PHILIP TEMPLE: BEFORE MMP REFERENDUM, WE NEED A CONSIDERED REVIEW

New Zealand Herald
4:00AM Monday Oct 12, 2009

The Minister of Justice, Simon Power, indicated that he would
soon present a paper to Cabinet on the proposed referendum on
MMP. Presumably this will hold true to National’s election promise,
that it will be held "without any further consideration". Meaning
no consultation with the voters, no review or inquiry, no select
committee hearings.

That is not good enough. For it is about now that we should remind
ourselves, and the Government, that the voting system belongs to
us – the voters – and not the politicians. That it is unacceptable
for the National Party to simply tell us what kind of question we
will be getting in the proposed referendum, and when, and what might
happen afterwards.

Although holding a referendum on MMP is perfectly reasonable, there
has been no groundswell of demand for a simple yes or no vote – except
from disaffected First Past the Posters whose heyday was the politics
of Rogernomics and Ruthanesia. Who even look back with nostalgia to the
days of compulsory military training. Rather, there has been a growing
feeling that we should have a look at how MMP has been operating.

"Kick the tyres" as John Key put it, see if they need a bit more air,
whether the plugs need changing. MMP could do with a general service
and warrant of fitness. But we do not need to sell the car.

Before we have a referendum, we need a considered review of our
electoral system, maybe even a successor to the Royal Commission
on the Electoral System that produced a report recommending MMP a
generation ago.

Then we can all have our say on what we like or dislike about MMP
and give it the tune it needs. Followed by a referendum on whether
or not we want to drive ahead with it.

It would be, in fact, dishonest of the Government to propose a simple
yes-no referendum when it knows that MMP is a modern, flexible system,
capable of being modified, and one that has generally served us well
over the past 13 year fair, inflexible and antediluvian system like
First Past the Post (FPP).

This is 2009 not 1909. Even those who would like to go backwards to
FPP realise that the voting public would not swallow that particular
dead rat.

In a display of seeming flexibility, they agree there should be
a "degree" of proportionality in our voting system and suggest
Supplementary Member as a replacement for MMP. As its abbreviation
indicates, however, we would be submitting ourselves to a degree of
electoral sado-masochism in adopting a system that is nothing more
than a proportional sham – FPP with knobs on.

We would be lining ourselves up with countries with much shorter
democratic histories such as Armenia, Kazakhstan and South Korea. It
was also the electoral option least favoured by New Zealanders in
the "preferendum" held in 1992 to ascertain which alternative voting
system we preferred.

Kiwis can be justifiably proud that we were the first English-speaking
country to adopt MMP and that both Scotland and Wales have followed
our example. On the other hand, as it has done in the past, FPP has
kept just one party in power in London for 13 years. That is not
healthy democracy.

But if the proponents of FPP or SM want to put their case, let them
do so to a commission or review committee run by an independent body
such as the Electoral Commission. And not try to rort the democratic
process by engineering a simplistic yes-no referendum on MMP. That
is first past the post in action, not the fair proportional way we
have become accustomed to since 1996.

Our democracy, our electoral system, is too important to be
submitted to such a sudden death process. And for it to be set up by
a politically motivated Cabinet decree. The electoral system is ours,
not theirs.

* Philip Temple is a Dunedin author who was given a Wallace Award
for his "contribution to public understanding of electoral matters"