Prime Minister Lange’s statement was a mistake and not official Labour Party policy. The party therefore did not pursue it. However, when the other major New Zealand party, the New Zealand National Party, also promised a referendum during the 1990 election campaign—even though they didn’t actually want to change the system—it eventually led to a non-binding referendum in 1992 and a binding one in 1993.
As a result, 54 percent of voters voted in favor of change, with a voter turnout of 85 percent. This is reported in the podcast Real Democracy Now episode 3.8.
Read more: The Mixed Member Proportional electoral system combines candidate and party voting
The Australian Real Democracy Now podcast is for those who believe that we can and should change how democracies function. The podcast is hosted by Nivek Thompson, who in this episode interviews Therese Arseneau, then a political scientist and senior researcher at the University of Canterbury in 2019. She worked with the New Zealand Electoral Commission on the 2011 referendum on the country’s voting system and on evaluating the Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) system implemented after the 1993 referendum.
Arseneau explains the background of the electoral reform:
– It’s a fantastic, truly extraordinary story. It’s exceptional for a country to change its electoral system—perhaps especially for a stable country like New Zealand. Alan Renwick describes it as the most significant post-war electoral reform, surprisingly so, as he characterizes New Zealand as cautious and conservative regarding electoral system changes. Renwick describes it as a country that had shown exceptional conservatism taking a decisive leap into the unknown.
Read more: Inadequate official study guidelines resulted in minimal citizen involvement in Norway’s electoral law review
That said, New Zealand has long been progressive in terms of citizen representation. Provisions were made for the Māori population as early as 1867, and the country was the first in the world to grant full voting rights to women in 1893.
Since 1950, New Zealand has effectively had a unicameral Parliament. Elections were held under the First Past the Post (FPTP) system, which divides the country into electoral districts, each electing one representative to the legislature. The candidate with the most votes wins, regardless of whether they secure an absolute majority.
For example, if the result is:
Candidate A wins the seat, despite not having more than 50% of the votes.
This system is known for its simplicity, but it is often criticized for not reflecting the proportional vote distribution across the country, leading to underrepresentation of smaller parties.
– The system resulted in Parliament being dominated by two parties. One party always had a very strong majority and the ability to push legislation through very quickly. We were even known as an elective dictatorship, the fastest law-makers in the West. Former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer even wrote a book describing this as unchecked power, says Arseneau.
She notes that elections became known as stolen elections, where the winning party could form a government despite receiving fewer votes than its competitor. This triggered public dissatisfaction with the electoral system.
The then Minister of Justice, later Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer, established a commission to evaluate the electoral system. The commission recommended adopting the Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) system.
MMP is a hybrid electoral system that combines single-member district voting with proportional representation to ensure more balanced representation.
In MMP, voters cast two votes: one for a district candidate and one for a party. The result is a combination of directly elected representatives and party list representatives for overall proportionality.
Learn more about New Zealand’s electoral system at the Electoral Commission website.
Under the old system, smaller parties struggled to gain seats in Parliament. That has changed, and Parliament is no longer dominated by a few large parties.
Read more: Norway’s electoral law hinders smaller parties
– People had grown tired of the confrontational nature of the parliamentary system—government versus opposition. The hope was that MMP, by requiring parties to cooperate in coalitions, would create a less adversarial, more consensus-driven political culture, says Arseneau, adding that this has been partially achieved.
The way the public administration operates has also changed significantly since the new electoral system was introduced.
In the current 54th New Zealand Parliament, six political parties are represented by 123 members of Parliament. MPs represent 65 general electorates and seven Māori electorates. The remaining 51 members are selected from party lists.
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