New Zealand: Impasse over mixed-member proportional representation changes | NZCity News

The Electoral Commission’s recommended changes to MMP must be put to voters in a binding referendum. That’s the only step left now the government has decided they can’t be implemented because there isn’t a consensus among the parties represented in parliament. It’s blatant self-interest on National’s part and there’s no assurance the situation would be any different if Labour and the Greens were running the show. The commission, after a lengthy review and thousands of public submissions, recommended abolishing the single seat “coat tails” rule and lowering the threshold for list seats from five per cent of the party vote to four per cent.
The review followed the 2011 referendum when a majority of voters decided they wanted to keep MMP. The review was part of the deal, and the commission’s timetable was organised so changes could be brought in before the next election.
There was strong support for those two recommendations and after the commission presented its final report in October last year Justice Minister Judith Collins sought opinions from all the parties. Nothing more was heard until two weeks ago, when she told parliament the changes wouldn’t be implemented before the 2014 election. “There is absolutely no consensus, not even a majority across parliament,” she said.
There never will be a consensus while parties like ACT and United Future are in parliament. They each hold one seat and depend on that to bring in more MPs.
They both have support agreements with the government and without their votes it wouldn’t have a majority. Neither of them looks remotely likely to raise their share of the party vote to five per cent, or even the four per cent recommended by the commission.
Full Article: Impasse over MMP changes – 24-May-2013 – NZ Politics news.