New Zealand heads to the polls on November 7 and as a country with similar political traditions to the UK, it is always worth looking at what is happening. The parties that loosely make up the two blocs have been competitive in opinion polls, so it’s a harder election than most to call.
The big difference between the UK, and my home country, is that New Zealand uses proportional representation.
Voters will be electing the 11th parliament with proportional representation. The last 10 parliaments resulted in five Labour-led governments and five by the centre-right National Party, so it’s maybe not surprising that the election for the 11th parliament could go down to the wire.
The country inherited the First Past the Post voting system from Great Britain but it proved not to be fit for purpose – elections where the party with the most votes didn’t win the most seats and an inability to translate support for smaller parties into representation in parliament.
Actions by Labour and National led to processes that included an independent royal commission and three public referendums. At each turn proportional representation was chosen over the First Past the Post.
New Zealand Prime Minister suggests a fourth referendum
It’s against that backdrop that the random decision of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to say he wanted yet another referendum on the voting system left his coalition partners, the opposition parties, the media and the public all perplexed. That it came in response to question by text message from a listener to a talk radio show he was participating in added to the collective head-scratching. More politically damaging for the Prime Minister was that many in his party were either unaware or unsupportive of his “captain’s call” to randomly bring the voting system into the campaign.
This and other events culminated in a special caucus meeting of the parliamentary party being held during a recess week. National MPs were summoned back to the capital Wellington in order to discuss the leadership of their party less than 90 days before the election. Mr Luxon survived this confidence vote – the second one on his leadership this year – something unprecedented for a first term government.
There’s no debate that his leadership of the party and the country has been beset by issues. But it is the sudden raising of a matter most Kiwis consider a settled matter – the proportional representation voting system – which has been described as the “third strike” in a two-week period of other mistakes triggering the destabilisation of his leadership.
Fair elections are a settled issue in New Zealand
From the vantage point of the United Kingdom this episode is fascinating. It shows that while most voters prefer the party they support to win, Kiwis have taken the long view that proportional representation has been a fairer way of electing the parliament and forming governments. It’s become the norm – first time voters when the system came in are closer now to their retirement age than to their university or apprenticeship years or first job.
It is interesting to reflect on the fact that it was taking a left-field position on proportional representation that played a role in damaging Christopher Luxon’s leadership. It shows how that New Zealand’s major centre-right party has adapted well to the new voting system.
His three predecessors as prime minister from his party showed dexterity – Jim Bolger, known as the “Great Helmsman”, put together the first coalition of the modern era. Jenny Shipley (the National Party’s first woman leader) renegotiated a governing arrangement to remain prime minister when teething problems caused internal coalition pressures. And John Key maximised National’s party vote and struck confidence and supply agreements with multiple parties to give more voices to more issues but also to give him more governing choices.
What can the UK learn from New Zealand’s experience?
Three points emerge from this episode.
Firstly, electoral reform has delivered political balance. As mentioned, it is exactly balanced between the two “sides” of politics. For Labour that has meant the chance to lead more governments than First Past the Post facilitated but for the National Party the incorrect assumption that ‘Proportional Representation locks out the right’ has not been borne out by the experience or evidence. For the voter it has meant that every single vote counts and parties have had to learn how to campaign for those votes – no more “no go” areas.
Secondly, diversity. The New Zealand House of Representatives in the new era always looks far more like the country than the previous regime. When former Prime Minister Helen Clark was elected as a young backbencher for an inner Auckland constituency the House was 92% male. There are now many more women and parity was achieved during the ninth parliament. For indigenous Māori two important things have happened. Representation has increased to be closer (and sometimes higher) than their 15% of the population but also there are now Māori MPs in every party.
Thirdly, because seats match votes, there are both more parties that better reflect the political views and priorities of voters and more stability because parties can transparently set out their policy priorities to give an indication of what they might press for in coalition arrangements.
New Zealand went through a lot to change the voting system to a much fairer, more representative and consultative parliament and government. While all voting systems have their detractors (and people queuing up to suggest improvements or even design new systems) the impact of Christopher Luxon’s casual comment on his leadership suggests that questioning proportional representation might be on its way to being a “third rail” of New Zealand politics.
Would you like to see the UK follow New Zealand’s example and adopt proportional representation?
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