New Zealand Election 2017

[Polkergeist]

If Winston goes with Labour, will it spur renewed anti-MMP sentiment and calls for reform on the political right in NZ?

[Lachi]

If Winston goes with Labour, will it spur renewed anti-MMP sentiment and calls for reform on the political right in NZ?

It will from the peple who don't have half a brain on the right, that's for sure.

[Pericles]

If Winston goes with Labour, will it spur renewed anti-MMP sentiment and calls for reform on the political right in NZ?

There are already editorials lamenting MMP in the media. It will be a bit of a shock to the system as under MMP the party with the most party votes has always formed the government, despite it being entirely possible and even likely that the 'losers' would get to govern. However I think it will just be  a fit of pique at having lost power and not a lasting change in public opinion.

[Tintrlvr]

If Winston goes with Labour, will it spur renewed anti-MMP sentiment and calls for reform on the political right in NZ?

It will from the peple who don't have half a brain on the right, that's for sure.

But surely Winston's supporters would be happy with whichever party he chooses to back?

[Pericles]

If Winston goes with Labour, will it spur renewed anti-MMP sentiment and calls for reform on the political right in NZ?

It will from the peple who don't have half a brain on the right, that's for sure.

But surely Winston's supporters would be happy with whichever party he chooses to back?

Plenty of National Party supporting commentators are already attacking MMP.

[Lachi]

Why don't people get that with MMP, there are no winners or losers until a government is formed.

[Pericles]

Why don't people get that with MMP, there are no winners or losers until a government is formed.

There's still a lingering FPP mindset, and given that there hasn't been a situation where the biggest party lost, the automatic assumption is that the biggest party wins. Hopefully that is disproven this election.

[mileslunn]

Why don't people get that with MMP, there are no winners or losers until a government is formed.

There's still a lingering FPP mindset, and given that there hasn't been a situation where the biggest party lost, the automatic assumption is that the biggest party wins. Hopefully that is disproven this election.

Even in FTFP it is possible to have a party with fewer seats form government if a hung parliament.  Happened in BC in 2017 and Ontario in 1985.  Likewise in the UK if Labour + SNP + PC get a majority of seats I suspect you will see Labour form government even if the Tories get more seats.  FTFP simply means usually the largest party wins the majority of seats and looking at the gap between Labour and National it is likely with FTFP National would have won a majority.  I think the best solution in my personal opinion is AV like Australia has as I suspect most Greens would have chosen Labour as second choice while tough to say where New Zealand First voters would go.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Why don't people get that with MMP, there are no winners or losers until a government is formed.

There's still a lingering FPP mindset, and given that there hasn't been a situation where the biggest party lost, the automatic assumption is that the biggest party wins. Hopefully that is disproven this election.

Relevant historical comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_general_election,_1948

[Polkergeist]

I think that given the voting system went through a referendum less than a decade ago, any push for MMP to be repealed will run out of steam. That being said, the argument that a minority party choosing the Government will probably rankle many.

However there are ways to reform MMP to front load the coalition formation process, so that voters can choose between at least two possible coalitions at the election. Here is how it could be done.

Multiple parties can register as coalitions
On the ballot paper the coalition parties will be listed together has consecutive party lines. Voters can choose any one of the individual parties.

For the purposes of allocating seats the Coalition will be treated a one party with the sum of the constituent party votes.

Allocating seats within Coalitions will be done by the current Sainte Lague process as is currently used taking into account all party votes won.

Only use party votes above the threshold
Only votes above the 5% threshold will be used in the Sainte Lague process. For example, if a party or coalition wins 300,000 party votes and the 5% threshold equates to 200,000 votes, then that party/coalition will only have the difference, 100,000 votes, in the Sainte Lague process.

Parties that win constituency seats but are below the 5% threshold would have 0 votes in the Sainte Lague process.


Abolish overhangs
The Sainte Lague process will commence for each party/coalition at the number of constituency seats won, like in Scotland.


In short this system would encourage minor parties to join coalitions to gain more seats for a given share of the vote.

Major parties would be encouraged to form coalitions with minor parties to build the coalition with the largest support.

Voters would be given a fully informed choice between two potential governing coalitions and they would be able to influence the balance within their coalition of choice.

Edit: Better description of threshold issue

[IceAgeComing]

I'm pretty sure that the only reason why there's significant grumbling about this is that its really the first time in nine years that government formation has been vaguely challenging.  In 2008 National+ACT had a majority by themselves anyway (they brought Dunne in anyway because why not) and in 2011 and 2014 the government was clearly re-elected, the only addition needed being agreeing confidence and supply with the Maori Party in 2011.  That effectively made the post-election period a lot less important than it is in post countries with PR, since there wasn't these long periods of lengthy negotiations to put something together nor was there really a viable alternative government.  Its also the first time that there's been a true kingmaker since... 1996 and NZ First?  Its not exactly a problem that people didn't know about, its just that the political situation in New Zealand in recent years has basically hidden it, plus the lingering culture of majoritarian FPTP.

The only changes that I'd support to the system would be some way of moving away from closed lists - I don't think that Open Lists with up to 120 candidates in an MMP election would be entirely viable though so there'd have to be another way of doing it - maybe best losers?  Overhangs aren't a huge issue when you're talking like one or two seats which is all that you're ever likely to get in New Zealand (the 100+ seat overhang + balancing seats mess of the Bundestag elections are a different story) and really the best way to get rid of them would just be to chop off whoever the last one or two list members elected were rather than move to the way that we do things which would lead to slightly different results.

[Pericles]

The first formal coalition negotiations for government formation were held today. The reason the negotiations have been delayed is that Winston Peters won't negotiate until all the special votes are counted on October 7, and says he will reach a decision on October 12. On that note, Winston peters also said that the special votes may take even longer to count, so I'm sincerely hoping the process isn't drawn out anymore. Bill English made a good point when he said that 5 days would be a very tight timetable to negotiate a coalition agreement, but Winston Peters and Jacinda Ardern did not agree.
The meetings were short, with Winston meeting with National's team first and then Labour's. Winston stated before the meetings that the parties "wouldn't want somebody's past behaviour and obnoxiousness to be a part of the problem". National's negotiating team included Finance Minister Steven Joyce-who Winston is reported to hate, while Labour brought former Deputy PM Michael Cullen onto their negotiating team, Cullen having worked with Winston in government from 2005-2008.
It turns out the negotiations were only about protocol for the coming negotiations, and no work was done on actually negotiating a coalition agreement. Winston demanded that the negotiations be confidential, saying that otherwise "we may as well hire the Westpac Stadium* and turn on the lights and turn on the loudspeakers and just go for it. Now, we are not going to have that sort of circus."
Afterwards Peters said he felt as if he were "between the Devil and the deep blue sea", not talking about the parties(despite blue being the National Party's colour), but saying "we just can't win - you can't win with the public, you can't win with the media, you can't win with the commentariat. You can't win with people who believe it is all about First Past the Post, even though it is an MMP environment. And they just bang on day in, day out." Despite that political news, little of substance was actually done and until October 12-and hopefully not later-I honestly don't know what will happen.

[Famous Mortimer]

It's so weird how NZ people think their election system is so complicated and weird when it's just basically the same system they use in every European country that isn't the UK or France.

Wow, you've got PR. It's not that complicated.

[Bakersfield Uber Alles]

National's negotiating team included Finance Minister Steven Joyce-who Winston is reported to hate, while Labour brought former Deputy PM Michael Cullen onto their negotiating team, Cullen having worked with Winston in government from 2005-2008.

Is National even trying?

[Pericles]

National's negotiating team included Finance Minister Steven Joyce-who Winston is reported to hate, while Labour brought former Deputy PM Michael Cullen onto their negotiating team, Cullen having worked with Winston in government from 2005-2008.

Is National even trying?

I'm not sure. They could still easily end up governing for the next 3 years. However if Winston chooses to go with Labour I think that Bill English and the National Party would have felt too entitled to govern and treated Winston going with them as inevitable.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

All of Winston's demands:

http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/election/2017/10/the-comprehensive-list-of-winston-peters-bottom-lines.html

[Lachi]

Special vote totals are being released in 25 minutes.

[Bakersfield Uber Alles]

56 Nat
46 Lab
9 NZF
8 Green
1 ACT

http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2017/

[Lachi]

WINston no longer has the, as newshub put in on election day, 'moral obligation' to join up with English, considering there is only a 2 seat difference between Nats, and Labour-Greens, and the party vote is within a point or so.

[Pericles]

These results are brilliant and mean a Labour government is a  real possibility.

[Pericles]

National's party vote fell by a lot to 44.4%. This is their worst performance since 2005, and Bill English did worse than John Key ever did.

[mileslunn]

Any particular reason special votes go more heavily Labour than regular as seems a rather large shift. Looks like Labour did a lot better than Nationals in the special votes. Anybody have the breakdown how special votes compared to regular.

[Pericles]

There seemed to have been a surge of late youth enrollements and youth enrolling and voting on the same day so a mild youthquake could explain why the effect was bigger than expected.

[MAINEiac4434]

These results are brilliant and mean a Labour government is a  real possibility.

If not this year, in 2020.

[Tender Branson]

Final turnout: 79.8% (+1.9 compared with the previous election)

... and the highest since 2005.

http://www.elections.org.nz/news-media/new-zealand-2017-general-election-official-results