But MMP isn't perfect - if anything it gives minor parties something of an advantage (that's what it was designed to do for post-Nazi Germany so no one party would dominate) and at times they can dominate the landscape. Mind you, that isn't always negative - if it wasn't for the Alliance's influence on Labour, we would not have paid-parental leave to the same extent as families now enjoy and KiwiBank would not exist.
No one at this stage is calling for a return to first past the post - which does show that we have at least matured a little. John Key has said he likes the idea of Supplementary Member (SM) and I must admit I'm reasonably partial to that system in the New Zealand context. SM is similar to MMP in that you have two votes - one for the candidate you prefer in your electorate, and the other for your favourite party, however, under SM the party vote doesn't determine the make up of the whole house, only the list seats. Basically what this does is put more emphasis on winning electorates - which I like.
But what would have happened had we had SM since 96 instead of MMP? Well honestly the actual result wouldn't have been too different. 1996 and 1999 the results would have been similar, 2002, Labour would have easily governed alone and 05 would have been about the same as follows: (the standard has the 2008 example - Nats govern alone)
The way I see it though, is that we could basically achieve the same thing by making a few alterations to MMP instead of changing system entirely. The one seat threshold (where a party gets its party vote allocation if it wins one electorate) could be raised to something more akin to the German system like 3 seats - so parties like ACT can't just leverage off one electorate seat and have disproportionate influence. I would also go back to the Royal Commission's original recommendation of a 4 per cent threshold on the party vote.
Also, why not remove the safety net of the list? So you either stand as a list or an electorate candidate. This would mean the hacks that get rejected by their electorate are truly gone. It would also serve to rid us of the lazy attitude so many current list MPs who once held electorates took to their local constituencies - they would either lose and be gone, or stand aside and let someone who really wants to represent a particular constituency have a go.
As I said late last year, I think Labour reconnecting at a local level has to be the number 1 priority for this early part of opposition. I think we should stick with MMP for a while yet but there are potentially some real positives that could come from reforming it - both by halting a lot of the wagging of the dog by minor parties, but also by pushing MPs to stay in touch with their constituencies. By just making a few tweaks and balancing things a bit better we could actually come up with a system that satisfies most of us.
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