Electoral Reform committee  Indeed, the royal commission saw the capacity of people to stay on a list as well as be an electorate candidate to be one of the real strengths of mixed member proportional representation. It enables parties to have strong candidates contesting an unwinnable electorate but being

Electoral Reform committee  Well, the MMP system relates only to Parliament and the New Zealand Electoral Commission is responsible only for parliamentary elections. We don't govern local body elections. As I said in my opening remarks, there have been seven Parliamentary elections using MMP, and there ha

Electoral Reform committee  Well, I think we would regard the Electoral Act as a constitutional document. Unlike Canada, what we have in New Zealand is a Bill of Rights Act, but it is not a supreme law in the way that your Constitution is.

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, it does.

Electoral Reform committee  There have been very high-profile politicians who were list only—for example, the current Deputy Prime Minister is list only, and a previous Deputy Prime Minister and Attorney General was a list MP—so I don't think so. Often if a member of Parliament has aspirations of being a Sp

Electoral Reform committee  Not quite. The referendum in 1992 was a two-part question. The first question that was posed in 1992 was whether they wanted to retain the current system of first past the post or change it. The second part of that 1992 referendum asked them to indicate which of four options th

Electoral Reform committee  There is a provision in the Electoral Act 1993 that provides, for some parts of the Electoral Act, a requirement that for amendment to be made, it requires either a 75% majority of Parliament or a majority of voters in a referendum. You can find that at section 268 of the New Zea

Electoral Reform committee  List MPs often attach themselves to particular areas or particular constituencies, but in terms of public perceptions, I think it's fair to say that there is evidence that the New Zealand public regards electorate MPs, the people they can go to, as having a higher status than lis

Electoral Reform committee  We have very comprehensive data on that because we report on the level of informal votes. Somebody can cast a party vote and not mark a candidate, so that's a valid party vote and an informal candidate vote. They can also—although this happens less—mark their candidate vote but

Electoral Reform committee  In relation to the decisions made in 1992 and 1993, they were in the context of ongoing debate that had been under way since the mid-eighties. This was an issue of much public discussion.

Electoral Reform committee  There have been separate Maori seats since 1867 in New Zealand. People who identify themselves as being of Maori descent are eligible to enrol either on the general roll or on the Maori roll. Depending upon the exercise of that choice, when it comes to defining the boundaries, we

Electoral Reform committee  It was introduced first in 1995 in the first MMP election. One of the things about MMP is that it recognizes as a system the importance of parties, so Parliament's intention was to make the ballot paper easier for voters to use by identifying more recognizably the party and also

Electoral Reform committee  Formally, no: a parliamentarian elected from the list has exactly the same entitlements and responsibilities as a member elected from an electorate.

Electoral Reform committee  Thank you, Mr. Rogers. I am able to speak with authority on the New Zealand context and tradition. I'm not at all in a position to comment on what might be appropriate for Canada. That is very much something for the Canadian Parliament and people. In the New Zealand context an

Electoral Reform committee  That is correct. We describe MMP as a moderate form of proportional representation. It's unlike such systems as the Israeli system. We have quite high thresholds for parties to pass before they become eligible for allocation of the seats. You have to win at least one electorate s