Press reports on Mrs Shipley's comments made before she left Germany (see "Jenny Shipley really is a democrat") include: "Shipley 'self-serving' on MMP; support of German system a 'u-turn'", by political reporter Audrey Young (NZ Herald 29 January, p.A4) and "PM's u-turn manna for Labour; following in German footsteps risks tripping up National", by political reporter Andrew Laxon (Herald 30 January, p.A16). While unsure whether her comments were Government-serving or Opposition-serving, the Herald's writers emphasise that this is a "u-turn", and is therefore more a political stunt that a genuine attempt to promote a constructive debate on electoral systems. By way of contrast, Wellington political scientist Nigel Roberts (on National Radio's "Morning Report"; 29 January) saw her comments - especially those favouring a fixed-term parliament - as a very constructive contribution to a long-running public debate on the means by which we govern ourselves.

Mrs Shipley made further comments on her return from Germany; comments that jarred less in the minds of our political journalists (as distinct from political scientists who seem to be much better than journalists at interpreting the statements of politicians). According to the TV1 news (30 January) the Prime Minister did not rule out a referendum (TV1 presented it more as her promoting a referendum) on electoral change to coincide with this year's general election. She said yesterday that matters to consider include (i) modifications to MMP (ie in line with her German comments which mean a strengthened commitment to MMP, but were reported that way by TV1), (ii) consideration of alternative proportional systems, and (iii) consideration of abandoning proportional representation.

To me it has become obvious that the Prime Minister is now very much a convert to both proportional representation in general and MMP in particular. So is former Prime Minister Jim Bolger, my local National MP Belinda Vernon, and to a considerable extent the Treasurer Bill Birch (see his "How MMP has slowed down the ship of state", NZ Herald 29 December 1998). Options (ii) and (iii) are dummy options which Mrs Shipley is offering in order to be seen to be promoting a wide debate. She is aware that the only other distinctly different proportional and semi-proportional options were rejected in the 1992 indicative referendum. (A 100% list system was not on the 1992 ballot paper, but I am sure that such a system could never gain support here.) Her most recent statements actually reinforce the fact that she sees a need for a constructive debate, and not the debate about "dumping MMP" which is implicit in option (iii). (TV1's Linda Clark still manages to interpret Mrs Shipley's comments yesterday as the expression of a desire by the Prime Minister to dump MMP.)

As I read it, the political instability that Mrs Shipley is concerned about is the constant media talk about our electoral system as if it is something that can be changed with the same kind of frequency that governments are changed. She is concerned that what passes at present for public debate is totally negative; all about what we don't like (or don't think we like) and not about what we do like.

The negative sentiment about MMP in 1997 and 1998 came from a very diverse range of people with conflicting agendas. Many opponents of MMP are quite open about the fact that they oppose it because it is "too democratic", and not because it encourages abuses of democracy. Of those who are concerned about abuses, perhaps half think that MMP gives political parties too much power, whereas the other half (who think that the Mauri Pacific MPs should have remained loyal to Winston Peters) think that political parties have too little power. (In general, when opposition comes simultaneously from opposite extremes, then the thing being opposed may in fact represent the golden mean; the best solution to a controversial issue.)

Audrey Young's report contains the following passage: "'Any fool can say what's wrong with an existing government [or system]; it's much harder for a political leader to say what they would do instead', Mrs Shipley said. The German system forced parties to measure alternatives against the incumbent. The inability to suddenly force an election was a stabilising factor."

Mrs Shipley is clearly fed up with the negativity that passes for political debate today. The essence of political instability is opposing without proposing.

Andrew Laxon notes that the New Zealand electorate is disillusioned with MMP because we "have no tolerance for the political deal-making that this system requires". And he notes that we "hanker for that old first-past-the-post [FPP] tradition of throwing out governments when we don't like them".

Indeed it is true that we don't like deal-making parliaments, but we do very much like and want consensus-seeking parliaments. Our difficulty is that "deal-making" is just a negatively-loaded synonym for "consensus-seeking" (just as "collaboration" is a sinister word that means exactly the same thing as "cooperation"). Basically we like the disagreements to be hidden - as they were to a greater extent under FPP - and the constructive agreements to be open and visible. The constructive agreements are happening under MMP, but are drowned in our consciousness by the negative media emphasis on the disagreements and the cynical emphasis on "deals". Under FPP, there was no need for agreement, so there was very little agreement to report. That lack of consensus-seeking was, however, the fundamental reason why the public rejected FPP (in an referendum landslide) in 1992 and voted for MMP in 1993. (Fewer than 200,000 people could be bother going to the polls in 1992 to cast a vote for FPP.)

I would question that New Zealand voters are as negative as they are generally portrayed. But, given that Andrew Laxon is correct in saying that we want an electoral system that enables us, above all else, to dismiss governments, then FPP never was that system. Since 1950, Governments were clearly dumped by the people in the following 10 FPP elections: 1954, 1957, 1966, 1972, 1975, 1978, 1981, 1984, 1990 and 1993. Yet, because of the vagaries of the FPP electoral system, the popularly dumped governments remained in office on 6 of those 10 occasions. If we had had MMP since 1950, and the same size electoral swings had occurred, then on each of those 6 occasions we would have seen the change of government that the people wanted.

While MMP - especially under conditions of a fixed Parliamentary term - forces political parties and voters to emphasise what they do want and not what they don't want, MMP is certainly more effective than FPP when it comes to the dumping of unpopular governments. (Of course, fewer governments may be dumped under MMP, because governments have greater incentives to be popular.) We got a continuation of National government in 1996, not because of dirty dealing by Winston Peters, but because the popular vote supported a centre-right government. The National government was not dumped by the voters in 1996.

Let's have a debate about what we do want. And let's start assuming that the statements and actions of our politicians, while political, are rarely devious or conspiratorial. If we want constitutional change, let's think more about what we want, about the long-term importance of constitutional law, about the dangers of treating our constitutional arrangements as temporary.

And let's think about the dangers of using MMP as a means to facilitate denial about our own individual contributions to the malaise that we are supposed to be feeling. Why did we expect NZ First MPs to be loyal to Winston Peters when the polls showed that most of those who supported NZ First in 1996 no longer did so in 1998. And why do we watch brain-dead television reporting, thereby giving the television networks the impression that that's the kind of TV news we like to watch?

© 1999   Keith Rankin

Rankin File | 1999 titles