Evidence of meeting #9 for Electoral Reform in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was zealand.
A video is available from Parliament.
Chief Electoral Officer, New Zealand Electoral Commission
I think the point you make is right. It's an issue of concern generally to western democracies.
Electoral Commissioner, Australian Electoral Commission, As an Individual
Clearly we're in a different position with mandatory voting. We've taken a slightly different perspective. In the last election, we prosecuted more people for non-voting than we're ever done previously. We are dealing with it slightly differently.
Liberal
Matt DeCourcey Liberal Fredericton, NB
Thanks very much again. I'll start with Mr. Peden again this time.
We've heard from some witnesses of the need for reform to be delivered in a “made in Canada” style should we go that route here, and that we should be considering certain values that underpin any system that we may propose. Given the differences in the geographic reality here, Canada being upwards of nine million kilometres square and New Zealand 270,000 square kilometres; the differences in population, 35 million to just under five million; and the differences in divisions of power, the constitutional differences, what values underpin the system in New Zealand and where are some of the compatibilities to Canada?
Chief Electoral Officer, New Zealand Electoral Commission
Again, what I would do is commend to the committee the 10 criteria that were identified by the royal commission in 1985 for judging electoral systems. When the New Zealand Electoral Commission came to reviewing MMP in 2012, we referred to those, and we found them to continue to be relevant. They are available as appendix B in the 2012 report that has been provided to the committee.
They include things like fairness between political parties, recognizing the fact that political parties are an important feature of modern politics, although the first-past-the-post system, for example, operates as though they don't exist. Another is effective representation of minority and special interest groups. In the New Zealand context, that means effective Maori representation.
Another is political integration, the extent to which the system brings together diverse opinions. Others include effective representation of constituents, effective voter participation, effective government, effective Parliament, effective parties, and the legitimacy of the system.
Those are just briefly the 10 criteria that the New Zealand Royal Commission used to judge the systems that it considered, and it judged that for the New Zealand context and tradition, MMP was an appropriate and preferable alternative to what we then had.
Liberal
Matt DeCourcey Liberal Fredericton, NB
Great. Thanks very much. Lots of that content will be helpful.
I'll finish with Mr. Rogers.
Delving more into the relationship between the elected member of the lower house and the electors that person represents, what is the general role played by that person vis-à-vis their local constituency, and is it your sense that there's general satisfaction amongst members of a constituency with the person who gets elected under an alternative vote system?
Electoral Commissioner, Australian Electoral Commission, As an Individual
Again I'm projecting a bit here because everyone is going to have their own view.
I think the system itself is broadly accepted by the community, and there hasn't been a huge clamour, as far as I'm aware, to change that system that you're discussing there. It's a very traditional system. It's a local member who is very much the local member and represents the local community.
Liberal
Matt DeCourcey Liberal Fredericton, NB
Great. That's all I have. Thanks very much. It's been an enlightening day.
Conservative
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Mr. Chair, I was so transfixed by Mr. Reid's questions about overhanging ballots that I'd like to cede my time to him.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
By a happy coincidence, I have a further question regarding overhang seats.
Actually, my question is pretty simple. Mr. Peden, you were just saying in response to my final question to you that you had given advice discussing how it would be possible to adjust the system so that there would be no overhangs. I was going to ask if that information is publicly available. If you could direct us to where we could find it, it would be enormously helpful to us. You can understand that our level of expertise on this matter would be a good deal less than yours.
Chief Electoral Officer, New Zealand Electoral Commission
As a consequence of the 2011 referendum, where New Zealand voted to retain MMP, the electoral commission had a responsibility to review MMP and to recommend to Parliament any ways in which it thought, after public consultation, how the system of MMP might be improved. Our findings are contained in our commission report on the review of the MMP voting system, which was tabled in the New Zealand Parliament in October 2012. We've provided a copy to the committee, so it should be available to you. We discuss the question of overhang seats on page 20 of that report.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Thank you for that. We'll consult with our analysts, who probably have it in their hands or in their offices right now.
Mr. Rogers, when I lived in New South Wales, there was a distinction made between the giant ballots in New South Wales, the largest state with the largest population, and those in other states. I think the problems you had in that state were worse than the problems in other states. I'm assuming that's still true. Can you tell me how many names are on the New South Wales ballot?
Electoral Commissioner, Australian Electoral Commission, As an Individual
It's essentially true, but unfortunately, at least from an administration perspective, some of the other states have now caught up. I mentioned earlier the need to have magnifying sheets. I think we also had to have them for the Victoria Senate ballot paper and for Queensland. The eastern seaboard states, the most populous states, have large ballot papers, over a metre long. I think in 2013 there were 180 candidates on the Senate ballot paper for New South Wales. It's a lot of choice.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
One of my impressions was that the barriers to entry, to getting your name on the ballot, are relatively low, and this leads to what I would think of as prank candidates. I remember a candidate called Pauline Pantsdown when I lived there. It was a person who had actually changed his name in order to mimic the name of another politician. I think the real purpose that Pauline Pantsdown had for getting on the ballot was to promote a song that was currently playing on Triple J, one of your radio stations.
Am I correct that higher barriers to entry—a larger deposit, for example—might push some of these candidates off the ballot and help to resolve that problem?
Electoral Commissioner, Australian Electoral Commission, As an Individual
This matter has been examined in detail by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Everyone has a view on this. It depends on where you sit. There are some who say the barrier should be very low to encourage participation, and there are others who say the barrier should be quite high to make sure we have serious candidates. No matter how you look at it, we have a system that gives us some very interesting candidates at every election in Australia.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
There's no doubt about the interesting candidates. It sounds as if people recognize that low barriers to entry create a problem, but that people feel that's better than raising those barriers and potentially freezing out legitimate candidates. Would that be a fair assessment?
Electoral Commissioner, Australian Electoral Commission, As an Individual
I think you summed it up pretty well. That's probably the prevailing opinion.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Thank you.
I'd like to move to a Twitter question that I got a little while ago. This is to Mr. Rogers: Can you explain the difference between elections in the lower and upper house in terms of number of women, in terms of aboriginals, minorities, and those with disabilities. What are the differences you see between the two houses?
Electoral Commissioner, Australian Electoral Commission, As an Individual
I couldn't tell you off the top of my head the proportion of female, indigenous, or other candidates, but I would tell you that indigenous Australians are under-represented on the electoral roll. We are separately funded to try to assist indigenous Australians to participate in the electoral process. We have mobile teams that go around remote parts of Australia trying to encourage indigenous Australians to get on the roll and remain on the roll and vote.
However, a lot of this is subjective. We don't ask Australians on their enrolment form to identify their ethnicity. We do a lot of surveys to work that out. Young people are also under-represented on the roll, but we probably have the greatest level of youth enrolment that we've ever had at the moment, so we've had some success in that regard.
As for the differences in the two houses, I'm afraid I don't have that for you, but I know the parties have targets that they're aiming for, and they report on those targets occasionally.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
I forgot to give credit to the person who asked that question. It was Jennifer Ross.
Moving on, Mr. Peden, I'd like to ask you about the period after the change that took place in 1996. When you moved to the MMP system, were there any unintended or unanticipated consequences that you saw after the change?
Chief Electoral Officer, New Zealand Electoral Commission
From an electoral administrative perspective, no. From the perspective of the formation of government, it took something like two months to form the first government in 1996. There was a lengthy coalition negotiation to establish the first MMP government. Since then governments have formed very quickly.
In relation to the way the New Zealand system works, I should just say that by 10:30 on election night, parties and the public are usually in a position to know the result of the election, and government formation negotiations can begin at that point.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Do you find that having more coalition governments causes instability in your country, or more frequent elections? I'm not quite sure how often you have an election there. How long is your term?
