Mackerras article

[Marcus Ganley]

Tom writes:Incidentally, for certain minor parties - ie those which are 
hovering just 
around the 4% cutoff threshold - winning local seats by having popular 
constituency candidates may, contrary to what MM claims, be extremely 
important. That's because I understand the cutoff is waived for any 
party that wins an electorate seat. Thus, if the Small Party with 3.98% 
of list votes sees its leader narrowly lose Auckland North electorate by 
100 votes, it wins zero seats; whereas 101 more votes in that one 
constituency would have seen the leader win that seat, and take another 
4 colleagues into Parliament from the party list as well. This is a 
defect of the NZ/ German version of MMP, to my mind. 

First , the threshold for representation is 5% of the party list vote, 
not the 4% recommended in 1986 by the Royal Commission into the 
Electoral System., or victory in one electorate.

Second, the scenario you depict is actually quite likely to occur.  Act 
NZ (formerly the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers) has hovered 
around the 2%-4.9% range in polls for the last few years.  It may breach 
the 5% threshold, but also could win the Wellington Central seat where 
their high profile leader, the Hon. Richard Prebble (previously Labour 
Member for Auckland Central, and Minister for State-Owned Enterprises in 
the Fourth Labour Government).  The most recent poll in Wellington 
Central had National on 22%, Labour on 21, and Prebbs on 19%.  So a 
small number of votes in Wellington Central could determine whether Act 
has no MPs or 4-5 MPs.  On current polls this could well determine which 
of the "competing blocs" (Labour, Nz First & Alliance or National, Act, 
Christian Coalition??, United??) is able to form government.  

This points to another problem - forces in National are now calling for 
their Well. Central candidate to stand aside in favour of Prebble thus 
guarenteeing an Act presence in Parliament.  They have already done this 
in Ohariu-Belmont where a United MP (and sole United member of the 
coalition cabinet) is likely to win (unfortunately as United with 8% of 
the sitting MPs can only attract 0.8% of the vote this is unlikely to 
have much impact).  A similar strategy was followed by the CDU in favour 
of the German Party in WG in the 50s.  By strategically failing to 
contest certain seats a party can all but wave the threshold for their 
preferred coalition partners.  It could be argued that while the 
existence of the threshold is a arguable point, if it does exist it 
should not be open to such blatant manipulation.  Of course if NZ voters 
were able to indicate preferences with their party vote (eg 1 Act, 2 
National) this problem would be lessened.