the men vying for the top job this time have had anything like the same galvanising impact on voters. </p>
<p>Any vision on offer from the major parties has been more of the bread-and-butter variety (to borrow a phrase): tax “relief”, cost-of-living adjustments, dental care and welfare-to-work incentives.</p>
<p>If voters have been looking for a bigger picture, they will likely have been drawn to other parties: the Greens, ACT, Te Pāti Māori and even The Opportunities Party (TOP). And with NZ First now polling as <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/498749/peters-returns-as-kingmaker-under-newshub-reid-research-poll">potential kingmaker</a>, Labour and National find themselves painted into their own corners, both promising “stability” but not a lot more.</p>
<h2>The old normal</h2>
<p>In certain respects, the 2023 campaign has been a reversion to type – the reassertion of patterns that become visible if we look back further than the 2020 or 2017 elections.</p>
<p>For a start, we are going to see the end of single-party majority government. In 2020, charisma and COVID <a href="https://theconversation.com/her-cabinet-appointed-jacinda-ardern-now-leads-one-of-the-most-powerful-governments-nz-has-seen-148984">propelled Ardern and Labour</a> past the 50% mark for the first time since the adoption of the mixed member proportional (<a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/what-is-mmp/">MMP</a>) system in 1996 (even if they never really behaved like a ruling party).</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/romantic-heroes-or-one-of-us-how-we-judge-political-leaders-is-rarely-objective-or-rational-214943">Romantic heroes or ‘one of us’ – how we judge political leaders is rarely objective or rational</a>
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<p>Such governments were all New Zealand knew under the previous first-past-the-post electoral system. Unlike Ardern’s Labour, of course, none of those governments won a majority of the popular vote after 1951. So a single-party majority administration is even harder to achieve under MMP.</p>
<p>That will be increasingly the case in future, given the <a href="https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/">slow decline</a> over recent decades in the numbers voting for either Labour or National. </p>
<p>Across the three elections held during the 1970s, the combined vote share captured by the two major parties was 85.7%. By the 1990s, that had tumbled to just over 71%. And although it rose to 75.7% across the 2010s, on <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/09/newshub-reid-research-poll-nz-first-in-powerful-position-as-act-support-crumbles-labour-s-catastrophe-continues.html">current polling</a> National and Labour look set to win just two-thirds of all party votes between them.</p>
<p>This tectonic process is opening up the electoral landscapes to the left of Labour and right of National. It is evident in both the composition of parliament (which is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/08/diversity-dilemma-worlds-most-inclusive-parliament-still-faces-battle-for-change-new-zealand">more diverse</a> than it once was) and in the process of <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/496990/coalitions-confidence-and-supply-what-you-need-to-know">forming multi-party governments</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-battle-for-nzs-farming-heartland-groundswell-act-and-the-changing-face-of-rural-politics-213979">The battle for NZ’s farming heartland: Groundswell, ACT and the changing face of rural politics</a>
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<p>In the longer term, however, there are questions about where this trend away from the political centre (at least as it is represented by Labour and National) is heading.</p>
<p>New Zealand hasn’t reached the levels of political <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/21/revealed-one-in-three-europeans-now-votes-anti-establishment">polarisation and radicalisation</a> apparent in other parts of the world. But last year’s <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/23-02-2022/divided-splintered-what-the-parliament-occupation-says-about-nz-now">occupation of parliament grounds</a>, and some of the <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/brian-tamaki-disruption-campaign-church-and-political-leader-wants-to-break-parliament-apart/G5HVITZ6KBDMHFAODPZDWHQ3R4/">fringe movements</a> and nastier episodes during this year’s campaign, suggest we could see a further fracturing of what has, historically, been a relatively homogeneous populace.</p>
<h2>Turn off or turn out?</h2>
<p>A lot of what happens after Saturday’s election will depend on how many people choose to vote. </p>
<p>Turnout tends to spike when an electoral contest is tight, and drop away if voters think the outcome is done and dusted. For a while, the polling gap between left (Greens, Labour, Te Pāti Māori) and an ascendant right (ACT and National) suggested a low turnout might be on the cards.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-the-election-christopher-luxons-real-test-could-come-from-his-right-not-the-left-209393">After the election, Christopher Luxon’s real test could come from his right – not the left</a>
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<p>The NZ First wildcard may alter things. And with recent polls showing 10% of voters undecided, there may be more uncertainty than was assumed just a couple of weeks ago. But either way, there has been a historical trend towards lower turnouts.</p>
<p>Between 2011 and 2017, voter numbers climbed from 69.6% of those eligible to vote (the lowest since the late 1800s) to 79.8% (still well down on the 92.3% achieved in 1938). But turnout dipped to 77.3% of age-eligible voters in 2020, and could continue to drop this year.</p>
<p>The risk is more pronounced for Labour, which has been polling at lows not seen since before Ardern became leader in 2017. But low turnout could also hurt the National Party if enough voters fail to heed Christopher Luxon’s call to give it a clear mandate.</p>
<p>That will see Luxon and National having to negotiate with both ACT and NZ First from a weaker position, dealing with NZ First’s mix of populism and economic nationalism, and ACT holding out the possibility of <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/10/election-2023-labour-warns-of-us-style-government-shutdowns-if-national-nz-first-enter-confidence-only-deal-with-act.html">supporting National on confidence only</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-pebble-in-the-shoe-to-future-power-broker-the-rise-and-rise-of-te-pati-maori-212089">From 'pebble in the shoe' to future power broker – the rise and rise of te Pāti Māori</a>
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<p>The formation – much less the day-to-day management – of a three-party government would pose a challenge for a National leader with only three years of parliamentary experience under his belt.</p>
<p>Yet this is what MMP was intended to do: to blunt the ability of a single political party (generally elected with a minority of the vote) to impose its policy agenda, and to reflect – in the composition of both parliament and the government – our increasingly fluid voting behaviour and changing demography. </p>
<p>Elections are how governments are formed, and what governments do (and don’t do) has material consequences for people’s lives. So <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/19-09-2023/lets-make-voting-sexy-again">this election matters</a> no less than any other, and it isn’t over until the polls close on Saturday night.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213650/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The final days of the campaign have seen both major parties warn of instability if the other wins. But behind the jockeying for power, other forces are shaping the future of New Zealand politics.Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2133532023-09-14T01:33:07Z2023-09-14T01:33:07ZNZ election 2023: with a month to go, polls point to a right-wing coalition government<p>The New Zealand general election to be held in one month, on October 14, will be the country’s tenth under the mixed member proportional system (<a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/what-is-mmp/">MMP</a>).</p>
<p>Voters have two votes: one for their party of choice, the other for their electorate’s member of parliament. There are 72 single-member seats, including seven seats for electors on the Māori roll.</p>
<p>Parties must win at least 5% of the total vote to gain seats in parliament. The threshold is waived if a party wins one of the electorate seats.</p>
<p>The 48 “list” seats are used to ensure proportionality, so that parties that win many single-member seats win few list seats. It is the party vote that matters most as it determines the number of seats a party is entitled to. </p>
<p>Election for single-member seats is by a <a href="https://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/wpg_URL/Resource-material-STV-Information-More-about-FPP?OpenDocument">first-past-the-post</a> system. There can be more than 120 MPs (an “overhang”) if a party wins more single-member seats than its total entitlement given its party vote. An overhang last occurred at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_New_Zealand_general_election">2014 election</a>.</p>
<h2>Coalitions and ‘kingmakers’</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2023_New_Zealand_general_election">current polls</a>, National, Labour, ACT and the Greens are well clear of the 5% threshold. The Māori party (also known as Te Pāti Māori) is expected to win Māori-roll single-member seats and will qualify for parliamentary representation even if its party vote is below 5%.</p>
<p>In the past, the populist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_First">New Zealand First</a> party has occasionally been the “kingmaker” and allied with both Labour and National governments. At the 2020 election, its party vote fell below the 5% threshold and it didn’t win any electorate seats, so was wiped out of parliament. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-the-election-christopher-luxons-real-test-could-come-from-his-right-not-the-left-209393">After the election, Christopher Luxon’s real test could come from his right – not the left</a>
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<p>Some recent polls have New Zealand First above 5% and it’s unclear whether it will win representation after the election.</p>
<p>In a proportional representation system, we need to account for likely coalitions. The right coalition consists of National and ACT, while the left coalition consists of Labour, the Greens and Māori. </p>
<p>I am not counting New Zealand First towards either coalition as it’s unclear whether they will win representation. But the Labour Party has <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/496678/instability-and-chaos-labour-rules-out-a-partnership-with-nz-first">ruled out working with New Zealand First</a> in coalition. No other parties are likely to win representation.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-read-the-political-polls-10-things-you-need-to-know-ahead-of-the-nz-election-208738">How to read the political polls: 10 things you need to know ahead of the NZ election</a>
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<h2>Clear trend to the right</h2>
<p>The graph below shows the right coalition’s lead or deficit over the left coalition as estimated by all New Zealand pollsters that have released at least two polls since March.</p>
<p>The election date is shown on the graph. I started this chart in March as it was shortly after Chris Hipkins replaced Jacinda Ardern as Labour leader and prime minister in January.</p>
<p>The graph has poll results and a trend line for every pollster. It is similar to a graph I have been using for <a href="https://theconversation.com/voice-support-and-albaneses-ratings-continue-to-tumble-in-resolve-and-other-polls-212872">Australian polls</a> on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, but uses the midpoint of polls’ fieldwork periods, not the endpoint. This is because Morgan’s New Zealand polls are taken over a whole month.</p>
<p>The pollster used by Television New Zealand’s 1News changed its name from <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/659466526/July-2023-1-NEWS-Verian-Poll-Report-No-Supplementary-Questions-Version-002#">Kantar Public to Verian</a> this year. I have used “Verian/Kantar” to designate this pollster.</p>
<p>From March to June, polls tended to have the left coalition ahead, but there has been a surge to the right in the past two months. The trend lines for all pollsters now have the right ahead. </p>
<p>The Curia poll for the Taxpayers’ Union has been the right’s best poll, while Talbot Mills has been the left’s best.</p>
<p>The six most recent polls show an 8.5-point lead for the right in Morgan, a 1.6-point lead in Talbot Mills, a 7.2-point lead in Curia, an 8.8-point lead in Reid Research, a 4.4-point lead in Essential and an 8-point lead in Verian/Kantar. The Talbot Mills poll looks like a left-favouring outlier.</p>
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<h2>Reversal of fortune for Labour</h2>
<p>With the right ahead in recent polls, the only realistic hope for the left would be that New Zealand First made it past the 5% threshold, which could give Labour, the Greens, Māori and New Zealand First enough seats to deny National and ACT a combined majority.</p>
<p>While Labour has ruled out working with New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, Labour, the Greens and New Zealand First were in a coalition government for the 2017–2020 term. If New Zealand First were again in a kingmaker role after the election, it’s plausible Labour would change its mind and make Peters an offer.</p>
<p>Essential and Talbot Mills both have New Zealand First above the 5% threshold and don’t have the right coalition ahead by enough to avoid needing it to form a government. </p>
<p>But in the other four most recent polls, the right is ahead by enough to form a government without New Zealand First, even if it makes the threshold.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-labour-national-consensus-on-family-support-means-the-election-wont-change-much-for-nzs-poorest-households-212450">The Labour-National consensus on family support means the election won’t change much for NZ’s poorest households</a>
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<p>Why has there been a recent surge to the right? I believe Hipkins’ honeymoon after he replaced Ardern has worn off. There have been ministerial scandals, including the July 24 resignation of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/24/kiri-allan-resigns-car-crash-new-zealand-justice-minister">Labour MP Kiri Allan</a> as justice minister after being charged with careless driving and refusing to accompany a police officer after a crash.</p>
<p>High inflation and cost-of-living stress will also be a contributor. <a href="https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/consumers-price-index-june-2023-quarter/">Inflation was 1.1%</a> in the June quarter, down slightly from 1.2% in March, and well below the peak of 2.2% in September 2022. </p>
<p>A loss for Labour would be a big reversal from its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_New_Zealand_general_election">landslide victory</a> at the 2020 election, in which the party won a one-party majority with 65 of the 120 seats. This was the first time since the current electoral system replaced first past the post in 1996 that a single party had won a parliamentary majority. </p>
<p>New Zealand’s success at keeping COVID out, as well as <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300137917/election-2020-the-complete-disarray-of-nationals-campaign-that-led-to-electoral-slaughter">leadership turmoil</a> within the National Party, likely contributed to that Labour victory. The 2023 election will not see the same pattern repeated on either the left or right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213353/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New Zealand’s proportional electoral system makes coalition governments all but inevitable. Ahead of the October 14 election, the jockeying for power is all on the right.Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2135362023-09-14T01:31:21Z2023-09-14T01:31:21ZNZ election 2023: combined poll trends now show a clear rightward shift since June<p>With exactly one month until New Zealand’s general election, all major polls are now showing a clear rightward trend since June.</p>
<p>With some recent polls showing New Zealand First on or above the 5% MMP threshold, the only real wildcard at this point is whether the party will be returned to parliament after October 14.</p>
<p>Otherwise, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2023_New_Zealand_general_election">current polls</a> show National, Labour, ACT and the Greens are well clear of the 5% threshold. The Māori Party/Te Pāti Māori is expected to win Māori-roll single-member seats, and will qualify for parliamentary representation even if its party vote is below 5%.</p>
<p>The graph below shows the right coalition’s lead or deficit over the left coalition in all New Zealand pollsters that have released at least two polls since March. The right coalition consists of National and ACT, while the left coalition consists of Labour, the Greens and Māori.</p>
<p>The election date is shown on the graph. I started this chart in March, shortly after Chris Hipkins replaced Jacinda Ardern as Labour leader and prime minister in January.</p>
<p>The graph has poll results and a trend line for every pollster. It is similar to a graph I have been using for <a href="https://theconversation.com/voice-support-and-albaneses-ratings-continue-to-tumble-in-resolve-and-other-polls-212872">Australian polls</a> on the Indigenous Voice to parliament referendum, but uses the midpoint of polls’ fieldwork periods, not the endpoint. This is because Morgan’s New Zealand polls are taken over a whole month.</p>
<p>(The pollster used by Television New Zealand’s 1News changed its name from <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/659466526/July-2023-1-NEWS-Verian-Poll-Report-No-Supplementary-Questions-Version-002#">Kantar Public to Verian</a> this year. I have used “Verian/Kantar” to designate this pollster.)</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-read-the-political-polls-10-things-you-need-to-know-ahead-of-the-nz-election-208738">How to read the political polls: 10 things you need to know ahead of the NZ election</a>
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<p>From March to June, polls tended to have the left coalition ahead, but there has been a surge to the right in the past two months. The trend lines for all pollsters now have the right ahead. </p>
<p>The Curia poll for the Taxpayers’ Union has been the right’s best poll, while Talbot Mills has been the left’s best.</p>
<p>The six most recent polls show an 8.5-point lead for the right in Morgan, a 1.6-point lead in Talbot Mills, a 7.2-point lead in Curia, an 8.8-point lead in Reid Research, a 4.4-point lead in Essential and an 8-point lead in Verian/Kantar. </p>
<p>The Talbot Mills poll looks like a left-favouring outlier.</p>
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<h2>The NZ First factor</h2>
<p>With the right ahead in all recent polls, the only realistic hope for the left would have been that New Zealand First made it past the 5% threshold, which could give Labour, the Greens, Māori and New Zealand First enough seats to deny National and ACT a combined majority.</p>
<p>However, Labour’s <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/496678/instability-and-chaos-labour-rules-out-a-partnership-with-nz-first">decision</a> to rule out working with New Zealand First leader Winston Peters makes that impossible. Peters has also <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/08/13/possible-nats-act-nz-first-coalition-would-survive-steven-joyce/">ruled out</a> ever working with Labour again. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-the-election-christopher-luxons-real-test-could-come-from-his-right-not-the-left-209393">After the election, Christopher Luxon’s real test could come from his right – not the left</a>
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<p>Essential and Talbot Mills polls have New Zealand First above the 5% threshold and don’t have the right coalition ahead by enough to avoid needing it to form a government. </p>
<p>To complicate things further, ACT leader David Seymour has ruled out working with Peters if ACT were to be given cabinet positions in a National-led coalition.</p>
<p>However, in the other four most recent polls, the right is ahead by enough to form a government without New Zealand First, even if it makes the threshold.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213536/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Conversation’s poll-watcher breaks down the party support trend since March – which has all been surging one way, despite some variation between pollsters.Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2071092023-06-06T18:45:06Z2023-06-06T18:45:06ZExtending the term of parliament isn’t a terrible idea – it’s just one NZ has rejected twice already<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530265/original/file-20230606-19-cso4oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C5982%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Among a host of other recommendations, the <a href="https://electoralreview.govt.nz/">Independent Electoral Review</a> has proposed a referendum on extending the term of parliament to four years (from the current three). I’ll admit from the outset to being torn over the issue – the policy wonk in me says four, the election junkie says three.</p>
<p>But there’s another problem. Even if it is a sound idea, why hold a referendum when two past referendums have already rejected the proposal? Parliament could make the change alone, but MPs would likely face a backlash from the people wanting a referendum.</p>
<p>Those previous polls in 1967 and 1990 were both defeated by more than two-thirds majorities. Without a strong sense of a public desire for change, it’s hard to see a third result being any different. </p>
<p>In fact, one can almost hear the social media arguments against it already: “We have more important things to think about”, “They just want to keep their noses in the trough for longer”. Given current levels of distrust in politics, getting this across the line feels like a stretch.</p>
<p>But we’re still at the initial review stage. Public consultation is open until July 17, and a final report goes to the government in November, after the election. Public opinion could still shift in the meantime.</p>
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<h2>Time to govern</h2>
<p>There are some good practical reasons for extending the parliamentary term. For starters, by the time a new government is sworn in after an election, it’s often nearly Christmas and the nation shuts down and heads to the beach. </p>
<p>Ideally, a new government should get cracking with making policy and legislation in its first and second years. But in the third, anticipation of the next election changes the priorities and the focus.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lowering-new-zealands-voting-age-to-16-would-be-good-for-young-people-and-good-for-democracy-145008">Lowering New Zealand's voting age to 16 would be good for young people – and good for democracy</a>
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<p>To get a new law from a first cabinet paper to an act of parliament can take a couple of years – longer if there’s a lot of argument. So we’re not allowing much time for governments to really get things done. </p>
<p>When we account for the downtime before and after elections, they’re left with roughly two years of action out of every three. That slack could be reduced from roughly one-third to one-quarter if we moved to a four-year term.</p>
<p>On the other hand, many New Zealanders like having their say and holding their representatives to account through the ballot box. That’s not an argument for even shorter terms, but it is certainly a persuasive argument for the status quo.</p>
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<span class="caption">ACT’s David Seymour: reform ‘doesn’t solve a single urgent problem that New Zealanders face’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
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<h2>Winners and losers</h2>
<p>So, if not through a referendum, how would we change the length of the parliamentary term? It is possible if parliament were to pass an amendment to the Electoral Act. That requires a 75% majority. </p>
<p>Given Labour’s Jacinda Ardern and National’s Judith Collins <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/427374/political-leaders-favour-four-year-parliamentary-term-but-many-voters-not-so-keen">both supported the idea</a> before the 2020 election, that super-majority may well exist. That’s bolstered by the fact the <a href="https://www.act.org.nz/democracy">ACT Party also supports</a> a four-year term. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/theyre-nice-to-me-im-nice-to-them-new-research-sheds-light-on-what-motivates-political-party-donors-in-new-zealand-185574">'They're nice to me, I'm nice to them': new research sheds light on what motivates political party donors in New Zealand</a>
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<p>And yet ACT leader David Seymour was <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/06/act-s-david-seymour-slams-electoral-recommendations-as-waste-of-everyone-s-time.html">quick to rubbish</a> the whole electoral review report. Before most people had even had a chance to read it, he’d declared it a “waste of everyone’s time” and “a major left-wing beat-up that doesn’t solve a single urgent problem that New Zealanders face”.</p>
<p>One explanation for such a negative reaction may lie in one of the report’s other recommendations, which is to eliminate the “coat-tailing” rule. This allows a party that wins at least one electorate seat to bring more MPs into the house, proportional to their party vote even if it’s below the 5% threshold. </p>
<p>The rule has undeniably created inequities. But ACT itself has benefited from it, notably in 2008, when it received just 3.65% of the party vote but took five seats on the back of winning the Epsom electorate.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lobbying-regulations-are-vital-to-any-well-functioning-democracy-its-time-nz-got-some-203404">Lobbying regulations are vital to any well functioning democracy – it's time NZ got some</a>
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<h2>Self-interest and stalemate</h2>
<p>It’s perhaps inevitable that partisan political self-interest will emerge whenever these electoral reform proposals are made. Those who stand directly to win or lose become the loudest voices in the subsequent debate. The issue itself is politicised before the average voter has even taken in the details.</p>
<p>And, let’s remember, extending the parliamentary term is only one of more than 100 draft recommendations, including lowering the party vote threshold from 5% to 3.5%, and lowering the age of eligibility to vote from 18 to 16. The review process can mean difficult technical, legal and constitutional debates and proposals become bogged down in politics as usual.</p>
<p>Much like the <a href="https://elections.nz/assets/2012-report-of-the-Electoral-Commission-on-the-review-of-mmp.pdf">2012 Electoral Commission review</a>, from which no substantive recommendation for change was ever adopted (the present review repeats some of them), the unintended consequence may be another round of talk, but little action. If there’s a change of government after October’s election, this review is unlikely to go anywhere, other than into the archives. That would be a shame. </p>
<p>New Zealand’s electoral and parliamentary systems aren’t perfect, but no such system is. It may be asking a bit much at present, but some consensus about making them work more democratically and effectively would still be a good thing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207109/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grant Duncan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A referendum on changing New Zealand’s parliamentary term to four years would be the third such exercise in under 60 years. Why would the outcome be any different this time?Grant Duncan, Associate Professor, School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1986662023-01-31T18:10:15Z2023-01-31T18:10:15ZHipkins revives Labour’s fortunes – but the election will be about more than ‘bread and butter issues’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507249/original/file-20230131-20-cte9tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C16%2C5359%2C3564&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New prime minister Chris Hipkins with deputy Carmel Sepuloni.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With a <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/483394/prime-minister-chris-hipkins-reveals-cabinet-reshuffle">cabinet reshuffle</a> just a day after two polls showing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/31/new-zealand-labour-party-polling-chris-hipkins-jacinda-ardern-resignation">Labour ahead again</a> – in which he promoted more Māori MPs to the front bench, created a new Minister for Auckland portfolio and drew a line under the previous administration by demoting several of Jacinda Ardern’s senior ministers – it’s fair to say new prime minister Chris “Chippy” Hipkins is off to a good start. </p>
<p>Most of all, it seems this year’s general election is back in play. For now at least, the sense of entropy that surrounded Labour during the final part of Jacinda Ardern’s reign has gone.</p>
<p>However, October 14 is still a long way off. The sense of momentum Hikpins and his new team have generated could drop away as quickly as it emerged. With the election campaign being framed as a “mano-a-mano” contest with National’s Christopher Luxon, the <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/131082348/chris-hipkins-vs-christopher-luxon-the-tale-of-two-chrises">battle of the two Christophers</a> will go a long way to determining the outcome.</p>
<p>But let’s put the personality politics aside for now, because there are other things rumbling away beneath the surface of New Zealand politics that we should be paying much closer attention to.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1619927473302679552"}"></div></p>
<h2>Transformation or compromise?</h2>
<p>The first is the nation’s inability to solve serious policy challenges that have plagued us for decades: <a href="https://berl.co.nz/our-pro-bono/inequality-and-new-zealand">income and wealth inequality</a>, a <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2022/09/new-zealand-s-housing-market-could-be-a-warning-to-the-world-global-economists-caution.html">volatile housing market</a>, a <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/low-wage-economy-what-you-need-to-earn-to-be-an-above-average-earner-in-nz/AQRSOMJUA7SQGQ2TZWYAE35FC4/">low wage economy</a>, and a <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/28-03-2022/if-this-isnt-a-healthcare-crisis-what-is">health system in serious trouble</a>.</p>
<p>In 2020, former prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s rhetoric of transformation sounded promising. But Ardern governed cautiously, choosing not to use her party’s parliamentary majority to achieve the sort of change needed.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealands-tax-system-is-under-the-spotlight-again-what-needs-to-change-to-make-it-fair-198492">New Zealand's tax system is under the spotlight (again). What needs to change to make it fair?</a>
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<p>Those hoping Hipkins will take a <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/what-nz-doesnt-need-middle-aged-risk-averse-pakeha-men-with-narrow-backgrounds">more muscular approach</a> are likely to be disappointed, too. If anything, the indications are that he will steer even more closely to the centre.</p>
<p>There are reasons for this that have nothing to do with Ardern, Hipkins or any of the other prime ministers – from the centre left or centre right – who have also failed to sort these problems out.</p>
<p>Partly it’s to do with the proportional electoral system. Many New Zealanders rightly take pride in the way MMP has transformed the parliament into a chamber that looks a lot more like the <a href="https://diversityworksnz.org.nz/news-resources/news/new-zealand-parliament-most-diverse-ever/">people it represents</a>. But the <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300426130/mmp-at-25-mmp-has-changed-parliament-for-good-but-has-it-stopped-parliament-changing-new-zealand">constraints MMP places</a> on governments’ ability to address policy challenges are often overlooked. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1620261110627864578"}"></div></p>
<h2>The problem with moderation</h2>
<p>With the <a href="https://theconversation.com/labours-single-party-majority-is-not-a-failure-of-mmp-it-is-a-sign-nzs-electoral-system-is-working-148328">exception of the current one</a>, every administration formed since the first MMP election in 1996 has needed the support of at least one other parliamentary party to govern. </p>
<p>Under MMP, the winner no longer takes it all: sometimes it has to share things around. And many will say that is entirely the point, and an improvement on the executive arrogance of the Labour and National governments of the 1980s and early 1990s. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/this-election-year-nz-voters-should-beware-of-reading-too-much-into-the-political-polls-198508">This election year, NZ voters should beware of reading too much into the political polls</a>
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<p>But at what point does MMP’s inherent tendency towards policy moderation become a problem? What if significant policy change is needed to address what the prime minister is calling the “bread and butter issues” facing New Zealanders? </p>
<p>What if the fundamental policies MMP inherited from the first-past-the-post era – a tendency to fiscal conservatism and orthodox monetary policy – remain broadly in place and are simply not up to the job of helping us break decisively with the legacy of policy failure? </p>
<p>We know the answers to these questions: policy cans keep getting kicked down the road, the problems back up, future generations inherit the results.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1616885771449008128"}"></div></p>
<h2>Uncivil society</h2>
<p>The other problem rumbling under the surface concerns New Zealanders’ relationship with government. We expect ministers to act quickly when we need them to, but we get grumpy if we think they are being too active. </p>
<p>Many welcomed Ardern’s rhetoric – there is no shortage of things in need of transformation – but reacted badly when it came time to do the actual transforming. Neither are we willing to pay for the change we need: we want Scandinavian-standard public services but at US tax rates.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jacinda-arderns-resignation-gender-and-the-toll-of-strong-compassionate-leadership-198152">Jacinda Ardern's resignation: gender and the toll of strong, compassionate leadership</a>
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<p>Put this together with the dynamics of MMP – including that it gives voters an effective means of sanctioning governments, which is why Hipkins is tacking to the centre – and you have a recipe for caution: broad continuity when things are ticking over nicely, but not what you want when a policy step change is needed.</p>
<p>Exacerbating it all is the rising lack of civility and outright extremism that potentially puts politicians off making bold decisions, and even potentially <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/23-01-2023/new-zealand-isnt-ready-for-a-maori-prime-minister">drives them out of politics</a> altogether.</p>
<p>The 2020 election, which took place in an environment where the phrase “team of five million” could be uttered without triggering guffaws or derision, feels an age ago.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1618153471940898816"}"></div></p>
<h2>More than bread and butter</h2>
<p>In the three years since, the same <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/18-05-2022/parliament-occupation-sparked-tectonic-shift-in-nz-disinformation-landscape">destructive forces of unreason</a> that have undermined democracies in other parts of the world have been loosed here, too. </p>
<p>The departure of a woman from the role of prime minister may mean some of the repugnant behaviour that has become increasingly normalised receives less publicity. But other women politicians and journalists will <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/128238695/relentless-abuse-against-women-mps-on-the-rise">still be attacked</a>. </p>
<p>How – and whether – we act to stop the erosion of democratic norms and conventions this year will have consequences reaching far beyond who gets to form a government. It will shape the kind of country we become. </p>
<p>What happens in a nation that likes to think of its parliamentary system as one of consensus and compromise, when those two things are breaking down in the wider culture? The lesson from overseas is that, once released, the genies of violence, misogyny, intolerance and anti-democracy are disinclined to be put back in their bottles. </p>
<p>So, yes, there is an election in Aotearoa New Zealand this year. But it isn’t only about the price of bread or butter.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198666/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The cost of living is important. But there are even bigger problems rumbling beneath the surface of New Zealand politics that the MMP electoral system may be ill-suited to deal with.Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1946222023-01-02T19:44:54Z2023-01-02T19:44:54ZMMP in New Zealand turns 30 at this year’s election – a work in progress, but still a birthday worth celebrating<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499402/original/file-20221207-12-c8ddx2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5607%2C3724&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a tidy alignment of round numbers, this year’s general election will also mark the 30th anniversary of the <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/25-years-since-mmp-referendum/">binding referendum</a> that ushered in the <a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/what-is-mmp/">mixed member proportional</a> (MMP) system of voting. It will also be the tenth election held under the proportional system, truly a generational milestone in New Zealand’s political history.</p>
<p>But the public disquiet that led to the country voting out the old first-past-the-post (FPP) system goes further back, at least as far as the 1978 and 1981 elections. Both saw the centre-left Labour Party lose, despite having won a higher percentage of the vote than the victorious centre-right National Party. </p>
<p>The winner-takes-all nature of FPP also sidelined popular minority parties. In 1981, for example, the Social Credit Party won 20.7% of the vote but only two seats. In fact, most parties’ seats in parliament rarely reflected their share of the vote. </p>
<p>In 1984, Labour commanded 60% of parliament, having won only 43% of the vote. Six years later, National owned 70% of the seats based on 47.8% of the vote. As Lord Hailsham famously put it, Westminster jurisdictions were (and are) effectively “<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-polls-showing-labour-could-govern-alone-is-new-zealand-returning-to-the-days-of-elected-dictatorship-146918">elected dictatorships</a>”. </p>
<p>FPP governments tended to deploy their parliamentary majorities with the kind of arrogance that eventually led to the vote for change. Moreover, FPP parliaments failed to reflect the country’s demographic diversity: 77 of the 99 members of the final FPP parliament were men, there were only eight Māori MPs, a single Pasifika MP, and no one of Asian heritage. Hardly a house of representatives.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499396/original/file-20221207-24-uc3eph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499396/original/file-20221207-24-uc3eph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499396/original/file-20221207-24-uc3eph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499396/original/file-20221207-24-uc3eph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499396/original/file-20221207-24-uc3eph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499396/original/file-20221207-24-uc3eph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499396/original/file-20221207-24-uc3eph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Prime Minister David Lange in 1985: a TV blunder led to electoral change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
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<h2>Accidental reform</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/report-of-the-royal-commission-on-the-electoral-system/">Royal Commission on the Electoral System</a> (RCES) made an early case for change in 1986, but until the late 1980s electoral reform was a niche issue. It took a televised blunder from Labour prime minister David Lange to ignite the debate. </p>
<p>In the final leaders’ debate before the 1987 election, National’s Jim Bolger criticised Lange for ignoring the RCES recommentations. To his own colleagues’ surprise, Lange then went off-script and <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/video/35680/party-leaders-debate-1987">gave an undertaking</a> that Labour would stage a referendum if reelected. </p>
<p>Lange reneged on the promise, enabling Bolger to give his own commitment during the 1990 campaign that a National government would hold a single binding referendum on the electoral system.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/labours-single-party-majority-is-not-a-failure-of-mmp-it-is-a-sign-nzs-electoral-system-is-working-148328">Labour's single-party majority is not a failure of MMP, it is a sign NZ's electoral system is working</a>
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<p>In the event, National strung the process out by legislating for two referendums. An indicative ballot in September 1992 was the first time in a Westminster parliamentary democracy that citizens were given the opportunity to change their electoral system – 84.7% of the 55% of eligible voters who turned out opted for change, and 70.5% indicated a preference for MMP. </p>
<p>That result triggered the second and binding referendum, a straight drag race between FPP and MMP, held in conjunction with the 1993 general election. The campaign leading up to the crucial decision was divisive and at times dirty.</p>
<p>On one side stood the pro-MMP Electoral Reform Coalition, supported by the minor political parties, Grey Power, some unions and the Māori Congress. On the other side, the Campaign for Better Government was backed by powerful corporate lobby group the Business Roundtable, the Employers Federation and a number of chambers of commerce. </p>
<p>Neither Labour nor National took an official position, but most MPs supported FPP. Indeed, Labour’s Helen Clark and National’s Simon Upton established the bi-partisan Campaign for First-Past-the-Post.</p>
<p>The second referendum was far closer than the first, with 53.9% ticking the box for MMP. But the result meant that when the country went to the polls in 1996, it was under a new electoral system. Contrary to some predictions, the sky did not fall.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499397/original/file-20221207-14-hci5se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499397/original/file-20221207-14-hci5se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499397/original/file-20221207-14-hci5se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499397/original/file-20221207-14-hci5se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499397/original/file-20221207-14-hci5se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499397/original/file-20221207-14-hci5se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499397/original/file-20221207-14-hci5se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">MMP in action: more women, more minorities in parliament.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
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<h2>Moderation and compromise</h2>
<p>Fast forward three decades and the political landscape has changed considerably. Parliament is larger, with 120 members (<a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/have-your-say/vote-in-elections/">occasionally one or two more</a>, depending on the electoral caclulus), and therefore better placed to scrutinise executive activity. </p>
<p>It’s also more diverse than its FPP predecessors: the current House of Representatives contains more or less equal numbers of female and male MPs, 25 Māori MPs (bearing out the hopes of those for whom MMP meant “more Māori parliamentarians”) and 18 members of Chinese, Cook Island Māori, Eritrean, Indian, Iranian, Korean, Maldivian, Mexican, Samoan, Sri Lankan and Tongan descent.</p>
<p>There are also wider lessons to be drawn. The arguments of naysayers notwithstanding, MMP has not led to government instability. We have learned how to form and maintain <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/election/2017/10/what-is-confidence-and-supply-and-how-does-it-differ-from-a-coalition.html">multi-party and minority governments</a>, none of which has fallen to a confidence motion or failed to pass a budget. And, unlike <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/20/1130184234/liz-truss-prime-minister-resigns-uk-turmoil">the original Westminster jurisdiction</a>, New Zealand prime ministers have generally seen out multiple
parliamentary terms.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coalitions-kingmakers-and-a-rugby-world-cup-the-calculations-already-influencing-next-years-nz-election-195010">Coalitions, kingmakers and a Rugby World Cup: the calculations already influencing next year’s NZ election</a>
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<p>MMP also tends towards <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300426130/mmp-at-25-mmp-has-changed-parliament-for-good-but-has-it-stopped-parliament-changing-new-zealand">policy moderation</a>. For some – including the senior public servants who hoped it would lock in the public financial management reforms of the 1980s and 1990s – that’s the point. Others argue it prevents decisive policy action. </p>
<p>Despite heading a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54582346">single party majority government</a> – the only one under MMP, and the first since 1951 to secure a majority of the vote – Jacinda Ardern has tended not to rule by virtual decree the way some of her FPP predecessors did. She has been cautious (<a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/co-governance-work-looks-set-to-be-put-on-hold">too much so for some</a>), mindful that more normal minority or coalition government <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/468165/political-poll-national-on-39-percent-while-labour-drops">will inevitably soon return</a>.</p>
<p>Ardern’s reluctance to throw her parliamentary weight around can be read another way, too. The imperative under MMP to build and maintain executive and legislative alliances also encourages political centrism. </p>
<p>Compromise can be frustrating, but over the long haul it can also help prevent the kind of <a href="https://inquirepublication.com/how-the-first-past-the-post-electoral-system-is-polarizing-the-us/">political division</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/28/boris-johnsons-move-to-prorogue-parliament-a-constitutional-outrage-says-speaker">constitutional chicanery</a> that have plagued nations with FPP electoral systems. Zero-sum games tend to apply in electoral politics: when winners take it all, others lose out. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499399/original/file-20221207-22-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499399/original/file-20221207-22-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499399/original/file-20221207-22-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499399/original/file-20221207-22-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499399/original/file-20221207-22-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499399/original/file-20221207-22-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499399/original/file-20221207-22-is41t8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Coalition and compromise: Deputy Prime Minister and NZ First leader Winston Peters with Jacinda Ardern in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
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<h2>A work in progress</h2>
<p>Not everything has changed under MMP. True, small parties are often central to the formation of governments, either as formal coalition partners or parliamentary support parties, but the two major players continue to dominate. </p>
<p>Their combined vote share has dropped – in the nine elections before 1996, National and Labour captured 82.5% of the vote between them, compared with 72% across all nine MMP elections. But under MMP they have provided all of the prime ministers, the overwhelming share of cabinet ministers, and the vast majority of budget commitments.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lowering-new-zealands-voting-age-to-16-would-be-good-for-young-people-and-good-for-democracy-145008">Lowering New Zealand's voting age to 16 would be good for young people – and good for democracy</a>
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<p>MMP also needs refining as it evolves. The increase in the number of constituency seats relative to list seats is eroding the system’s capacity to deliver true proportionality. </p>
<p>And the thresholds for securing parliamentary seats are under scrutiny as part of the <a href="https://electoralreview.govt.nz/">Independent Electoral Review</a>. The 5% party vote threshold is <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/debate-should-the-mmp-5-per-cent-party-vote-threshold-be-reduced/7MITXPCYZQXTHPHZFKJ2JZE3EU/">arguably too high</a>, while the ability to “coat tail” several MPs into parliament off a single constituency win <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/brian-rudman-cut-off-the-coat-tails-and-end-mmp-rorts/3EE5YIFEHX3Q6IOXJ2SCYWHUQ4/">unduly advantages small parties</a>. But those are details in which there are few, if any, devils. </p>
<p>Aotearoa New Zealand, as elsewhere, faces challenges to its democracy. But coalition governments and diverse parliaments are not among them. Most people won’t notice when MMP celebrates its tenth election this year – that alone is a sign of just how far we’ve come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194622/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It was the first time in a Westminster democracy that citizens were given the chance to change their electoral system. The rest is history.Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1733192021-12-07T01:05:21Z2021-12-07T01:05:21ZHistory made the National Party a ‘broad church’ – can it hold in the MMP era?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435961/original/file-20211206-19-1prjcqh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C8%2C5375%2C3581&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Conservative and liberal: new National Party leader Christopher Luxon with deputy leader Nicola Willis.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Christopher Luxon’s ascendancy to the National Party leadership has highlighted – once again – the precarious balance between the party’s liberal and conservative wings. So his newly appointed <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/457306/national-party-leader-christopher-luxon-reveals-new-caucus-lineup">shadow cabinet</a> attempts to establish some equilibrium, particularly in the choice of liberal Nicola Willis as deputy. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/300469936/luxon-has-to-balance-politics-and-religion">persistent questioning</a> about Luxon’s own evangelical Christian faith tends to reinforce perceptions that National’s “broad church” is not an entirely unified congregation.</p>
<p>These perceptions have their roots in National’s origins as a political party. The question now is, why does this need for balance exist? And why, under MMP, has National not devolved into multiple, more ideologically coherent, parties that negotiate with each other come election time?</p>
<p>To answer those questions we need to look at the formation of National from a merger between the United and Reform parties in 1936. In that history we can see the origins of the modern party and the challenges it faces in the MMP era.</p>
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<h2>The birth of a party</h2>
<p>The United and Reform parties had first formed a coalition in 1931 to see off a challenge from the Labour Party, and won that year’s general election. But in 1935 the coalition lost to Labour, leading to the <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/the-history-of-new-zealands-party-system/">formal merger</a> as National.</p>
<p>United’s predecessor, the Liberal Party, dominated New Zealand politics up to the first world war, and was the country’s <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/political-parties/page-9">first organised political party</a>. The Liberals enjoyed support from urban liberals and workers, but the formation of the Reform Party in 1909 and Labour in 1916 saw a <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/political-parties/page-13">steady decline</a> in the party’s fortunes.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/luxon-takes-the-controls-can-the-former-air-nz-ceo-make-national-straighten-up-and-fly-right-172767">Luxon takes the controls – can the former Air NZ CEO make National straighten up and fly right?</a>
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<p>For its part, the Reform Party was the <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/political-parties/page-13">first consolidation</a> of conservative politicians in New Zealand, coming to power for the first time in 1912 and <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/the-history-of-new-zealands-party-system/">staying in government</a> until 1928.</p>
<p>It’s establishment went back to the Liberal government’s land and welfare reforms, which were branded as “socialism” and an attack on farmers. Support from social conservatives and rural communities continued to be core components of the Reform Party until the 1936 merger.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a group of Liberal members had formed the United Party in 1927, supplanting the Liberals as the main challenger to the Reform Party. United <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/political-parties/page-17">gained support</a> from urban centres, the business community and socially liberal (in the 1920s sense) interest groups.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435964/original/file-20211206-140895-q0vt3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435964/original/file-20211206-140895-q0vt3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435964/original/file-20211206-140895-q0vt3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435964/original/file-20211206-140895-q0vt3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435964/original/file-20211206-140895-q0vt3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435964/original/file-20211206-140895-q0vt3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435964/original/file-20211206-140895-q0vt3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435964/original/file-20211206-140895-q0vt3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">National’s conservative origins: members of the Reform Government of 1914.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22631894">Alexander Turnbull Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<h2>The MMP effect</h2>
<p>If this all seems oddly familiar, that’s because many aspects of the United and Reform parties still exist within National today.</p>
<p>Under the First Past the Post (FPP) electoral system, the merger of those two parties made sense. Forming a single block that represented the centre-right in New Zealand allowed them to build a well-supported political apparatus.</p>
<p>More importantly, the merger allowed the two parties to stop fighting each other, and instead counter Labour.</p>
<p>Under MMP (which <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/new-zealanders-go-polls-first-mmp-election">replaced FPP</a> in 1996), however, the need for single parties that dominate whole sides of the political spectrum has decreased. Instead, there’s an opportunity for parties to have more refined policy platforms based on clear ideologies, rather than broad-based appeal.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/judith-collins-may-be-gone-but-new-zealands-search-for-a-credible-and-viable-opposition-is-far-from-over-172590">Judith Collins may be gone but New Zealand’s search for a credible and viable opposition is far from over</a>
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<p>This doesn’t mean socially conservative or liberal parties can’t work together – MMP allows for this as part of governing coalition negotiations, rather than the tensions playing out as internal party machinations.</p>
<p>Proportional representation systems tend to increase diversity within political systems – not just in terms of gender or ethnicity, but also by providing more specific political channels for different ideological perspectives, and encouraging open collaboration and compromise between those various groups.</p>
<p>Looked at this way, the obvious outcome is for a devolution of major “one size fits all” parties into smaller ones that take clearer policy and ideological positions. To some extent this has already happened on the left, with the advent of New Labour, and subsequently <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/political-parties/page-5">the Alliance</a> (which contained the Green Party), splitting out of Labour in the early 1990s.</p>
<h2>No motive for change</h2>
<p>So, if that’s the way MMP works, could such a devolution occur within National, and what might that look like? Might we see modern versions of United and Reform – one socially liberal, the other conservative – emerge to represent different groups on the right?</p>
<p>Similarly, could we witness the same process on the left, with socially conservative elements of Labour forming their own party, separate from but aligned to the Labour Party?</p>
<p>It’s not impossible, but for the time being seems unlikely. The main reason for that is scale – staying a single entity gives a party size, and size brings resources. So while devolution might make sense in theory, the current system rewards major political blocs, particularly through <a href="https://elections.nz/media-and-news/2020/2020-broadcasting-allocation-decision-released/">campaign funding</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/labour-makes-it-easier-to-change-leaders-but-jacinda-ardern-has-no-reason-to-go-yet-171381">Labour makes it easier to change leaders, but Jacinda Ardern has no reason to go – yet</a>
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<p>Segmenting into new parties would also result in a splintering of support, with consequences for <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/national-received-nearly-3m-in-large-political-donations-in-2020-nearly-double-labour/SYV3VUWSG2UOAHTKYFPFHFXBIQ/">funding streams</a>. The consolidation of resources and support was, of course, one of the main forces that pushed United and Reform together in the first place.</p>
<p>Unless there’s major fallout within National, with one cohort having severely reduced influence over policy, it’s unlikely there will be significant change any time soon. For decades, National’s liberal-conservative balance has seen the party able to unify a broad base around core values, making National the key player on the centre-right.</p>
<p>Given all of this, until the 2023 election we can expect to hear far more about Christopher Luxon’s conservatism being balanced out by the urban liberal values of Nicola Willis. For now at least, there will be no going back to the future for National.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173319/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Swanson is a member of the National Party </span></em></p>The National Party’s internal tensions have played out in a succession of leadership changes. Would the political right be better off formally divided, as it once was?Michael Swanson, PhD Student, University of OtagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1683792021-09-23T20:04:54Z2021-09-23T20:04:54ZGerman election: the race to replace Angela Merkel and why it matters to New Zealand<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422788/original/file-20210923-19-147cx5x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C0%2C6211%2C4147&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>From a distance, the big news about Germany’s coming election on September 26 is the end of Angela Merkel’s reign after 16 years of leadership in Germany and Europe. Closer up, with no clear front-runner to take Merkel’s place, the picture is far more complex.</p>
<p>Seemingly on track for a clear victory until February, the prospects of Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) have waned, as first the Greens and then the Social Democrats (SPD) narrowly topped the surprisingly volatile polls.</p>
<p>Merkel’s successor will be determined by the politics of coalition formation in an arrangement familiar to New Zealanders — Germany having provided the model for our own MMP system.</p>
<p>With another CDU/CSU-SPD grand coalition ruled out, the most likely outcome will see one of those parties leading a government comprising the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) in a so-called “Jamaica” or “traffic light” coalition (named for the party colours).</p>
<h2>A large undecided vote</h2>
<p>But nothing is clear cut. In an unpredictable campaign dominated by missteps rather than policies, the fortunes of those battling for the chancellery – the CDU/CSU’s Armin Laschet, the SPD’s Olaf Scholz and the Greens’ Annalena Baerbock – have ebbed and flowed.</p>
<p>Caught guffawing during the German president’s remarks to victims of the July floods, alongside <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-chancellor-candidate-laschet-admits-to-plagiarism-mistakes/a-58708559">accusations of plagiarism</a> (a problem to which the German political establishment seems particularly prone), Laschet has seen his party’s support plummet to the lowest-ever polled.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/angela-merkel-gentle-persuasion-in-an-age-of-populism-167777">Angela Merkel: gentle persuasion in an age of populism</a>
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<p>Meanwhile, Baerbock’s aggressive response to her own charges of plagiarism, combined with a failure to declare income, have raised concerns about her personal credibility and seen her party slump from their surprise lead in April.</p>
<p>In contrast stands Scholz. The only candidate with federal executive experience, including currently as minister of finance and vice-chancellor in the CDU/CSU-SPD grand coalition, Scholz was initially welcomed with little fanfare.</p>
<p>However, his leadership during the pandemic (dispensing billions of euros in support), coupled with the absence of gaffes, has seen his personal popularity rise. In <a href="https://www.infratest-dimap.de/umfragen-analysen/bundesweit/ard-deutschlandtrend/2021/september-ii/">preferred chancellor polls</a>, Scholz now leads on 40%, with Laschet on 19% and Baerbock on 13%. Somewhat soberingly this close to the election, 28% of respondents still “don’t know”.</p>
<h2>Business as usual?</h2>
<p>In an election devoid of real policy debate, it is difficult to say how the result will change Germany.</p>
<p>The answer may be “probably not much” if Laschet or Scholz gain the chancellery, with both in various ways casting themselves as continuity candidates (Scholz even going so far as to adopt Merkel’s patented <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210916-the-merkel-rhombus-how-a-hand-gesture-became-a-brand">rhombus hand gesture</a>). But a strengthened Greens voice in any coalition – likely on current polling – will have an impact.</p>
<p>From a New Zealand perspective, there are three areas of interest: European integration, foreign policy and climate change. One way or another, each will affect the world beyond Germany’s borders.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-madchen-to-mutti-as-angela-merkel-departs-she-leaves-a-great-legacy-of-leadership-168187">From 'Mädchen' to 'Mutti': as Angela Merkel departs, she leaves a great legacy of leadership</a>
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<h2>European integration</h2>
<p>Germany is at the heart of the European project, and Merkel’s time as chancellor has been important to the union. </p>
<p>Taking office during the disarray following the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/02/eu.politics">collapse</a> of the EU’s constitutional project, Merkel’s approach to integration was shorn of grand ambition. Instead, she has focused on stability and incremental reform in the face of subsequent crises (the Eurozone debt crisis, the European refugee crisis).</p>
<p>But the EU requires more than ad hoc incrementalism. It is increasingly difficult to reconcile the union’s significant economic footprint with its lack of foreign policy clout. In times of great power competition, the two are irrevocably interconnected. The role of the new chancellor in shaping European integration cannot be underestimated.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/auf-wiedersehen-mutti-how-angela-merkels-centrist-politics-shaped-germany-and-europe-153447">Auf Wiedersehen, 'Mutti': How Angela Merkel’s centrist politics shaped Germany and Europe</a>
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<p>Aside from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), all parties standing are pro-European and all envision reforms to strengthen integration. For New Zealand, with US-China tensions threatening to spill over in unpredictable ways, a strong EU is essential to maintaining a stable and rules-based international order.</p>
<p>This is particularly significant for a small trading power, dependent on the predictability and enforceability of global rules. Any moves to make the EU more consistent, understandable and responsive will benefit New Zealand.</p>
<h2>Climate change</h2>
<p>The climate crisis will be at the core of policy, regardless of which coalition comes to power. All parties have been forced to address the issue, a priority driven home by the July floods.</p>
<p>Carbon neutrality is central to the platforms of the main parties, though differences exist on how to achieve this. </p>
<p>Germany’s approach will cause ripples beyond its borders, playing as it does a key role in defining EU policy, including the union’s expectations of trading partners such as New Zealand.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-germanys-green-party-took-on-the-far-right-to-become-a-major-political-force-117927">How Germany's Green party took on the far right to become a major political force</a>
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<h2>Foreign policy</h2>
<p>There is also significant pressure for Germany to play a stronger global role to match its economic weight. This includes a more robust approach to powers such as China, something Merkel avoided.</p>
<p>Trade relations under Merkel were a priority. Separated from more contentious issues, it was an approach that pleased her Chinese counterparts. But complications darken the horizon: the EU has defined China as a “systemic rival”, and there have been calls for Germany to more actively confront Chinese assertiveness.</p>
<p>Developments in the Indo-Pacific are critical to New Zealand, which this week was surprised by the announcement of the formation of the AUKUS alliance between Australia, the US and UK. A more engaged Germany would be welcomed.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/state-of-the-eu-tech-and-defence-challenges-cloud-covid-success-168004">State of the EU: tech and defence challenges cloud COVID success</a>
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<p>A CDU-CSU victory is unlikely to see significant change, however. The party continues to prioritise trade in its international relationships, and Laschet has made some dubious foreign policy statements, raising questions as to what he would bring to the global stage.</p>
<p>The SPD also holds a conservative view of international engagement, aiming to avoid foreign conflicts. An emphasis on economic and trade policy is important for New Zealand, as negotiations for a free trade agreement with the EU near their end.</p>
<p>With only a few days until Germans cast their votes, the election remains anyone’s to win. Regardless of the outcome, New Zealand should continue to count Germany as an important friend in the EU. With Britain’s withdrawal in 2020, the relationship with Germany is more valuable than ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168379/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mathew Doidge receives funding from the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Serena Kelly receives funding from the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. She is affiliated with the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs and the European Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand. </span></em></p>Germany’s imminent election may seem far away, but in an inter-connected world threatened by political and climate instability, the outcome will affect New Zealand in significant ways.Mathew Doidge, Senior Research Fellow, University of CanterburySerena Kelly, Senior Lecturer, National Centre for Research on Europe, University of CanterburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1510172020-11-30T01:43:10Z2020-11-30T01:43:10ZWhat Australia can learn from New Zealand: a new perspective on that tricky trans-Tasman relationship<p>The recurring metaphor of New Zealand as “experiment” or “<a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/visitors-opinions-about-new-zealand/page-3">social laboratory</a>” might go back to the 1890s, but it continues to resonate in the 21st century. </p>
<p>Australian political journalist <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/laura-tingle/9711054?nw=0">Laura Tingle</a> has revived the venerable idea in the latest edition of the <a href="https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/">Quarterly Essay</a>, The High Road: What Australia can learn from New Zealand.</p>
<p>Her comparative historical narrative reveals uncanny parallels between the two countries — and significant divergences — with special attention to the recent history of neoliberal reforms, beginning in the 1980s, and then through to the post-global financial crisis and COVID-19 eras. </p>
<p>Time and perspective make all the difference, of course.</p>
<p>In the 1990s, for instance, when New Zealand was the global poster child for neoliberalism, Australia’s business lobbyists might have asked: why don’t we adopt the New Zealand model? Nowadays, the Australian left might <a href="https://theconversation.com/left-leaning-australians-may-look-to-new-zealand-with-envy-but-ardern-still-has-much-work-to-do-128227">look wistfully across the Tasman</a> and ask a similar question — for radically different reasons.</p>
<p>What Australians think they can learn from New Zealand, then, depends on the interests and values they stand for — and on the spin they put into retelling the histories of both countries.</p>
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<h2>Good and bad lessons</h2>
<p>Although long, Tingle’s essay could hardly do justice to the sweep of history it covers. It’s a commendable effort all the same, with only a few inaccuracies. For example, she writes “there wasn’t any official British administrative presence in New Zealand […] until 1839”, overlooking the arrival of James Busby in 1833 as <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/james-busby-inaugurated-british-resident">first British Resident</a>.</p>
<p>But overall, Tingle’s trans-Tasman comparative political economy hits the right spots.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-a-mandate-to-govern-new-zealand-alone-labour-must-now-decide-what-it-really-stands-for-144490">With a mandate to govern New Zealand alone, Labour must now decide what it really stands for</a>
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<p>She argues: “[T]he extent and speed of change in New Zealand [in the late 1980s and early 1990s], and the havoc it wreaked, would be impossible to defend from an Australian perspective.” </p>
<p>And, indeed, New Zealand’s “radical industrial relations change [from 1991] has not provided any panacea” for its persistently low levels of productivity — nor for a widening income gap with Australia.</p>
<p>In contrast, New Zealand’s <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/the-treaty-in-brief">Treaty of Waitangi</a> (1840) recognises Indigenous rights and provides constitutional backing for reconciliation and reparations. Its relevance has only grown, putting New Zealand well ahead of Australia in this respect, albeit with much work still to do.</p>
<h2>Growing apart</h2>
<p>At the turn of the 20th century, New Zealanders politely declined to join Australians in federation. The invitation is still open, in principle, but unlikely ever to be taken up. Neither side has any interest in completing that job. </p>
<p>As both countries matured after the world wars, they tended to ignore one another, looking more to the UK, Europe and US as leaders and exemplars. This is despite the Closer Economic Relations <a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/trade/free-trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements-in-force/nz-australia-closer-economic-relations-cer/">CER</a> agreement (1983) and the many parallels in their political histories that Tingle points out.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/courageous-investment-means-innovation-stays-in-nz-not-sold-off-overseas-150381">'Courageous' investment means innovation stays in NZ, not sold off overseas</a>
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<p>Regrettably, the two countries have continued to grow apart. The post-1984 <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/nuclear-free-nz">nuclear-free policy</a> led to New Zealand being kicked out of the <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/anzus-comes-into-force">ANZUS</a> Treaty. Then, as immigration and security became serious issues, the then Australian prime minister, John Howard, unilaterally withdrew the (once reciprocal) social rights of <a href="https://theconversation.com/wheres-the-choice-bro-kiwis-in-australia-get-a-raw-deal-18545">Kiwis in Australia</a> (an event Tingle omits to mention).</p>
<p>There was an accusation that New Zealanders were bludging off Australians in terms of both incomes and regional defence. Nowadays Australia deports its unwanted Kiwis with alacrity, which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pointedly described as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/28/not-much-love-actually-jacinda-ardern-was-right-to-call-out-australias-corrosive-policies">corrosive to our relationship</a>”. </p>
<h2>Trust in government</h2>
<p>Given that diplomatic corrosion, Australia probably won’t learn much from New Zealand. Nevertheless, the shared trauma of a global pandemic could bring the two countries closer again, especially once travel restrictions ease.</p>
<p>Many Australians see the conduct of politics in New Zealand as more civil and mature. Ardern certainly burnishes that reputation, even though there is scepticism at home about her government’s actual performance.</p>
<p>Tingle rightly points out that New Zealand’s proportional representation <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/what-is-the-mmp-voting-system/">electoral system</a> encourages competition for that notional median voter. Hence there is convergence between major political parties, rather than polarisation. Kiwi politicians never know when they might need their opponents’ support. </p>
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<p>Perhaps related to this, international comparative data indicate that people’s “<a href="https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/publications/global-satisfaction-democracy-report-2020/">dissatisfaction with democracy</a>” has grown alarmingly in Australia, the UK and the US — but not in New Zealand.</p>
<h2>Keeping dialogue open</h2>
<p>Being a small unitary state with a unicameral legislature, change is institutionally easier and swifter in Wellington than in Canberra. Because of this, New Zealand occasionally does something that makes Australians stop and think. </p>
<p>For instance, Australia was once on the verge of adopting New Zealand’s <a href="http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n5314/pdf/ch14.pdf">universal no-fault model</a> of accident compensation. That fell through with the dismissal of the Whitlam government. But Australia’s federal constitution would have made implementation more complicated. </p>
<p>Whether New Zealand is ever an example worth following is up to your political judgment. But Tingle’s essay is an important contribution to a maturing cross-Tasman dialogue that looks far beyond ANZAC jingoism and sporting rivalries. </p>
<p>Still, both countries are divided over how to understand their own histories, let alone learn one another’s. And there will always be argument about whether and why Australia could learn anything at all from New Zealand, or vice versa. </p>
<p>Tingle suggests paying closer attention to New Zealand — in the sense of it still being an experiment or a laboratory — and that seems to be all.</p>
<p>If the Australian government were to reconsider its “corrosive” approach to the relationship, however, we might begin to see a more constructive sharing of ideas in both directions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151017/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grant Duncan is a citizen of both Australia and New Zealand.</span></em></p>In a major essay, senior Australian political correspondent Laura Tingle suggests her country could still learn from the New Zealand ‘experiment’.Grant Duncan, Associate Professor, School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1489842020-11-02T02:14:32Z2020-11-02T02:14:32ZHer cabinet appointed, Jacinda Ardern now leads one of the most powerful governments NZ has seen<p>Jacinda Ardern’s new “<a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1309/482507295-Ministerial-List.pdf?1604279064">COVID cabinet</a>” is pretty much the same as — and completely unlike — every previous government under the mixed member proportional (MMP) system. </p>
<p>The similarity involves the political accommodation reached between Labour and the Greens. Every government formed since 1996 has rested on <a href="https://www.mcguinnessinstitute.org/civicsnz/obtaining-a-comprehensive-list-of-coalition-agreements-and-support-agreement-documents-since-1996/">such arrangements</a>. This one does too.</p>
<p>The difference lies in Ardern’s administration being the first single-party majority government since the electoral rules changed in the mid-1990s. Add to that the arrangement with the Greens and they have a massive 74-seat bloc in the House — 13 more than is needed to govern. </p>
<p>In brute political terms, Ardern is at the head of one of (and perhaps <em>the</em>) biggest parliamentary alliances in the nation’s history.</p>
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<h2>The Greens’ consolation prize</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300146558/election-2020-green-party-votes-to-be-part-of-next-government-with-labour">deal</a> announced over the weekend is a cooperation agreement. Think of it as the smallest of the consolation prizes, the thing you’re offered when your support is nice to have but not really necessary. </p>
<p>For the 15% of Green delegates who voted against it, perhaps it was just too small, and you can see their point. In the last government (when the party had eight rather than ten seats), the Greens held ten full or associate portfolios. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealands-new-parliament-turns-red-final-2020-election-results-at-a-glance-147757">New Zealand's new parliament turns red: final 2020 election results at a glance</a>
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<p>None of their ministers sat in cabinet, true, but there were four in the executive. Now there are only two, holding four portfolios between them — and they’re still not sitting at the top table.</p>
<p>Look more closely at <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/10/the-full-proposed-cooperation-agreement-between-labour-and-the-greens.html">the detail</a>, though, and things get more interesting. </p>
<h2>A new kind of MMP</h2>
<p>The Green ministers will participate in relevant cabinet committees and informal ministerial groups, have access to officials’ papers, and get to meet with the prime minister at least every six weeks. Labour and the Greens’ respective chiefs of staff will also meet regularly.</p>
<p>What’s more, the party will chair one parliamentary committee and get the deputy’s slot on another. In non-portfolio areas of mutual interest, Green spokespeople will have access to Labour ministers and departmental advice. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-a-mandate-to-govern-new-zealand-alone-labour-must-now-decide-what-it-really-stands-for-144490">With a mandate to govern New Zealand alone, Labour must now decide what it really stands for</a>
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<p>All that and they get to publicly disagree with the government on policies that fall outside Green portfolios. That is not a bad policy haul for a party Labour does not need to form a government.</p>
<p>And there is no way any of it would have happened under the single-party majority governments we used to see under the previous first-past-the-post system. So it may be a consolation prize, but in fact it’s not that small.</p>
<h2>A more diverse government</h2>
<p>As well as being the first single-party majority MMP government, it is also a diverse one. In her first term Ardern acknowledged the importance of having more women in cabinet. Nearly half (47%) of the new parliament — and a majority of Labour’s caucus (53%) — are women. </p>
<p>To some extent this is reflected in the makeup of the executive. Eight of the 20 full cabinet members are women; in total, women comprise 43% of the wider administration. There are more women in the ministry than in the National Party’s caucus.</p>
<p>The executive also contains a solid number of people of colour: perhaps as many as a quarter of all ministers and parliamentary under-secretaries are non-Pākehā.</p>
<p>On election night, Labour’s Māori caucus conveyed a direct message to the prime minister about the importance of a solid Māori presence in Cabinet. She appears to have listened. </p>
<p>Between them, Labour’s Māori MPs get five seats in cabinet. Add positions outside cabinet as well as the Greens’ Marama Davidson and Māori comprise 25% of all members of the executive. Perhaps most noteworthy is that Nanaia Mahuta becomes the country’s first female Minister of Foreign Affairs.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/labours-single-party-majority-is-not-a-failure-of-mmp-it-is-a-sign-nzs-electoral-system-is-working-148328">Labour's single-party majority is not a failure of MMP, it is a sign NZ's electoral system is working</a>
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<p>Ardern has also looked carefully at her back bench and the clutch of incoming MPs, bringing some of them into the political executive. Jan Tinetti and Kiri Allan have been marked for higher things for some time, while the newly minted MP <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/121229439/the-story-behind-the-doctor-pushing-for-better-covid19-contact-tracing">Dr Ayesha Verrall</a> comes straight into cabinet as an associate health minister.</p>
<h2>Power and control</h2>
<p>Under certain circumstances a large parliamentary caucus can be a challenge. Thwarted egos, stifled ambitions, fits of pique — once the thrill of the election result has worn off, managing relations between those who are in government and the wider parliamentary party will be one of the chief challenges facing Labour’s whips. </p>
<p>The Green co-leaders aside, Ardern’s executive comprises 40% of the Labour party’s caucus. Given the conventions of collective cabinet responsibility, this means that members of the government have a near majority within caucus, so discipline shouldn’t be an issue — yet.</p>
<p>It is hard to overstate just how much control Ardern has over New Zealand’s 53rd parliament. Even before special votes are counted, the parliamentary arithmetic renders National, ACT and the Māori Party virtually irrelevant. </p>
<p>Labour dominates the executive, and between them Labour and the Greens will dominate the legislature and its committees. Voters have placed considerable power in Ardern’s hands. It’s time to see what she does with it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148984/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The new cabinet may be diverse and inclusive, but Labour also has unprecedented executive and legislative control.Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1483302020-10-20T09:47:40Z2020-10-20T09:47:40ZThe 2020 NZ election saw record vote volatility — what does that mean for the next Labour government?<p>As the dust begins to settle after the 2020 election, a new electoral landscape becomes visible. It is remarkably different from the one before.</p>
<p>One way to put this in perspective is by measuring what we call “vote volatility” — the net vote shift between parties from one election to the next. By this calculation the 2020 election has ended a period of relative stability. </p>
<p>More significantly, unless reduced after the final count, the net vote shift will be the biggest in over a century. </p>
<p>The challenge will be for Labour to capitalise on this landmark in New Zealand electoral history — before the wheel inevitably turns again.</p>
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<h2>The first Labour landslide</h2>
<p>Vote volatility is calculated by adding the absolute changes in parties’ vote shares between elections, then dividing the sum by two. A score of 0 would mean parties all received the same vote shares as before. A score of 100 would mean a complete replacement of one set of parties by another.</p>
<p>Over the past century, New Zealand has had four elections in which net vote shifts have been well above the norm: 1919, 1935, 2005 and now 2020. </p>
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<p>In 1919, the Labour Party broke through into the city electorates and destroyed an embryonic two-party system that had pitched the Reform Party against the Liberal Party at the 1911 and 1914 elections. This turned elections into three-way races, with Labour winning mostly major urban seats, the Liberals doing better in the provincial towns and cities, and Reform in the countryside. </p>
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<p>In 1935, in a massive electoral landslide, Michael Joseph Savage’s Labour advanced further, <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/labour-party/page-2">forming</a> its first government. Three conservative parties merged to form the National Party, ushering in New Zealand’s second two-party system. </p>
<p>That lasted much longer, but began to decay as early as the 1950s. At the 1984 election, net vote shifts were higher than at any election since 1938. However, the <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/electoral-systems/page-3">first-past-the-post</a> system had prevented the emergence of a multi-party system from the 1970s onwards.</p>
<h2>An end to vote stability</h2>
<p>An upward vote volatility trend, beginning as long ago as the 1960s, continued after the introduction of MMP. Through the 1996, 1999 and 2002 elections, it reached a peak in 2005. After that, votes moved back in the direction of Labour and National. </p>
<p>As the pattern seemed to persist it led some observers to wonder whether the multi-party politics promised by MMP was a “mirage”. </p>
<p>ACT became a one-seat party, its Epsom electorate strategically gifted from National. New Zealand First dropped out of parliament in 2008, but returned in 2011. Only the Green Party prospered from one election to the next, eating into Labour’s vote share as the party languished in opposition during the John Key years. </p>
<p>Despite the change of government in 2008, vote shifts were modest, a pattern repeated in 2011. Indeed, in 2014 net vote shifts were the second lowest of any election over the previous century, only slightly higher than those of the “no change” election of 1963. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-a-mandate-to-govern-new-zealand-alone-labour-must-now-decide-what-it-really-stands-for-144490">With a mandate to govern New Zealand alone, Labour must now decide what it really stands for</a>
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<p>In 2017, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour took office, <a href="https://elections.nz/media-and-news/2017/new-zealand-2017-general-election-official-results/">reflecting</a> a real shift to the left, but relying on New Zealand First’s coalition choice more than the movement of votes (which was not enough for a left majority). It seemed party politics under MMP had stabilised after a brief period of experimentation that ended after the 2005 election.</p>
<p>The 2020 election breaks the mould. If the pattern holds after the counting of special votes, it will surpass even 1935, New Zealand’s hitherto most dramatic realigning election. </p>
<p>Moreover, <a href="https://elections.nz/media-and-news/2020/preliminary-results-for-the-2020-general-election/">turnout was up</a>, another indicator of a big change. This was despite a widely predicted Labour win and a big margin between Labour and National in pre-election polls — expectation of a decisive result usually pulls turnout down. </p>
<h2>The challenge to create a legacy</h2>
<p>One might dismiss this as a one-off. COVID-19 and the government response created a perfect storm. When the crisis is over, things will return to normal. </p>
<p>But one could have said the same thing in 1935. The depression of the 1930s gave Labour the chance to win. Even if the economic recovery that followed was only partly an effect of Labour policy, the party reaped the rewards in 1938. </p>
<p>Like Michael Joseph Savage before her, Jacinda Ardern has demonstrated the leadership demanded by the times. But there is a difference. Labour in 1935 came to power with a big promise of a welfare state. Labour in 2020 has made no big promises, although many smaller ones. It faces huge challenges, arguably much more demanding than those of the 1930s. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/jacinda-ardern-and-labour-returned-in-a-landslide-5-experts-on-a-historic-new-zealand-election-148245">Jacinda Ardern and Labour returned in a landslide — 5 experts on a historic New Zealand election</a>
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<p>COVID-19 and a sustainable economic recovery will be the first priorities. Climate change, increased international tension, trade wars, internal cultural diversity and working through ongoing responsibilities under the Treaty of Waitangi — all of these will test the mettle of the Ardern government.</p>
<p>The 2020 election tells us the New Zealand party system is more prone to big shifts than expected after 2005. Periods of apparent two-party dominance may be temporary. Both Labour and National are prone to rise and fall, creating space for smaller parties to step into the gaps as they open, and fall back as they close. </p>
<p>The catalysts of change may be big external shocks or internal challenges. All else being equal, the 2020 election is likely to herald a period of Labour dominance, but eventually the tide will turn. Labour’s biggest challenge will be to establish a lasting policy legacy before that happens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148330/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As part of the New Zealand Election Study, Jack Vowles receives funding from Victoria University of Wellington and the New Zealand Electoral Commission.</span></em></p>If the pattern on election night holds, 2020 will be the most dramatic election in 100 years in terms of votes shifting between major parties.Jack Vowles, Professor of Political Science, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1483282020-10-19T00:28:49Z2020-10-19T00:28:49ZLabour’s single-party majority is not a failure of MMP, it is a sign NZ’s electoral system is working<p>Even as the results rolled in on election night there were mutterings that a parliamentary majority controlled by one political party is somehow inconsistent with the spirit of <a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/what-is-mmp/">MMP</a>. The magnitude of the Jacinda Ardern-led Labour Party’s victory will no doubt encourage that view. </p>
<p>Wrong. In at least three respects the election result is exactly what electoral reform was about. </p>
<h2>The mandate</h2>
<p>For the better part of the 20th century single-party majority governments in Aotearoa New Zealand were formed by parties that won a minority of the popular vote. The best example (or worst, depending on your view) was in 1993, when Jim Bolger’s National Party wound up with a manufactured parliamentary majority based on just <a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/historical-events/18901993-general-elections">35% of the vote</a>. </p>
<p>You need to go all the way back to 1951 to find the last time a governing party won a majority of the vote. </p>
<p>But you can’t get away with this under MMP. Ardern has already racked up Labour’s highest share of the vote since the 51.3% Peter Fraser’s Labour Party won in 1946. It’s also the best performance of any party under MMP. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealands-new-parliament-turns-red-final-2020-election-results-at-a-glance-147757">New Zealand's new parliament turns red: final 2020 election results at a glance</a>
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<p>She’s done it at a time when voting for a party other than Labour or National is both possible and pretty normal. If, once special votes have been counted, Labour clears 50% of the vote Ardern will have achieved something no prime minister has done in 70 years. </p>
<p>MMP was designed to accurately translate people’s votes into parliamentary seats — and that is exactly what it has done.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A government for all: Jacinda Ardern affirms her consensus credentials in her election victory speech.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Policy moderation</h2>
<p>Ardern is a centrist, a <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/10/nz-election-2020-jacinda-ardern-vows-to-govern-for-every-new-zealander-in-victory-speech.html">self-avowed</a> consensus politician. Her single-party majority government will not behave as the Labour and National administrations of the 1980s and 1990s did. </p>
<p>New Zealanders <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/fpp-to-mmp/putting-it-to-the-vote">changed the electoral rules</a> because they were sick of <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/1st-term-4th-labour-government">radical swings</a> of the policy pendulum driven by single-party majority governments ruling on the basis of a minority of the vote. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jacinda-ardern-and-labour-returned-in-a-landslide-5-experts-on-a-historic-new-zealand-election-148245">Jacinda Ardern and Labour returned in a landslide — 5 experts on a historic New Zealand election</a>
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<p>If MMP was designed to do anything it was to lock in policy moderation. In fact, in the early 1990s, the Treasury was concerned to implement its favoured neo-liberal reforms before the electoral system changed, precisely because it knew policy radicalism would be next to impossible under MMP. </p>
<p>Where the David Lange-led Labour and Bolger-led National governments of the late 20th century were doctrinaire and divisive, Ardern will be pragmatic and focused on results. For better or worse, she knows exactly where the median voter lives.</p>
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<h2>Diversity of representation</h2>
<p>For reasonable people, one of the purposes of an electoral system is to produce legislatures that broadly reflect the people who choose them. On at least one count MMP is <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/123125481/incoming-parliament-set-to-be-our-most-inclusive-with-increase-in-women-people-of-colour-and-lgbtq-members">heading in the right direction</a>. </p>
<p>In 1996, the first MMP parliament doubled the presence of women in the House of Representatives. By 2017 the proportion of women parliamentarians stood at 40%. That figure got another bump on Saturday, pushing the number of women in the 120-member legislature from 49 to 56. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-a-mandate-to-govern-new-zealand-alone-labour-must-now-decide-what-it-really-stands-for-144490">With a mandate to govern New Zealand alone, Labour must now decide what it really stands for</a>
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<p>Nearly half (46.5%) of all parliamentarians are now women, the vast majority of them — 73% — members of the Labour or Green parties. This lifts New Zealand from 20th on the <a href="https://data.ipu.org/women-ranking?month=10&year=2020">international league table</a> to ninth (two spots behind Sweden).</p>
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<h2>MMP was the winner</h2>
<p>This election will change the way politics is done, discussed and practised in Aotearoa NZ due to three significant developments:</p>
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<li><p>Labour has <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/428600/the-red-tide-labour-wins-15-seats-held-by-national">won big</a> in the towns and in the country. National can no longer claim to be the party of rural people, and Labour can no longer be painted as the party of urban élites. In fact, the fundamental question confronting National now is: what kind of party are we?</p></li>
<li><p>Once special votes are counted, it is possible Labour will have over 50% of the vote. Not only will it be the first time this has happened since 1951, it will also mean most New Zealanders have chosen a politics of communitarianism over a politics of individualism.</p></li>
<li><p>For the first time in our history more people <a href="https://elections.nz/stats-and-research/2020-general-election-advance-voting-statistics">voted before</a> polling day than on the day itself (a <em>lot</em> more — advance voting this year reached the equivalent of 70% of all of the votes cast in 2017). The very nature of elections has changed, meaning the laws banning political activity on polling day need to be revised. (In the process, the problem of setting an election date to avoid an All Blacks Test might be avoided.) </p></li>
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<p>There is more to be digested, including that this parliament contains no small-party tail to <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/stop-the-tail-from-wagging-the-dog">wag the big party’s dog</a>. But right now one thing is clear: MMP gets two ticks for its performance this year. It has done exactly what it was designed to do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The people have spoken, and MMP has delivered the right result — even if it means Labour governs alone.Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1444902020-10-18T01:02:55Z2020-10-18T01:02:55ZWith a mandate to govern New Zealand alone, Labour must now decide what it really stands for<p>A pandemic can change the foundations of a society. But if this happens in New Zealand over the next three years, it will be for reasons beyond the control of the sixth Labour government. When it comes to the fundamental structure of state and economy, Labour is broadly committed to the status quo. </p>
<p>This was confirmed on election night when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, wearing a Labour red dress before a National blue background, declared: “We will be a party that governs for every New Zealander.”</p>
<p>In times of upset, people yearn for normality — and Ardern’s Labour Party was <a href="https://theconversation.com/jacinda-ardern-and-labour-returned-in-a-landslide-5-experts-on-a-historic-new-zealand-election-148245">awarded a landslide</a> for achieving something close to this. The risk of a further COVID-19 outbreak is ever present, as today’s <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/123126179/coronavirus-one-new-community-case-of-covid19-in-auckland">announcement</a> of a community transmission case in Auckland reminded us. </p>
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<p>Nevertheless, <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/300135573/election-2020-how-the-world-reacted-to-jacinda-arderns-landslide-victory">international spectators</a> view our pandemic response with a wistful gaze. At a time when many nations went sour on liberal democracy and rolled the populist dice, New Zealand appears on the world stage like a tribute act to third-way politics, a nostalgic throwback to the relative sanity and stability of the long 1990s. </p>
<p>Yet for many people who live in Aotearoa New Zealand, the status quo isn’t working, and hasn’t for some time. These tensions are only intensifying.</p>
<p>Housing unaffordability is <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/real-estate/123012706/house-prices-still-expected-to-rise-but-a-glimmer-of-hope-for-buyers-report-shows">on the rise</a> again, with implications for wealth inequality and deprivation. This is compounded further by the cascading economic effects of the global pandemic and unconventional manoeuvres in monetary policy that are <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300126229/an-economy-built-on-rising-house-prices-is-property-our-path-to-recovery">pushing</a> house prices higher.</p>
<p>Without remedial action, this inequality will leave New Zealand society <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-020-09776-x">more exposed to future shocks</a>, not only from COVID-19, but also the multiplying risks of climate change, biodiversity collapse, digital disruption and international instability. Inequality ensures uneven impacts, a recipe for further discontent and conflict.</p>
<h2>No party for ideologues</h2>
<p>Even from a purely electoral perspective, the Labour Party can’t afford inaction. It is easy to forget how precarious the prime minister’s position was at the beginning of the year. She could boast enough policy wins to stack an <a href="https://twitter.com/nzlabour/status/1191198139723603968?lang=en">early campaign video</a>, yet hadn’t pulled a fiscal lever large enough to convince the public that her government was truly “<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-has-dethroned-gdp-as-a-measure-of-success-but-will-arderns-government-be-transformational-118262">transformational</a>”.</p>
<p>Entering a second term, her policy agenda is more recognisable by what she won’t do than what she will — no capital gains tax, no wealth tax, indeed no new taxes at all beyond a tweak for the highest earners.</p>
<p>This leaves us with the longstanding conundrum of what the Labour Party is and what it really stands for these days. Ardern and her colleagues are not ideologues, but <a href="https://medium.com/rsa-journal/a-new-ideological-era-2172f379a67d">no politics is without ideology</a> — a system of ideas, values and beliefs that orients its efforts.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealands-new-parliament-turns-red-final-2020-election-results-at-a-glance-147757">New Zealand's new parliament turns red: final 2020 election results at a glance</a>
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<p>I’ve argued in the past that Ardern’s government has a spirit of <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/107174115/how-jacinda-ardern-embodies-the-spirit-of-republicanism">civic republicanism</a>. This has met with <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/08-10-2018/what-is-jacinda-arderns-big-idea/">reasonable scepticism</a>, yet in the midst of the pandemic it feels more relevant than ever. With borders drastically restricted, and old allies going wayward, there is a renewed sense of separateness, of independence in the world.</p>
<p>Might the pandemic seal New Zealand’s fate as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Commonwealthmen#ref1187742">Commonwealth of Oceana</a>, as a 21st century version of 17th century English republican John Harrington’s utopian island?</p>
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<h2>Kindness as a political virtue</h2>
<p>The first symptom of republicanism belongs to Ardern herself. She is the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1r2csg">active citizen</a> <em>par excellence</em>. She embodies civic commitment and public-spiritedness, along with a good dose of humility. Even in emergencies, she remains one of us: <em>primus inter pares</em>, “first among equals”.</p>
<p>Analysts of Ardern’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/open-honest-and-effective-what-makes-jacinda-ardern-an-authentic-leader-132513">political leadership</a> emphasise her openness, honesty, self-discipline, empathy and, above all, her authenticity. For civic republicans, the exercise of such virtues is the lifeblood of public life. Indeed, insofar as Ardern has a distinctive political agenda, it is centred on the virtue of kindness.</p>
<p>Arguably, this has displaced the more principled commitments that might guide substantive structural reform. But kindness also provided vital emotional leadership in the raw moments following the Christchurch mosque attacks and the outset of the pandemic.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jacinda-ardern-and-labour-returned-in-a-landslide-5-experts-on-a-historic-new-zealand-election-148245">Jacinda Ardern and Labour returned in a landslide — 5 experts on a historic New Zealand election</a>
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<p>As the 18th century philosopher Montesquieu said, “Virtue in a republic is a most simple thing: it is a love of the republic.” Few could doubt Ardern’s devotion to the nation. But for the Labour Party, as for republicans, this has an exclusionary aspect.</p>
<p>Given the emphasis on citizens, republicans have tended to prioritise “us” over “them”. In the Athenian republic, only citizens could participate in democracy, and only wealthy men could be citizens — not women, not slaves, not foreigners.</p>
<p>Similarly, in New Zealand’s “team of five million”, only citizens have the full spectrum of rights and entitlements. For more than 300,000 temporary visa holders, whose compliance with pandemic restrictions was vital for containing the outbreak, there was minimal solidarity from government.</p>
<p>Many were frozen out of jobs during lockdown, unable to relocate due to visa conditions, and excluded from <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/can-of-beans-solution-for-out-of-work-migrants">social welfare support</a>. Others were stuck outside the country <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/temporary-visa-holders-can-return">until very recently</a>, unable to re-enter. From a liberal or internationalist perspective, this is hard to swallow. But there is a nativist strain <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/12-06-2017/as-we-gear-up-for-an-election-a-new-poll-reveals-nzers-views-on-immigration/">within the Labour Party</a> which will relish these harder borders.</p>
<p>None of this is to say that Labour’s politics aren’t liberal or social democratic. Ideologies can be mixed in the same way that economies can be. It is to say, more modestly, that some of the qualities that characterise the Ardern government align with civic republicanism. </p>
<p>And this helps to resist the lazy analysis that this government is nothing more than a continuation of what came before, another phase in an undifferentiable centrist blob.</p>
<h2>Neither socialist nor purely liberal</h2>
<p>But where to next? Firstly, this is not a government of pure socialist intentions. <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/covid-19-coronavirus-matthew-hooton-trust-jacinda-ardern-to-get-us-through/NHCKFWDKPO2DHND3BPP4FVP7XA/">Accusations of this kind</a> come from a place of confusion, delusion, or plain mischief. Socialism, simply put, involves collective ownership of the means of production. </p>
<p>This government already relinquished an unprecedented opportunity to socialise the economy when it implemented its wage subsidy scheme at the outset of the pandemic.</p>
<p>Public debt is growing precisely to keep private businesses in private hands. Labour’s resistance to substantive tax reform, even to reduce the debt it <a href="https://www.interest.co.nz/news/106385/grant-robertson-remains-committed-reducing-government-debt-long-term-saying-modern">insists it must pay back</a>, reveals its abandonment of redistribution as a practicable tool for social change.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2020-jacinda-ardern-promised-transformation-instead-the-times-transformed-her-142900">NZ election 2020: Jacinda Ardern promised transformation — instead, the times transformed her</a>
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<p>Secondly, this is not a government of purely liberal intentions. It is ambivalent about the free flow of people and capital. Attorney-General David Parker, in particular, has prioritised citizens through restrictions on overseas buyers of housing and the “national interest” test for foreign investment.</p>
<p>It is notable that former National prime minister John Key, guided by <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/16-01-2017/liberals-got-walloped-in-2016-can-post-liberalism-rise-from-the-ashes/">a vision of global liberalism</a> that is increasingly endangered, is <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/newstalk-zb/news/covid-19-coronavirus-john-key-says-nz-should-let-in-rich-americans-who-want-to-build-a-house/DN2KIFSCWX5IKYX56NCBSYOMWE/">still railing against</a> this.</p>
<p>Ardern’s government is also unembarrassed about a more active role for the state. Its approach for housing is illustrative — not just its boost to state-owned housing, but especially its embrace of the state’s potential as a developer providing houses directly to market.</p>
<p>Liberals see this as mere interference, but republicans tolerate government intervention wherever it improves the lives of citizens. In the wake of the pandemic, voters will be prone to agree.</p>
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<h2>The danger of losing trust</h2>
<p>This touches on the defining feature of civic republicanism: its commitment to <a href="https://books.google.co.nz/books/about/Republicanism.html?id=AOfYtIyWOZsC&redir_esc=y">freedom from domination</a>. Republicans accept the kinds of intervention that liberals fear, as long as they free people from situations of oppression and subjugation.</p>
<p>Domination should also be broadly understood to include regulations, poverty, sexism, racism, environmental degradation, employment relations — anything that thwarts our cherished projects.</p>
<p>This is where the republican spirit mostly clearly intersects with the sixth Labour government’s interest in well-being. The purpose of worrying about well-being is to improve people’s capabilities to live the kinds of lives they most value. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2020-why-gender-stereotypes-still-affect-perceptions-of-jacinda-ardern-and-judith-collins-as-leaders-147837">NZ election 2020: why gender stereotypes still affect perceptions of Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins as leaders</a>
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<p>Because the aforementioned forms of oppression curtail such freedoms, we have a duty to overturn them, through intervention if necessary. Well-being economics isn’t merely about measurement; it is an <a href="https://books.google.co.nz/books/about/Development_as_Freedom.html?id=NQs75PEa618C&redir_esc=y">emancipatory project</a>.</p>
<p>Ardern’s government is most vulnerable to criticism when it falls short of this ideal — for example, the <a href="https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/theyre-stealing-our-children-their-beds-oranga-tamariki-blasted-after-report-into-baby-uplifts">oppressive practices</a> of Oranga Tamariki or ineffective infrastructure development. If voters won’t punish Ardern for not being socialist or liberal enough, they might still penalise her for failing to make real these republican impulses.</p>
<p>It is said that, in politics, what lifts you up is what will eventually drag you down. When the virtues of openness fail to strengthen transparency, when state intervention fails to deliver outcomes competently or effectively, when appeals to “the people” paper over vital differences, when the politics of kindness fail to prevent suffering — this is where trust will be lost.</p>
<p>The danger of electoral dominance is becoming your own worst enemy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Hall receives funding from the National Science Challenge for Biological Heritage. </span></em></p>In politics, what lifts you up can drag you down. To avoid that, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government will have to examine its political soul.David Hall, Senior Researcher in Politics, Auckland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1482452020-10-17T12:18:27Z2020-10-17T12:18:27ZJacinda Ardern and Labour returned in a landslide — 5 experts on a historic New Zealand election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364050/original/file-20201017-23-9df57a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3982%2C2000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The pre-election polls suggested it might happen. But the fact that Labour and Jacinda Ardern have provisionally won an outright majority and the mandate to govern New Zealand alone is more than an electoral landslide — it is a tectonic shift. </p>
<p>You can see the full results and compare them with the 2017 election <a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-at-a-glance-graphs-and-tables-147757">here</a>.</p>
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<p>This is also not a result the mixed member proportional (<a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/what-is-mmp/">MMP</a>) voting system was <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-polls-showing-labour-could-govern-alone-is-new-zealand-returning-to-the-days-of-elected-dictatorship-146918">designed to deliver</a>. The challenge for Ardern and Labour now will be to translate that mandate — and the fact that their natural coalition partner the Greens have performed strongly too — into the “transformational” agenda promised since 2017.</p>
<p>For now, there is much to digest in the sheer scale of the swing against National and the likely shape of the next parliament. Our panel of political analysts deliver their initial responses and predictions.</p>
<h2>Labour rewarded for its COVID response</h2>
<p><strong>Jack Vowles, Professor of Political Science, Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington</strong></p>
<p>It’s an historic MMP result, and that is down to one thing: COVID-19. Labour and Ardern made the right calls. Comparative analysis of COVID responses internationally shows it’s not just a matter of what you do, it’s a matter of whether you do it soon enough. Labour did that and have been rewarded electorally.</p>
<p>The polls were largely in line with what looks like the final result will be — the Greens have done a bit better, as has Labour, and National appreciably worse. It’s unlikely they can claw that back to where earlier polls had them. Special votes will be roughly 15% of the total and they are likely to go more in Labour’s and the Green’s direction, as they did in 2017.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2020-why-gender-stereotypes-still-affect-perceptions-of-jacinda-ardern-and-judith-collins-as-leaders-147837">NZ election 2020: why gender stereotypes still affect perceptions of Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins as leaders</a>
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<p>The swing away from National is pretty dramatic. If it is indeed the first single party majority under MMP it’s very unlikely to happen again for a long time. The big question is whether Labour wants to do a deal with the Greens when they don’t have to. </p>
<p>It might be in their interests to do so in the long run — in 2023 Labour probably won’t be in such a strong position. If they have a good relationship with the Greens it might stand them in better stead, but it’s a tough strategic call.</p>
<p>As for New Zealand First, according to analysis of the Reid Research polls over the past months, most of their vote has gone to Labour. And that is simply another reflection of this being a COVID election. Labour was rewarded for protecting New Zealanders, particularly the most vulnerable — and that is in the traditions of the Labour Party.</p>
<h2>Labour win masks smaller victories</h2>
<p><strong>Bronwyn Hayward, Professor of Politics, University of Canterbury</strong></p>
<p>With a record 1.9 million people casting an early vote, this was always going to be an election with a difference. Younger voters also enrolled in historic numbers, with a significant increase in those aged 18 to 29 enrolling across the country. A generation’s hopes and aspirations now hang in the balance. </p>
<p>Labour’s victory offers the party command of the house, an unprecedented situation in an MMP government. But it masks some other remarkable achievements. The Māori Party’s fortunes have risen, with very little national media coverage. </p>
<p>ACT has been transformed from a tiny grouping of 13,075 party votes in 2017 to win an astonishing 185,723 party votes this year. </p>
<p>The Greens defied a dominant mantra that small parties who enter governance arrangements are eclipsed in the next election. They maintained their distinctive brand and should bring ten MPs into the House. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2020-jacinda-ardern-promised-transformation-instead-the-times-transformed-her-142900">NZ election 2020: Jacinda Ardern promised transformation — instead, the times transformed her</a>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300135281/election-2020-greens-chle-swarbrick-takes-auckland-central-in-shock-win">epic struggle</a> for Auckland Central by Chlöe Swarbrick (Green) and Helen White (Labour) has pushed up both the Green and the Labour vote — a microcosm of the wider shift to a progressive left electorate bloc. </p>
<p>The challenge now is for Labour to decide to open this victory to support parties. What happens next matters as much as the election itself. Will a Labour government led by the most popular prime minister in New Zealand’s history be incrementalist or transformative in tackling the biggest challenges any government has faced in peacetime?</p>
<h2>The Māori Party returns</h2>
<p><strong>Lindsey Te Ata o Tau MacDonald, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Canterbury</strong></p>
<p>Tonight demonstrates that Māori voters continue to waver between the Māori Party via its electorate MPs and Labour via the party vote. </p>
<p>On one side there is the legacy of Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples, and the founding generation of “by Māori, for Māori, with Māori” in the post-settlement era. Rawiri Waititi, who may well take Tamiti Coffey’s seat in Waiariki, is the living embodiment of the success of that struggle. </p>
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<p>The other side is exemplified by Koro Wetere’s triumph in 1975 in creating the Waitangi Tribunal. These two stories — struggle via protest and gradual legislative change — were deeply intertwined in Labour’s grip on the Māori seats until 2003. Then, in one grand racist gesture, Labour proved itself a colonial government by taking the last Māori land, the foreshore and seabed, by statute. </p>
<p>Māori voters have not forgotten the deep betrayal of that removal of their property rights. Hence the close races tonight for those who truly inherit the mantle of the Māori party’s founders, such as Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. </p>
<p>John Tamihere’s close run in Tāmaki Makaurau is more just politics, Auckland style, as usual. He may be wondering why he didn’t go with ACT, which has brought in interesting new Māori talent.</p>
<h2>What happened to the ‘shy Tories’?</h2>
<p><strong>Jennifer Curtin, Professor of Politics and Policy, University of Auckland</strong></p>
<p>Two aspects are interesting in this post-MMP history-making election. The first is that Labour has made significant gains in the regions. It is now not solely a party of the cities — it looks to have claimed seats that have long been forgotten as bellwethers (Hamilton East and West), as well as those provincial hubs in Taranaki, Canterbury, Hawkes Bay and Northland. </p>
<p>This suggests that while New Zealand First had been gifted the Provincial Growth Fund to deliver regional economic growth to the regions, it was Labour that reaped the rewards of this largesse. </p>
<p>While COVID-19 is definitely part of the reason for Labour’s success, the support is likely to have come from across the political spectrum, bringing its own challenges.</p>
<p>This leads into the second interesting point. Judith Collins reportedly did not share internal polling with her caucus, but public polls suggested National support was in the 30% region. Collins argued the result would be higher, that there were shy Tories who would turn out for National. </p>
<p>In fact, this result suggests it was “shy lefties” the polls had failed to capture. And it appears undecided voters decided National was not for them this time.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-election-2020-as-the-ultimate-political-survivor-judith-collins-prepares-for-her-ultimate-test-144488">NZ election 2020: as the ultimate political survivor, Judith Collins prepares for her ultimate test</a>
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<h2>With such a mandate, Ardern must deliver</h2>
<p><strong>Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University</strong></p>
<p>The Prime Minister asked for a mandate and she got it. Final numbers won’t be known for a couple of weeks, but the headline result was one last seen in New Zealand in 1993: a political party in possession of a clear parliamentary majority.</p>
<p>All the same, Jacinda Ardern will be chatting with Green Party leaders Marama Davidson and James Shaw (and perhaps the Māori Party, depending on events in Waiariki) about how Labour and the Greens might work together in the 53rd Parliament. Perhaps a formal coalition, but more likely a compact of some sort. </p>
<p>She doesn’t need the Greens to govern and their leverage is limited. But a lot of people who voted for Labour would not have done so under other circumstances (no Ardern, no COVID). At some point they will return home to National. Labour will already be thinking about 2023 and Ardern knows she will need parliamentary friends in the future.</p>
<p>But right now Ardern has a chance to consign the centre-right to the opposition benches for the next couple of electoral cycles. There is a chasm between the combined Labour/Green vote (57%) and National/ACT (35%). ACT had a good night but the centre-right had a shocker. National now has a real problem with rejuvenation. With a low party vote, and having lost so many electorates, their ranks will look old and threadbare in 2023.</p>
<p>This election is tectonic. Ardern has led Labour to its biggest victory since Norman Kirk, and enters the Labour pantheon with Savage, Lange and Clark. Once special votes are counted, Labour could be the first party since 1951 to win a clear majority of the popular vote. </p>
<p>It has won in the towns and in the country. It won the party vote in virtually every single electorate. Labour candidates, many of them women (look for a large influx of new women MPs), have won seats long held by National. </p>
<p>Tonight Labour is looking like the natural party of government in Aotearoa New Zealand. Ardern has her mandate — now she needs to deliver.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148245/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Jacinda Ardern and Labour are returned to power in a landslide, making New Zealand political history in the process.Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey UniversityBronwyn Hayward, Professor of Politics, University of CanterburyJack Vowles, Professor of Political Science, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonJennifer Curtin, Professor of Politics and Policy, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata RauLindsey Te Ata o Tu MacDonald, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of CanterburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1469182020-09-28T00:55:08Z2020-09-28T00:55:08ZWith polls showing Labour could govern alone, is New Zealand returning to the days of ‘elected dictatorship’?<p>In the mid-1990s New Zealanders adopted electoral rules they hoped would end the tyranny of what Lord Hailsham once called the “elected dictatorship” of single-party majority government. And yet, a quarter century later, we are staring down the barrel of just that. </p>
<p>In the New Zealand parliament, which typically numbers 120 MPs, the threshold for this political grail is 61 seats. <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/09/nz-election-2020-newshub-reid-research-poll-shows-labour-governing-alone-as-national-languishes-in-the-20s.html">The latest polls</a> indicate the Labour Party would <a href="https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/1-news-colmar-brunton-poll-labour-drops-national-flounders-minor-parties-lift">exceed this number</a> if it maintains its current popularity.</p>
<p>That’s significant because in parliamentary democracies single-party majority governments are powerful beasts, able to wield executive and legislative power without recourse to coalition or compromise with other parties. </p>
<p>Moreover, when the <a href="https://gg.govt.nz/office-governor-general/roles-and-functions-governor-general/constitutional-role/constitution">constitutional constraints</a> on the (mis)use of executive authority are pretty feeble — as is the case here, with our dispersed constitution, limited scope of judicial review and unicameral legislature — such administrations have a propensity to go rogue.</p>
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<h2>Governments behaving badly</h2>
<p>During the 1980s and 1990s, governments of both the centre-left and centre-right displayed stunning levels of executive arrogance: routinely ignoring pre-election commitments, embarking on structural reforms <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/fpp-to-mmp">without mandates</a>, and making a virtue of taking “hard” decisions that enriched some and made life miserable for many.</p>
<p>So in 1993 <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/the-20th-anniversary-of-mmp/">voters changed the rules</a>, ditching the old first-past-the-post (FPP) system, which regularly delivered outsized parliamentary majorities to either Labour or National, in favour of mixed member proportional representation (MMP). </p>
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<p>Under the new system, providing a party wins at least 5% of the vote or one constituency seat (either Māori or general), its share of parliamentary seats is in more or less direct proportion to its support among voters.</p>
<p>That “more or less” is important. Depending on how many votes go to parties that fail to clear the threshold, a major party can win slightly less than a majority of the vote but still control a parliamentary majority. </p>
<p>For instance, last week’s 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton poll had Labour securing 62 seats on the basis of 48% support. That’s because the same poll showed a combined 7% support for parties that would not make it into parliament. </p>
<p>The eight seats represented by that so-called “wasted vote” would effectively be shared pro rata between the elected parties: Labour would pick up four, giving the party a majority.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360168/original/file-20200927-14-6cgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360168/original/file-20200927-14-6cgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360168/original/file-20200927-14-6cgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360168/original/file-20200927-14-6cgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360168/original/file-20200927-14-6cgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360168/original/file-20200927-14-6cgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360168/original/file-20200927-14-6cgf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Electoral snapshot as at September 27: a single-party majority government is possible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot/Newshub-Reid Research</span></span>
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<h2>Would Labour form a coalition anyway?</h2>
<p>There has not been a reputable poll since March that does not put Labour in a <a href="https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8429-nz-national%20-voting-intention-may-2020-202006010651">position to govern alone</a>. For some, and not just those on the political right, this is a concern. New Zealanders have become accustomed to power sharing rather than the power hoarding that is the hallmark of single-party majority, winner-takes-all government.</p>
<p>But are we necessarily staring back to the future? If Jacinda Ardern wakes up on October 18 (or when the official results are announced on <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/electiontimeline/index.html">November 6</a>) with a parliamentary majority, what might she do?</p>
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<p>The cautious approach (and the prime minister is nothing if not cautious) would be to form an arrangement with another party. For one thing, it is useful to have someone else to blame when things go wrong (as they will). </p>
<p>Also, Ardern knows the support she and her party currently enjoy is unlikely to last for the next three (let alone six or nine) years. Voters shop around. The last time a party won an election with a majority of the vote was in 1951. </p>
<p>Labour has never won more than 41.5% of the vote under MMP. To become the natural party of government it will need allies for those times when its vote falls beneath what is required to govern alone.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Electoral snapshot as at September 22: even at 48% Labour could form a parliamentary majority.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The temptation to go it alone</h2>
<p>The other option is to go full retro: throw off the <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12342729">handbrake</a> of current coalition partner New Zealand First, put aside the Greens (assuming they make it back in) and go it alone. </p>
<p>That would be tempting: no need to share scarce executive slots, plus the ability to legislate unimpeded by the moderating constraints of multi-party government.</p>
<p>Across all eight MMP elections the average vote share of the highest-polling party has been 42%. But that figure is climbing. In the first four elections it was 39%, but across the next four it rose to 46%. Under MMP, that is getting very close to winner-takes-all territory. </p>
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<p>In that sense, New Zealand has been flirting with a return to elected dictatorships since 2008. The go-it-alone option might not be the outlier it seems.</p>
<p>There is no MMP commandment that “thou shalt not have single-party majority governments”. Electoral systems translate votes into seats in the legislature. If a single-party majority government takes office next month it will do so because a near or clear majority of voters wanted one (unlike the last one in <a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/historical-events/18901993-general-elections">1993</a>, which was chosen by 35% of voters).</p>
<p>Underneath this lies the question of how executive power is constrained. Having changed the system to end a tradition of elected dictatorship, New Zealand may have to admit that the question has not yet been properly answered.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146918/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>During the MMP era, the average vote share of the highest-polling party has been steadily climbing — with big implications for New Zealand democracy.Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1432622020-09-16T23:46:18Z2020-09-16T23:46:18ZStardust and substance: New Zealand’s election becomes a ‘third referendum’ on Jacinda Ardern’s leadership<p>The <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/122467301/election-2020-prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-delays-the-election-a-month-until-october-17">delay</a> to the New Zealand election date — to which not every country’s citizenry would have adjusted with such alacrity — was only the latest event in a year when the unexpected and the extraordinary have become constant features of a fragile “new normal”.</p>
<p>What was expected to be a prime ministerial contest between Jacinda Ardern and Simon Bridges led, briefly, to one with <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/417253/as-it-happened-simon-bridges-loses-national-party-leadership-to-todd-muller">Todd Muller</a> before settling on a choice between the prime minister and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/14/judith-collins-named-new-zealand-national-party-new-leader">Judith Collins</a>.</p>
<p>Labour might have set the precedent with its desperate <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/336241/as-it-happened-jacinda-ardern-takes-charge-as-labour-leader">leadership change</a> just weeks out from the 2017 election, but it’s unlikely this was what the National Party had in mind when it first contemplated the <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300018085/bridges-plummets-in-latest-poll-as-national-leadership-race-enters-final-day">dismal opinion poll figures</a>.</p>
<p>For a country whose politics have sometimes been considered boringly predictable, the prelude to the October 17 election has been anything but.</p>
<p>So it is virtually impossible to judge the Labour/New Zealand First/Green coalition’s performance by conventional measures.</p>
<p>The government’s original programme — as articulated in the November 2017 <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/speech-throne-2017">speech from the throne</a> — reflected the three parties’ policy preferences, modified by post-election negotiations and agreements. But that bears little resemblance to the events that have subsequently shaped the reputation of the government and the prime minister.</p>
<h2>The pandemic election</h2>
<p>Nothing in the Labour Party’s 2017 campaign could have prepared the party, its leadership or the electorate for a succession of life-and-death crises: the <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/424583/christchurch-mosque-attacks-terrorist-sentenced-to-life-in-jail-without-parole">attack</a> on the Christchurch mosques, the disaster of the Whakaari/White Island <a href="https://www.geonet.org.nz/about/volcano/whiteisland">eruption</a> and finally the COVID-19 pandemic, with its lockdowns, border closures and economic consequences.</p>
<p>The crises have arisen with almost Shakespearean qualities, prophesied in Hamlet: “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”</p>
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<p>New Zealand responded well in each case, displaying unity, resolve and concern. That speaks volumes for the government and its leadership, but also for the country and its people in general. A leadership that calls on a nation to unite can only succeed when the public complies.</p>
<p>At the same time, public compliance is likely when there is respect for the country’s leadership. Respect is an impermanent reputational asset, of course, won or lost as a result of decisions made and communicated.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The New Zealand Labour Party’s first television campaign advertisement, fronted by leader Jacinda Ardern.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The prospect of single-party government</h2>
<p>Amid these unpredictable and disruptive events, then, New Zealand’s <a href="https://www.elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/what-is-mmp/">electoral system</a> (though still relatively new) now represents a kind of certainty and stability.</p>
<p>The 2020 parliamentary elections are the ninth to be held under the mixed member proportional (MMP) system. Having been approved, established and reconfirmed by <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/25-years-since-mmp-referendum/">referendums</a> in 1992, 1993 and 2011, the system is no longer particularly controversial.</p>
<p>However, MMP’s success in delivering greater parliamentary diversity has also accustomed New Zealanders to coalition governments. Might this change in 2020? If the leaders’ debates and other campaign events don’t significantly affect voter preferences and current polling, an outright Labour majority is <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/why-an-absolute-majority-is-absolutely-possible-for-labour">possible</a>.</p>
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<p>That would be the first such election result since the introduction of MMP in 1996. But, as with other voting systems, MMP does not guarantee a particular outcome. The country may yet see a return to single-party government.</p>
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<h2>A third referendum</h2>
<p>So, this election is not a normal contest in which political parties parade their programmes and ideological predilections before intermittently interested electors.</p>
<p>Instead, voters emerging from semi-traumatic circumstances — from confinement, new social habits and financial stress — will be asked to reflect on the performance of leaders whose decisions have had literally life-or-death consequences.</p>
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Read more:
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<p>New Zealand elections have traditionally been about the economy. Voters make choices along semi-tribal lines, reflecting traditional party alignments. Those features will be present in 2020 as well, but they are likely to be influenced by other considerations.</p>
<p>New Zealanders are being called on, first and foremost, to reflect on the performance of the prime minister, whose image dominates every Labour billboard and advertisement.</p>
<p>Alongside the referendums on legalising <a href="https://www.referendums.govt.nz/cannabis/index.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIr8WKuMPs6wIVG38rCh3DLgVrEAAYASAAEgLZdvD_BwE">recreational cannabis</a> use and the <a href="https://www.referendums.govt.nz/endoflifechoice/index.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_cn7xcPs6wIVgnwrCh3O4Q2MEAAYASAAEgJlL_D_BwE">End of Life Choice Act</a>, the election itself has become, in effect, a third referendum on the prime minister’s instincts, judgment and determination.</p>
<p>When we published our analysis of the 2017 election we titled the book “<a href="https://vup.victoria.ac.nz/stardust-and-substance-the-new-zealand-general-election-of-2017/">Stardust and Substance</a>” — a reference to her then-opponent Bill English’s <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/96622994/ardern-v-english-in-christchurch-what-did-the-internet-think">description</a> of Jacinda Ardern’s supposedly ephemeral “stardust” quality.</p>
<p>This time around, while the stardust is still there, what most voters will be contemplating is the substance of the prime minister’s achievements, and whether other leaders and parties could have done as well, or better, faced with the same constellation of challenges.</p>
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<p><em>The author is organising the traditional post-election conference (involving party leaders, journalists and academics) at Parliament on December 9 (registration <a href="https://pay.wgtn.ac.nz/NZPEC2020">here</a>).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143262/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Levine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With a month to until polling day on October 17, the 2020 general election defies conventional analysis.Stephen Levine, Professor, Political Science and International Relations, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1402522020-06-10T19:54:22Z2020-06-10T19:54:22ZAn election like no other: with 100 days to go, can Jacinda Ardern maintain her extraordinary popularity?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340781/original/file-20200610-82625-1mr1rt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6709%2C4476&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>New Zealand’s 2020 general election will be like no other in our history. </p>
<p>It comes in the wake of a remarkable government-led act of collective solidarity that has sacrificed businesses and livelihoods in the cause of protecting those who would have been most vulnerable to COVID-19: the old, those with health conditions, disadvantaged people in crowded housing, Māori and ethnic minority communities. </p>
<p>By a combination of luck and good crisis management, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-hits-zero-active-coronavirus-cases-here-are-5-measures-to-keep-it-that-way-139862">elimination policy</a> has worked. New Zealand is among the first COVID-hit countries to <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/new-zealand-moves-alert-level-1">return</a> to near normality.</p>
<p>In the process, the popularity of Jacinda Ardern and her government <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/416936/jacinda-ardern-labour-soar-in-new-poll">has soared</a>. The initial response to a crisis of this magnitude tends to raise support for governments. But in New Zealand the increase has been stratospheric, raising Labour’s support to levels as high, if not higher, than for any party since the advent of the Mixed Member Proportional electoral system. </p>
<p>In countries where the policy response has been poor and the virus untamed we can expect to see governments lose their lustre. But this is much less likely in New Zealand. Only a <a href="https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/poll-88-kiwis-trust-governments-coronavirus-response-vastly-higher-than-other-nations">small minority</a> of New Zealanders doubt the need for the government’s strong policy response or the evidence of its success. </p>
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<p>Nevertheless, with June 10 marking 100 days until the election we can expect to see Labour’s wide lead in the polls erode. The questions to ask are: by how much, and for what reasons? </p>
<h2>Labour competence has won over conservatives</h2>
<p>Research conducted by the <a href="http://www.nzes.org/">New Zealand Election Study</a> identifies two ideological dimensions behind party choice. The first is the balance between state and market in public policy. It’s a perennial debate between left and right that (despite claims to the contrary) hasn’t gone away. </p>
<p>The second is based on other values: a liberal desire for freedom to pursue one’s own choices versus a conservative desire to maintain social cohesion and conformity with traditional community norms. </p>
<p>While these dimensions are semi-independent, on balance liberals are more likely to be on the left, and conservatives on the right. Conservatives greatly value strong leadership and naturally tend towards the National Party.</p>
<p>Those with conservative values who lean to National, but not strongly, are those most likely to have joined the Labour camp in recent polling, a hypothesis borne out by recent COVID-19 <a href="https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2020/04/21/major-study-out-on-effects-of-covid-19-lockdown.html">psychological research</a>. This showed a higher level of patriotism post-lockdown, “along with higher levels of institutional trust in science, government, police and health authorities”.</p>
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<p>The government has led an outstanding example of social cohesion. Provided Labour can continue to project an image of competent command and control over a crisis that has not ended, many of those conservatives may remain with Labour, perhaps for longer than a single election. </p>
<h2>Will voters blame economic shock on the government?</h2>
<p>In the depth of the crisis, attacks on the government were, for the most part, tempered. As the crisis has ebbed, however, criticism has become more acceptable. The National Party (having <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/417273/who-is-new-national-party-leader-todd-muller">changed leaders</a> in response to plummeting polls) is increasingly attacking the government’s competence. That the target is Labour’s cabinet rather than Ardern herself helps explain the challenge National faces.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the unity of the coalition is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/27/new-zealand-winston-peters-jacinda-ardern-lift-covid-19-lockdown">dissipating</a> as New Zealand First seeks to raise its profile and retain its parliamentary seats (which current polling suggests are at risk). The image of competent control is under attack from that direction, too. </p>
<p>The state of the economy by mid-September will be the other key variable. It’s true that governments can stand and fall on the performance of their economies, but not always. </p>
<p>There are two schools of thought among those who study economic voting. The sceptics argue that voters are myopic, if not entirely blind – they will blame or reward governments for externally generated downturns or upturns for which the government cannot reasonably be blamed or given credit. </p>
<p>The downstream economic damage caused by COVID-19 will therefore ultimately be sheeted home to the governments in office at the time, regardless of their performance. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-coronavirus-crisis-shows-why-new-zealand-urgently-needs-a-commissioner-for-older-people-139383">The coronavirus crisis shows why New Zealand urgently needs a commissioner for older people</a>
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<p>Other researchers argue that voters are capable of extracting a “competency signal” from governments and can therefore tell the difference between what a government cannot control and what it can. In particular, they can assess the effectiveness of the government’s response to an unexpected shock. </p>
<p>Detecting a competency signal demands a great deal of ordinary voters. A complex mixture of party campaign strategies, political commentary, general media coverage and talk about politics within families and workplaces affects their ability to make well-founded judgments.</p>
<p>As always, the cues and impressions that feed people’s perceptions over the coming weeks will shape the election outcome. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340782/original/file-20200610-82625-1xsmfwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340782/original/file-20200610-82625-1xsmfwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340782/original/file-20200610-82625-1xsmfwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340782/original/file-20200610-82625-1xsmfwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340782/original/file-20200610-82625-1xsmfwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340782/original/file-20200610-82625-1xsmfwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340782/original/file-20200610-82625-1xsmfwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first of two polls in May showing Labour capable of governing alone without coalition partners were the same results achieved at the election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot/Newshub-Reid Research</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Is history a guide?</h2>
<p>The first Labour government was elected in 1935 after the depression of the 1930s. It governed effectively and established a system of social security that briefly led the world. </p>
<p>Its reward was a relatively long period of government and a wave of respect and affection for Labour’s first prime minister, Michael Joseph Savage. His framed photograph could be found on the wall of many working-class homes well into the 1960s. </p>
<p>The extraordinary events of the past few months have set the scene for another potential reward for exemplary leadership – an outcome deeply feared by Labour’s opponents. Potentially, it could lead to another long period of Labour-led governments and the crowning of Jacinda Ardern as one of New Zealand’s greatest prime ministers.</p>
<p>Or not. If a week is a long time in politics, 100 days is an eternity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140252/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack Vowles receives funding from Victoria University of Wellington and the New Zealand Electoral Commission</span></em></p>Jacinda Ardern is at stratospheric support levels due to her government’s management of the COVID-19 crisis. That lead will inevitably narrow by the election – but by how much?Jack Vowles, Professor of Political Science, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/845732017-09-24T23:10:38Z2017-09-24T23:10:38ZWhat New Zealand’s vote means for Maori – and potentially First Nations in Canada<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187271/original/file-20170924-17306-wi0o2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=93%2C343%2C2176%2C1472&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New Zealand Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern, centre, and deputy leader Kelvin Davis, a Maori, far left, answer questions from the media in August in Wellington, New Zealand. Following the Sept. 23 election, Ardern could became the country's next prime minister if she can convince minor parties to support her.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Nick Perry)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>David MacDonald’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/lessons-for-canada-in-new-zealands-indigenous-friendly-electoral-system-83768">recent analysis</a> for The Conversation Canada proposes a radical rethinking of the place that First Nations’ people occupy in a modern liberal democracy.</p>
<p>He points to New Zealand’s <a href="http://www.elections.org.nz/voting-system/mmp-voting-system">Mixed Member Proportional Representation</a> (MMP) system, used to elect the country’s Parliament since 1996, as a potential path forward for Canada’s Indigenous. </p>
<p>Maori have been guaranteed representation through <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features-pre-2016/document/00NZPHomeNews201109011/the-origins-of-the-m%C4%81ori-seats">designated seats since 1867</a>. That’s something Canada might consider as part of its commitment to the United Nations’ <a href="http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf">Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a> that states:</p>
<p><em>Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters which would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own indigenous decision- making institutions</em>.</p>
<h2>No clear winner in New Zealand election</h2>
<p>New Zealand elected its 52nd Parliament this weekend. It’s a 120-seat Parliament that <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/research-papers/document/00PLLawRP03141/origins-of-the-m%C4%81ori-seats">guarantees seven members elected from a geographically based Maori electoral roll</a>. </p>
<p>Other Maori have been elected by voters from the 64 geographically based general constituencies, and from national party lists, from which 59 members are elected. </p>
<p>List seats are allocated to ensure that the total membership of the Parliament is proportional to each party’s share of the national vote. Since the MMP system’s introduction, Maori representation in Parliament has remained at least proportional to the Maori share of the national population.</p>
<p>Provisional election night results indicate that neither of the two large parties will be able to form a government alone.</p>
<p>The conservative <a href="https://www.national.org.nz/home">National Party</a> won 58 seats, three fewer than the number required to form a government. The main opposition <a href="http://www.labour.org.nz/">Labour Party</a> will hold 45, the nationalist <a href="http://www.nzfirst.org.nz/">New Zealand First Party</a> nine, the <a href="https://www.greens.org.nz/">Green Party</a> eight and the libertarian <a href="http://act.org.nz/">ACT Party</a> one. </p>
<p>The Maori Party failed to win any seats, but despite that trouncing, Maori politicians have still been elected from all parties but ACT. That means whoever forms the government, there will be Maori representation.</p>
<h2>No real improvement in Maori lives</h2>
<p>Since 2008, the National Party has governed with what are known as <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/media/1461/2014-maori-party-relationship-accord-and-confidence-and-supply-agreement.pdf">confidence-and-supply agreements</a> with the Maori Party, grounded in Maori cultural values and an unapologetic politics of self-determination. </p>
<p>The Maori Party obtained policy commitments from the National Party in return for its support. </p>
<p>But it hasn’t been enough to result in sufficient improvement in Maori living standards, educational outcomes and employment numbers, or to reduce the Maori burden of disease and incarceration rates. </p>
<p>Significant progress in these areas was needed to allay Maori reservations about an alliance with a conservative party that they’d never before supported in great numbers. </p>
<p>MMP is a system that encourages democratic contest and gives Maori voters genuine choice. But the Maori Party’s failure to bring about sufficient progress towards self-determination helps to explain Saturday’s <a href="http://www.elections.org.nz/events/2017-general-election/2017-general-election-results">significant swing</a> by Maori voters to the opposition Labour Party. </p>
<p>The Labour Party won all seven of the Maori seats and left the Maori Party with no parliamentary representation. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, the system still reflects the diversity of Maori opinion and their presence in the country’s politics. </p>
<p>Paula Bennett’s tenure, as the National Party’s Maori deputy prime minister, depends on negotiating a coalition or a confidence-and-supply agreement with the nationalist New Zealand First Party, led by another Maori who once served as deputy prime minister, Winston Peters. </p>
<p>Kelvin Davis, meantime, is the Maori deputy leader of the Labour Party.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187268/original/file-20170924-2621-bjkhjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187268/original/file-20170924-2621-bjkhjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187268/original/file-20170924-2621-bjkhjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187268/original/file-20170924-2621-bjkhjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187268/original/file-20170924-2621-bjkhjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187268/original/file-20170924-2621-bjkhjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187268/original/file-20170924-2621-bjkhjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Winston Peters, leader of the New Zealand First Party, is Maori and is calling for a referendum on the abolition of designated Maori seats in the country’s Parliament.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(The Associated Press)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Peters, whose party could determine the next prime minister, believes that Maori should be integrated into a singular political community. </p>
<p>His view is consistent with the Royal Commission on the Electoral System’s argument that the need for all parties to solicit Maori votes (Maori constitute around <a href="http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/population/estimates_and_projections/maori-population-estimates-info-releases.aspx">15 per cent</a> of the national population) means that there will always be <a href="http://www.elections.org.nz/voting-system/mmp-voting-system/report-royal-commission-electoral-system-1986">meaningful Maori representation drawn from the party lists</a> and that Maori are increasingly likely to be elected to represent general constituencies.</p>
<h2>Labour leader rejects referendum</h2>
<p>But others contend that in a Maori constituency, Maori candidates are free to use their own culturally reasoned arguments to win over voters in ways that may not make sense to a broader constituency, nor reflect that constituency’s priorities. </p>
<p>What’s more, they argue, Maori voters are free to assess Maori candidates according to their own cultural values and aspirations.</p>
<p>Labour leader Jacinda Ardern has indicated that her party <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11925884">won’t go along with</a> a referendum on the Maori seats as a requirement of a coalition with New Zealand First.</p>
<p>New Zealand’s MMP electoral system provides a foundation for substantive and inclusive liberal citizenship for Maori to facilitate the re-emergence of tribal entities. </p>
<p>The Maori party advocated for greater tribal authority while in government. Maori voters will expect that advocacy to continue given they largely believe full citizenship is not realized through the state alone. </p>
<p>In short, Maori people and policy influence New Zealand politics in ways that First Nations in Canada do not.</p>
<p>The depth and breadth of Maori representation in the New Zealand parliament does, as MacDonald suggests, mean that a New Zealand-style proportional representation system is one that Canada’s First Nations may want to entertain for themselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84573/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While the Maori Party got wiped out in this weekend’s New Zealand election, there’s still a Maori presence in the country’s political system. That’s why Canadian First Nations should take note.Dominic O'Sullivan, Associate Professor, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.