New Zealand Politics

 New Zealand Politics

Are we at CROSSROADS?

1994 to 2014

I believe we are at crossroads.

The major mistake was done in 1977.

We are going to repeat this mistake after 40 years.

I am referring to politics.

The biggest mistake was that we give absolute power to mediocre politicians.

They do not know how to manage power and become megalomaniac.

We change a corrupt regime with another corrupt regime.

End result after 40 years is absolutely corrupt politicians in every nook and corner.

I have no idea how to resurrect or emerge out of this crisis but have one RESOLUTION.

Do not give absolute power to politicians.

Then we cannot take back, even the little freedom that existed before.

If we repeat this mistake again, we will be doomed as a nation.

Below, I reproduce from Wikipedia, what happened in New Zealand from 1994 to 1999.

Mind you they have elections every three years.

In 1993 they had the first hung parliament after 1931.

Then the labour leader resigned.

New labour leader Helen Clerk, made the wise decision to appoint one from her party as the speaker and offered one of labour members to National Party to have a working majority.

National party had 50 out of 99 seats (now they have 120 seats).

She said, we lost and we should stop bickering and give the National party a working majority, with reserving her right to oppose any policies she or her party may not agree.

Imagine what would have happened in Sri-Lanka.

She became the PM in 1999 and is currently heads the World (global) Environment Forum.

Now of course there are many parties and party swapping has become a norm, which was not intended at first.

There is only thin majority, but with “confidence and supply vote” making the parliament viable for three years.

The people have the say, if one is not good enough he or she is ousted in three years.

There are no places for cronies and corrupt politicians.

But the progress in governance in New Zealand is obvious but in ours it is always retrograde.

After referendum, they changed the FPP (First Past the Post) to MMP to mixed member proportional representation.

I hope Victor Ivan would study New Zealand electoral reforms in detail.

Yes an electoral revolution is necessary for Sri-Lanka.

An electoral revolution- New Zealand Style!

New Zealand Experience

MMP

In 1993 New Zealanders voted in a referendum to change their voting system from the traditional first past the post (FPP) method to mixed member proportional representation (MMP).

This was the most dramatic change to the country's electoral system since the introduction of women's suffrage exactly 100 years before.

How and why did this electoral revolution come about?

The origins of electoral reform lay in the gradual breakdown of public trust and confidence in politicians, Parliament and the simple certainties of the old two-party system.

This process began in the 1950s and 1960s and gathered momentum in the 1970s and 1980s, decades marked by economic uncertainty and the emergence of new social and political movements.

As critics pointed out, the FPP system tended to create Parliaments quite different in composition to those that the voters appeared to want.

The answer, some people argued, was a system of proportional representation in which each party's share of the seats in Parliament would be close to its share of the overall vote.

1993

Preliminary results based on election night counts saw the country facing its first hung parliament since 1931, with no party gaining the 50 seats required for a majority.

The National Party won 49 seats, a drop of 15 from before the election. and Labour had won 46 seats, with the balance of power held with the Alliance and New Zealand First, which won two seats each.

Official counts saw the seat of Waitaki swing from Labour to National, giving National 50 seats and Labour 45 seats.

This meant that National kept its majority by only a single seat.

The 1993-1996 parliamentary term would see a number of defections from both major parties, meaning that National would eventually be forced to make alliances to retain power.

1996

The 1996 election eventually saw a victory for the governing National Party, which won around a third of the vote. The opposition Labour Party won slightly less.

The election, however, was not decided by the comparative strengths of the major parties - rather, the smaller New Zealand First party, which won 17 seats, was placed in the position of "kingmaker", able to provide the necessary majority to whichever side it chose.

Although predicted by many to ally with Labour, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters eventually chose to form a coalition with National, thus preserving Prime Minister Jim Bolger's administration.

The 1996 election effectively showcased the difference made by the new electoral system. The Alliance and New Zealand First, both of which held two seats each in the old parliament, increased their representation to 13 and 17 seats, respectively, as a result of the change. The new ACT New Zealand also benefited, taking eight seats. The MMP system did not, however, save the United New Zealand party - United was virtually wiped out, retaining only a single seat. The Conservative Party fared even worse, failing to remain in parliament at all.

Also notable in the 1996 election campaign was the Christian Coalition, an alliance of the Christian Democrats and the Christian Heritage Party. Although the party had briefly crossed the 5% threshold in some polls, it gained only 4.33% at the election, and therefore did not qualify for parliamentary representation.

With the exception of the Maori Ratana movement, this is the closest that an overtly religious party has come to winning representation in parliament.

Voters were prepared with MMP to vote for minor party candidates with their electorate vote, hence in a number of electorates won by National or Labour the other major party candidate came third or even fourth; previously the two top polling candidates were almost always National and Labour.

1999

As most people expected, Labour was victorious.

It did not, however, receive an absolute majority, gaining only 52 seats (eight seats short of the half-way mark). Labour's former coalition partner, the Alliance (which had splintered shortly before the election), was not returned to parliament. However, the new Progressive Coalition (now the Progressive Party) started by former Alliance leader Jim Anderton won two seats, and remained allied with Labour. The Greens, who were now distanced from Labour over the genetic engineering controversy, gained nine seats (an increase of two).

In general, it was a bad election for the parties of the right. The National Party, once referred to as "the natural party of government", suffered its worst-ever electoral defeat, gaining only 21% of the vote. ACT New Zealand, National's more right-wing neighbour, failed to capitalize on the exodus of National supporters, retaining the same number of seats as before.

Instead, the most notable gains among opposition parties were made by two centrist parties. One of these was Winston Peters's New Zealand First party, a radical centrist and nationalist party opposed to immigration.

Strong campaigning by Peters allowed the party to recover from its serious losses in the 1999 election. The other was United Future New Zealand party, a centrist party based on a merger of the United Party and the Future New Zealand party - primarily due to the performance of leader Peter Dunne, the party shot from having one seat to having eight seats.

Once the final distribution of seats was determined, it was clear that Labour would be at the centre of the government, and that it would be allied with the Progressives. However, this still left Labour needing support in matters of confidence and supply, as the two parties together fell short of an absolute majority. Labour expressed a preference for an "agreement" rather than a full coalition, hoping to establish an arrangement similar to the one that existed with the Greens prior to the election. Three realistic choices existed for a partner - the Greens, United Future, and New Zealand

First. Labour had repeatedly ruled out deals with New Zealand First during the election campaign, and reaffirmed this soon after the election, leaving just the Greens and United Future as candidates. After a period of negotiation, Labour opted to ally with United Future, being unwilling to change their genetic engineering policies to secure the Green Party's support.

Labour and the Progressives remained in power, with support in confidence and supply votes from United Future.

2011

Following the 2011 general election, the National Party entered into confidence and supply agreements with ACT, the Māori Party and United Future to continue the Fifth National Government.

These arrangements give the National-led government a majority of seven seats, with 64 on confidence-and-supply in the 121-seat Parliament (note that there is an additional member Peter Dunne).

The Labour, Green, New Zealand First and Mana parties are all in opposition, but only the Labour Party constitutes the formal Opposition.

At the 2011 election, the National Party gained 59 seats, the Labour Party 34 seats, the Green Party 14 seats, New Zealand First eight seats, Māori three seats, and Mana, ACT, and United Future gained one seat each.

As of January 2013, two changes to the allocation have occurred.

In 2012, Brendan Horan was expelled from the NZ First caucus, meaning he now sits as an Independent and NZ First now only has seven caucus MPs.

On 31 May 2013, the Electoral Commission de-registered United Future after it could not prove it had the 500 financial members required for registration.

The party successfully re-registered on 13 August 2013, but in the interim its sole MP, Peter Dunne, sat in the house as an independent.

That means current parliament have one excess than the nominated seats of 120.