Electoral system of New Zealand

Although Parliamentary elections are held every three years, this has not always been the case. In New Zealand's early colonial history, elections were held every five years – as established by The New Zealand Constitution Act of 1852. The term was reduced to three years in 1879 because of concerns about the growing power of central Government.[3]

Since then, the term has been altered three times – mainly in times of international crisis. During the First World War it was extended to five years. In the early 1930s, it was pushed out to four years. This proved to be unpopular with the electorate and after the election of 1935, the term was reduced to three years again. It was extended to four years once again during the Second World War, but returned to three years afterwards. In 1956, the term of three years was 'entrenched' in the Electoral Act which means that it can only be changed by achieving a majority in a national referendum or by a vote of 75% of all members of Parliament.[3]

In 2013 the Government established an advisory panel to conduct a review of constitutional issues – including an examination of the term of parliament. Other issues discussed at public meetings held by the panel were the number of MPs New Zealand should have, whether a written constitution is needed, and whether all legislation should be consistent with the Bill of Rights Act.[4] Both Prime Minister John Key and Opposition leader David Shearer expressed support for an extension of the parliamentary term to four years.[5] The main argument put forward in support of a longer term is that "Governments need time to establish and then implement new policies".

The last referendum on the term of parliament was in 1990 and found nearly 70% of the voters were opposed to extending the term. An opinion poll on the news website Stuff in early 2013 found that of 3,882 respondents, 61% were in favour of changing to a four-year term.[6]

A unique feature of New Zealand's electoral system is that a number of seats in Parliament are reserved exclusively for Māori. However, this was not always the case. In the early colonial era, Māori could not vote in elections unless they owned land as individuals. European colonists were quite happy with this state of affairs because, according to NZ History online, "they did not think Māori were yet 'civilised' enough to exercise such an important responsibility".[7] At the time, Māori were dealing directly with the Crown in regard to the Treaty of Waitangi and had little interest in the 'pākehā parliament'.[7]

During the wars of the 1860s, some settlers began to realise it was necessary to bring Māori into the British system if the two sides were to get along. After much debate, in 1867 Parliament passed the Maori Representation Act, which established four electorates solely for Māori. The four Māori seats were a very minor concession; the settlers had 72 seats at the time and, on a per capita basis, Māori should have got up to 16 seats.[7] All Māori men (but not women) over the age of 21 were given the right to vote and to stand for Parliament.

Full-blooded Māori had to vote in the Māori seats and only Māori with mixed parentage ('half-castes') were allowed to choose whether they voted in European electorates or Māori electorates. This dual voting system continued until 1975.[7] From time to time there was public discussion about whether New Zealand still needed separate seats for Māori – which some considered to be a form of apartheid. Māori were only allowed to stand for election in European seats (or general electorates) from 1967.

In 1985, a Royal Commission on the Electoral System was established. It concluded that "separate seats had not helped Maori and that they would achieve better representation through a proportional party-list system". The Commission recommended that if mixed-member proportional (MMP) system was adopted, the Māori seats should be abolished. However, most Māori wanted to keep them and the seats were not only retained under MMP, their "number would now increase or decrease according to the results (population numbers) of the regular Māori electoral option". As a result, in 1996 before the first MMP election, the number of Māori seats increased to five – the first increase in 129 years. In 2002, it went up to seven.[8]

Until the 1938 election, elections were held on a weekday. In 1938 and in 1943, elections were held on a Saturday. In 1946 and 1949, elections were held on a Wednesday.[14] In 1950, the legal requirement to hold elections on a Saturday was introduced,[15] and this first applied to the 1951 election. Beginning with the 1957 election, a convention was formed to hold general elections on the last Saturday of November. This convention was upset by Robert Muldoon calling a snap election, which was held on Saturday 14 July 1984. The next year an election could have been held on the last Saturday of November would have been 1996, except the day for that election was brought forward slightly to avoid the need for a by-election after Hawkes' Bay MP Michael Laws resigned in April that year (by-elections are not required if a general election is to take place within six months of the vacancy). Since then, only the 1999 election and 2011 election have been held on the traditional day.

In the twenty-first century, a new convention seems to have arisen: since the 2005 election, all elections except two have been held on the second-last Saturday of September. The exceptions were in 2011, which was held in November to avoid clashing with fixtures of the New Zealand-hosted Rugby World Cup, and in 2020, which was delayed from the second-last Saturday of September due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior to 1951, elections in Māori electorates were held on different days than elections in general electorates.[15] The table below shows election dates starting with the first election that was held on a Saturday in 1938:[16]

Key

A sample MMP ballot paper

Until 1994, New Zealand used the first-past-the-post (FPP) electoral system, whereby the candidate who received the most votes in each single-member constituency was elected from that constituency. This system favoured the two-party dominance of the National Party and the Labour Party. Smaller parties found it hard to gain representation; for example, despite gaining 16% of the vote in 1978 and 21% in 1981, the New Zealand Social Credit Party won only one and two seats, respectively.

Spurred by public disillusionment in the political system, Labour campaigned in 1981 and 1984 on a promise to establish a Royal Commission into the electoral system. Following their election into government in 1984, Labour established the Royal Commission into the Electoral System, and the commission's 1986 report recommended the adoption of mixed-member proportional representation (MMP). After the government sidelining the issue for years, the Bolger National government responded to public pressure by holding an indicative referendum on the electoral system in 1992. After an overwhelming majority for change, a second, binding referendum was held in 1993 asking voters to choose between FPP and MMP.[17]

In 1994, New Zealand officially adopted MMP as its electoral system. Its defining characteristic is a mix of members of Parliament (MPs) from single-seat electorates and MPs elected from a party list, with each party's share of seats determined by its share of the party vote nationwide.[18] The first MMP election was held in 1996. As a result, National and Labour lost their complete dominance in the House. Neither party would have a majority of seats until the 2020 election, with Labour winning 64 seats, giving a majority of 3 (61 seats to hold a majority). Previously in the 2014 election the Nationals won 60 seats, 1 short of a majority.

Under MMP, New Zealand voters have two votes. The first vote is the electorate vote. It determines the local representative for that electorate (geographic electoral district). The electorate vote works on a plurality system whereby whichever candidate gets the greatest number of votes in each electorate wins the seat. The second vote is the party vote. This determines the number of seats each party is entitled to overall – in other words, the proportionality of the House.

Thresholds: There are two thresholds in the New Zealand MMP system.[19] The first is that any Party which receives 5% or more of the Party vote is entitled to a share of the nominally 120 seats in the House of Representatives – even if the Party does not win a single electorate seat.[20] For instance in the 2008 elections, the Greens failed to win any electorate seats but won 6.7% of the party vote and thereby earned nine seats in Parliament.[19]

The second threshold is that any Party that wins one or more electorate seats is entitled to an additional share of the nominally 120 seats in House of Representatives based on the percentage of the party vote – even if it doesn't win 5% of the vote.[20] In 2008, the ACT Party won only 3.6% of the Party vote. But ACT got a total of five seats in the House of Representatives because an ACT candidate won the Epsom electorate; this has been called the "coat-tailing" rule.[19] However, the New Zealand First party which got 4.07% of the list vote or below the 5% threshold was not returned to parliament in 2008.

Seats in parliament are allocated to electorate MPs first. Then Parties fulfil their remaining quota (based on their share of the Party vote) from their list members. A closed list is used, and list seats are allocated by the Sainte-Laguë method,[20] which favours minor parties more than the alternative D'Hondt method.[21] If a Party has more electorate MPs than proportional seats, then it receives an overhang.[22] This first occurred following the 2005 General Election when the Māori party won 4 electorates despite its overall party vote (2.1%) only entitling it to 3 seats, thus it received one overhang seat and the 48th Parliament subsequently consisted of 121 MPs. The 2008 and 2011 elections also saw the Māori Party receive overhang seats (2 and 1 respectively), whilst the 2014 election saw United Future receive their one and only seat in the House as a result of an overhang.[23]

Only parties registered with the Electoral Commission can submit party lists; unregistered parties can contest elections but cannot provide party lists. Not all registered parties submit a party list. Reasons for this may vary and include missing the deadline. The following registered parties did not submit party lists:

The 2014 case of the Internet Party and the Mana Movement not submitting lists was due to their forming an electoral alliance called Internet MANA. This alliance had to be registered as a separate party, but the individual component parties were not deregistered, and are thus listed as not having submitted a list. Internet Mana was deregistered in December 2014.[32]

The number of electorate MPs is calculated in three steps. The less populated of New Zealand's two principal islands, the South Island, has a fixed quota of 16 seats. The number of seats for the North Island and the number of special reserved seats for Māori are then calculated in proportion to these. (The Māori electorates have their own special electoral roll; people of Māori descent may opt to enroll either on this roll or on the general roll, and the number of Māori seats is determined with reference to the number of adult Māori who opt for the Māori roll.)

The number of electorates is recalculated, and the boundaries of each redrawn so as to make them approximately equal in population within a tolerance of plus or minus 5%, after each quinquennial (five-year) census. After the 2001 census, there were 7 Māori electorates and 62 general electorates, or 69 electorates in total. There were therefore normally 51 list MPs. By a quirk of timing, the 2005 election was the first election since 1996 at which the electorates were not redrawn since the previous election. A census was held on 7 March 2006 and new electorate boundaries released on 25 September 2007, creating an additional electorate in the North Island.[42] For the election in 2011 there were 63 general electorates, 7 Māori electorates and 50 list seats, plus one overhang seat. For the election in 2014 there were 64 general electorates, 7 Māori electorates and 49 list seats, plus one overhang seat (the population increase resulted in an additional general electorate and hence a reduction in list electorates).

The Gallagher Index is a measurement of how closely the proportions of votes cast for each party is reflected in the number of parliamentary seats gained by that party. The resultant disproportionality figure is a percentage – the lower the index, the better the match.[43]

As of October 2020, there are 18 registered political parties in New Zealand.[46]

• Electoral reform in New Zealand
• History of voting in New Zealand
• Elections in New Zealand
• New Zealand Parliament

• The MMP Voting System – Mixed Member Proportional
• Sainte-Laguë allocation formula
• Virtual Election Calculator