I read this article quoting Christopher Luxon as follows: “We’ve been to many places where marginal seats are and we’re getting good movement.” (Luxon talks to media amid election result limbo fears, NZ Herald, 7 Oct 2023).

He has this misplaced narrative around marginal seats. I have also heard talk in mainstream media circles that appears to give emphasis to ‘marginal seats’. And I heard one explainer on RNZ claiming MMP as a system in which sixty percent of seats in Parliament are elected in electorates, with the remaining ‘list seats’ being determined in proportion to the party vote. The system described in the previous sentence is not MMP (‘Mixed Member Proportional‘); it’s SM (‘Supplementary Member‘). SM was one of the rejected voting methods in the 1992 referendum. Christopher Luxon was just 22 years old at the time of that referendum. I hope he voted; though the low turnout suggests he might not have.

MMP: Mixed Member Proportional

General elections do two things: elect parties to the sovereign Parliament, from which governments are formed; and choose people as local representatives in that Parliament.

The principal purpose of a general election is to determine how many MPs will represent each party; the secondary ‘fine-tuning’ purpose is for the people, rather than the party leaders, to have popular local influence over which people will represent each party in Parliament.

Under MMP – and noting the principal purpose, to elect parties to Parliament in proportion to their popular support nationwide – the concept of ‘marginal electorate’ is entirely meaningless. Wasted votes for very small parties aside (and many people want to increase the number of wasted votes by removing one of the present qualification rules underpinning MMP in New Zealand), parties are elected to Parliament on the basis of the nationwide support for each party. End of story.

Electorates are irrelevant to this nationwide component of the election process. Thus (and assuming no wasted votes) if National gets forty percent of the nationwide party vote, they get forty percent of the seats (ie 48 out of 120) in Parliament. It doesn’t matter whether votes come from Whanganui or Whangamomona; each vote for National counts the same. Parties need to focus on marginal voters, not marginal electorates. (I suspect that there are more marginal voters in West Auckland and in West Christchurch than in Whanganui.)

Under MMP, electorates are an administrative reality in terms of the organisation of the election, facilitating the gathering of votes for the nationwide count. The secondary purpose of the election, people deciding who their local representatives will be, does require electorates; hence the secondary vote – the local vote – is called the electorate vote. The primary vote – the party vote – is a national vote in a national election. The ancillary electorate vote is a local vote in a local election; very much like a vote for a Mayor.

(There is one exception to this situation in New Zealand in 2023. Voters in the Waiariki electorate will cast an electorate vote which could affect nationwide party representation. This adjustment would occur if the sitting Te Pāti Māori representative is defeated by the Labour Party representative.)

In MMP, a large proportion of the list MPs are ‘minor party’ representatives, because the point of MMP is to compensate for the disproportionate way FPP voting discriminates against smaller parties.

SM: Supplementary Member

Under SM, often confused with MMP, most list MPs would be from the ‘major parties’ – usually two major parties – and a top position on the party list would be a political sinecure (much as a safe electorate would also be a sinecure).

‘Supplementary Member’ is a non-proportional electorate-based system. Its core is the old misnamed first-past-the-post system (‘FPP’). (Misnamed because, in each electorate, there is no winning post. Rather, candidates who are ahead when ‘the whistle blows’ or ‘the music stops’ are declared winners whether or not they have reached some metaphorical ‘post’.) SM differs from FPP though, in that a separate minority group (eg forty percent) of MPs are added to the electorate MPs; and this smaller separate group is determined by a second party proportional vote. Under SM, smaller parties are guaranteed token but not proportional representation.

Under the SM system, the primary vote is the electorate vote; and the supplementary vote is the party vote.

Informed and Misinformed Voting Strategies

Under MMP (or at least under ‘informed MMP’), voters first decide on their preferred party. Then they reflect on who they prefer to be their local MP, knowing that the local MP decision does not influence the total number of MPs their preferred party will get. They will know that, in for example Mt Roskill, if Carlos Cheung wins the electorate vote, then some other National Party candidate will miss out on becoming a ‘list MP’.

All elections involve strategic voting. (Under the old ‘FPP’ system, people in ‘safe seats’ voted for the candidate of their preferred party, knowing in advance who the electorate winner would be.) In marginal electorates, people would vote against the candidate representing the party they did not want to win the nationwide election. The actual election only took place in these ‘marginal seats’; indeed, there is still a marginal-seat mindset among people, such as Christopher Luxon it would seem, who should know better. So, in most marginal electorates, anti-National voters would vote for their Labour candidates; even voters who really preferred their Green (or Values Party as the Greens were then) candidate.

With MMP, informed voters normally vote for their preferred party. But they are cognisant of the coalition options. So they might vote for a less-preferred party that has a chance of participating in government if their actual preferred party is unlikely to be in government; that is, they may choose the ‘lesser evil’ option, making a likely government they don’t really want ‘less bad’. In 2020, some people who preferred National over Labour nevertheless voted Labour in order to minimise the influence of the Green Party in government. For those voters, the Green Party was the ‘greater evil’ and the Labour Party was the ‘lesser evil’.

Another form of strategic party voting is to ‘take out insurance’; to vote for a moderating ‘centre’ party. In 2002 that insurance took the form of United Future. In 1996, 2005 and 2017 that ‘hand-brake’ insurance took the form of a vote for New Zealand First.

Under an informed MMP-mindset, electorate votes would generally be for the candidates who would best represent local interests in the national Parliament; regardless of political party. Because there is no cost to voters’ preferred parties. We note that cities over the country have had long-running ‘centre-right’ Mayors despite having mainly ‘centre-left’ MPs. And vice versa. This is also how it should be in MMP electorates.

There is another form of strategic voting in electorates. In particular an electorate-candidate with a low party-list ranking (or not even on the list) can, if elected, displace a candidate who would otherwise become a list MP. Voters may vote for electorate-candidates with this intention in mind. An example might be a National party voter in Ohariu choosing to vote for Labour’s Greg O’Connor as a means to displace someone like David Parker, Andrew Little, Willow Jean Prime, or Ayesha Verrall. Or a Labour Party voter in Ohariu voting for National’s Nicola Willis as a means of helping Parker, Little, Prime and Verrall stay in Parliament.

Misinformed voters are likely to vote as if 2023 is going to be an SM election. They will firstly consider their electorate vote as if it was a Party Vote. They will vote for candidates representing their preferred parties; or against the candidates representing their detested parties, by voting for the party candidate most likely to defeat the candidate for the party they want to lose.

Then they will turn their attention to the party vote, which they understand to being a separate poll to choose list MPs. If such voters want a single-party government they will vote ‘two ticks’, for the party as well as the candidate of that party. Or they may want insurance, voting for a minor-party coalition partner. Or they may vote for the minor party which they really prefer, given the FPP belief that voting for the electorate candidate of a minor party is a wasted vote.

The SM/FPP mindset mainly affects the electorate vote, treating it as a party vote rather than a personal vote. In addition, SM might exaggerate minor-party support in the party-vote; some voters might use the supplementary vote to compensate for the disproportionality of an FPP-type electorate vote.

Predictions

The table below gives my stylised – meaning possibly exaggerated, to make a point – predictions for certain electorates for the 14 October election. I focus on the Labour Party, given that it is the present governing party and that it will lose sitting MP candidates. I make predictions based on the presence or absence of MMP awareness; with MMP awareness favouring popular local candidates regardless of party affiliations, especially sitting MPs. MMP thinking minimises changes in electorate MPs, meaning that there can be big swings among major-party list MPs instead.

And I make predictions for SM/FPP thinking. FPP-style voting yields big electorate MP swings, leaving relatively stable major-party list representation. (In practice, some voters will probably make informed MMP electorate choices, and others will make misinformed electorate choices. So the actual election result is likely to be an average of the two scenarios shown.) And I go on to make a prediction of the result if the voting system actually was SM.

In the Table below, I am basing my predictions on what the recent polls are saying about the parties; namely that Labour will get 26 percent of the vote and 33 seats in the new Parliament. (To keep the table as short as possible, I have excluded any electorates for which I think the Labour candidate will not win.)

Under MMP-informed voting I am predicting 27 electorate MPs for Labour and 6 list MPs. Under SM/FPP-informed electorate voting, I am predicting 16 electorate MPs for Labour and 17 list MPs. Some people – eg Kieran McAnulty – would be an electorate MP under the first scenario and a list MP under the second scenario.

Table of Stylised Predictions for ‘Labour electorates’:

From the table above, these six electorate candidates would get through under MMP-informed electorate voting, but not under SM/FPP-informed electorate voting: Utikere, Leavasa, Boyack, Wood, Twyford, Leary.

And these six would get elected under misinformed electorate voting (ie SM/FPP-informed) but not under MMP-informed electorate voting: Little (List 12), Parker (L13), Radhakrishnan (L15), Andersen (L17), Luxton (L19), Salesa (E).

So I am saying that, if voters vote in the electorates as they would have done under FPP, then Little, Parker, Radhakrishnan, Andersen, Luxton and Salesa would be in instead of Utikere, Leavasa, Boyack, Wood, Twyford, Leary. No prizes for working out which of those sixsomes the Labour leadership would prefer.

I would also mention that under SM-informed voting in an MMP election, the party vote for Labour (and National) would probably be a percentage-point or two lower than under MMP-informed party voting. In my table, that would cost Brooking and Russell their seats.

I would also note that if Labour’s support falls to 22% (about that of National in 2002) and New Zealand First mops up the populist vote, then Labour would be down to zero list MPs in an MMP-informed election and 11 list MPs in an election in which the electorate adopts SM/FPP voting strategies. In an MMP-informed election with the Labour vote at 22%, then Robertson, Tinetti, Verrall, Jackson, Prime and Rurawhe would also be gone.

If it really was an SM election

If SM was actually the voting system, and on present polling – I would predict: 28 MPs for Labour (16 electorate, 12 list); 11 MPs for Green (3 electorate, 8 list); 4 list MPs for NZ First, 2 MPs for Te Pāti Māori (1 electorate, 1 list); 5 MPs for Act (all list); 70 MPs for National (52 electorate, 18 list). National would win outright with less than 40% of the party vote. Christopher Luxon would like that. Many MPs – both electorate and list – would consider themselves to be safe; many more than under MMP.

Green Party, Act, TOP and Māori

My prediction this time is for the Green Party to win three electorate seats in an MMP-informed election (Auckland Central, Wellington Central, Panmure-Otahuhu) and two electorates in a misinformed MMP election (Auckland Central, Wellington Central). The incumbent MP, Chloe Swarbrick, should win Auckland Central either way. Further, I believe that circumstances conspire in Wellington Central, where the overseas vote may play a vital role. And Ofiso Collins, standing for the Greens in Panmure-Otahuhu, could win through a personal vote, given his prominence as a popular Auckland mayoral candidate.

Under MMP-savvy voting, TOP should win Ilam. The TOP leader there – Raf Manji – is a popular Christchurch city councillor; though a vote for Manji could reduce the total number of National or Labour MPs, given that TOP party votes would no longer be wasted. And, under MMP-informed voting, ACT should win Tamaki as well as Epsom. In this case, a vote for the Act candidate (Brooke Van Velden) could have no impact on the number of national or Labour MPs.

Under my MMP-informed predictions, which do not include any seats for TOP, Labour retains most of its Māori caucus, and gains new MPs in the Māori electorates. So, given the likely presence in Parliament of 4 or 5 Te Pāti Māori MPs, and Green Māori MPs as well, the Parliament will have probably its largest Māori representation ever. We note that the first three on the New Zealand First list are all Māori, as is the leader of Act. National will be conspicuously the least-Māori party.

Back to Christopher Luxon.

If Mr Luxon is campaigning too much for the electorate vote in ‘marginal electorates’, then he is potentially missing out on party votes in the parts of the country he is barely seen in. That might not bother me, but should bother him. West Auckland comes to mind here.

Postscript: Trifecta Voting

One way to distance ourselves from SM/FPP thinking would be to introduce trifecta voting in all elections; national and local, electorate and party.

Under trifecta voting, in each ballot voters choose up to three candidates or parties, numbering them as first, second and third preference.

Under trifecta party voting, there would be almost no wasted party votes, because almost all voters would include a successful party as one of their three preferences. Unsuccessful first preference votes would be discarded in favour of voters’ second preferences. And, if still not electing a party, the second preference would yield to the third preference. Same thing for candidate voting. Votes for eliminated candidates would transfer until at least one candidate had sufficient of the vote to be elected.

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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

National says a series of attack ads targeting its leader Christopher Luxon funded by the Council of Trade Unions in the Aotearoa Election 2023 campaign is “disgraceful”.

The NZCTU launched its campaign targeting Luxon today, with billboards going up around the country and social media.

A full front-page wrap-around ad on The New Zealand Herald newspaper declared “Christopher Luxon: Out of touch. Too much risk” under the paper’s masthead, with the word “advertisement” in smaller font at the top of the ad.

The NZCTU’s logo and a link to a CTU-run website outoftouch.nz was at the bottom.

A second full-page ad ran overleaf on page 2, saying Luxon was “out of touch and focused on the wealthiest few”, and highlighting policies like tax cuts, scrapping fair pay agreements and fully funded prescriptions, and concluded with a bullet point saying Luxon “isn’t the right leader in a cost-of-living crisis”.

The National Party’s campaign chair Chris Bishop said the CTU, which has 27 unions affiliated, should be ashamed.

“The union movement is able to spend vast sums of money attacking the National Party and Christopher Luxon,” he said.

‘American-style hatchet job’
“They’re running audio-visual slots, televisual slots, they’ve got billboards in many major cities around New Zealand, this is a highly orchestrated, highly political, highly choreographed American-style hatchet job on Christopher Luxon.

“It’s disgraceful, they should be ashamed of themselves and it’s not what New Zealanders want in this election campaign.”

“Sadly with six weeks to go it’s become very clear that thanks to the Labour Party this is going to become the most negative election campaign in New Zealand history. Jacinda Ardern’s ‘be kind’ has become ‘be nasty’ under Chris Hipkins.”

Bishop would not commit to not attacking Labour, but said it would target differences of policy approach and targeting Labour’s record.

“Of course we are going to attack the Labour Party’s record, we’re going to make no bones about that . . . but the point of pointing those things out is to draw a contrast with National’s different approach and our positive plan for the future.

“We are going to run a strong and vigorous campaign but we are not going to engage in the kind of nasty, personal, petty, vindictive politics that the union movement and the Labour Party are going to engage in.”

‘Play the ball’
Labour’s campaign chair Megan Woods made a similar commitment last week, saying the party would “play the ball, not the person — but we should be holding National and ACT to account for the ideas that they’re putting out there”.

Asked how Luxon was holding up under what Bishop described as “very personal” attacks, he laughed and said Luxon was “completely fine”.

“Look, he’s big enough and ugly enough to handle it, I just think it’s pretty pathetic and I think the New Zealand public deserve better than that.”

He said the CTU was “intimately” connected to the Labour Party.

“It’s in the name, it’s the Labour Party because they’re part of the Labour movement . . .  Craig Renney was Grant Robertson’s adviser and he’s now at the CTU, so they know exactly what they’re doing.”

‘Not nasty at all’ – CTU
Council of Trade Unions president Richard Wagstaff told RNZ the campaign was focused on National’s policies.

“He’s [Luxon] promising to take down fair pay agreements, put people on [90-day] trials, make savage cuts to public services, and all in all we see it as a very serious choice ahead of New Zealanders at this election — perhaps the most serious choice in over a generation,” Wagstaff said.

He denied that focusing on Luxon was unfair.

“It’s not nasty at all, it’s simply saying that Christopher Luxon is out of touch and he can’t be trusted.

“National is focused heavily on Christopher Luxon, launching him as the leader, the buck stops with him and he’s leading these policies so we need to draw attention to Christopher and what he’s saying.

“His instinct in the cost of living crisis is to take over $2 billion out of the climate fund and give an over $2 billion gift to landlords. That, to us, is an out-of-touch policy.”

He said Labour had not been involved in the ad campaign at all, and it was a completely independent intiative.

“This is the National Party’s paranoia, Labour are not even mentioned in the ads, they’re not part of this campaign … we’re not asking people to vote for Labour we’re simply saying that Christopher Luxon and his policies would present a major danger to working New Zealanders.”

He said National was just trying to divert attention “away from the fact that their leader intends to smash industry bargaining, put people on trial periods and generally undermine the interests of working people”.

“We’re just putting that out there . . . it’s important that people look behind the rhetoric and really look at their policies.”

He said the $400,000 National had suggested for total ad campaign cost was an incorrect figure.

“It’s wrong, as far as I know it’s incorrect — I actually don’t know the figure but we don’t have that kind of money to spend on campaigns.”

Union members were happy to have their funds spent on the campaign, he said.

“Absolutely, union members expect the CTU to advance their interests as working people. This is an incredibly important election for the interests of working people.

“We’re not going to sit on our hands while National takes an axe to basic entitlements of the New Zealand working people.”

In an earlier statement, Wagstaff said the ad campaign would be “evidence-based”.

“Christopher Luxon and National will take New Zealand backwards and working people will be the first to feel the pain,” the statement said.

‘Democracy in action’ – Hipkins
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said the CTU had run campaign ads in every election he had been involved in, and he had been aware they would be doing so but had not seen the ads until they were published.

He said for National to be offended was “incredibly thin-skinned” given the Taxpayers Union lobbying group, which has typically advocated for right-leaning policies.

“I think the CTU are raising some legitimate concerns around the effects of the National Party’s policies,” Hipkins said.

He said National was “desperately trying to distract attention away from the fact that they’be been caught out with their numbers and their policies just not stacking up. They’re trying to create a diversion here.

“The National Party and their surrogates, including the Taxpayer’s Union, Groundswell, Hobson’s Pledge and so on, have been running attack ads against me and the Labour government since the day I took on the job.

“I haven’t called a press conference or issued a media statement every time they have done that.”

Hipkins presented some “random examples” of the attack ads to reporters.

‘Russian horses’
“This one here, I was particularly touched by this one, actually. This is myself and David Parker on what would appear to be some Russian horses. I actually think I look quite good on a horse, to be frank.

“We have a pretty nasty, despicable personal attack on Nanaia Mahuta, that was, I believe, The Taxpayer’s Union did that one.”

Another ad — published by the National Party — had a photoshopped image of Hipkins’ face on the side of a sticking plaster box.

Hipkins said he did not believe Labour’s own campaign was negative.

“I don’t believe that we are running a negative campaign. We are out there campaigning positively on the things that we’re putting before the electorate, but we are also checking the promises the National Party are making because they simply don’t stack up.

“If they want to be the government, they’re going to be subject to this sort of scrutiny day in and day out — we have been for the last six years.”

“I don’t think critiquing the potential effects of the National Party’s policy is something they should shy away from. That is democracy in action.”

Chris Bishop said National would condemn any third-party ads attacking Chris Hipkins.

‘Completely separate from editorial’ – NZ Herald
In a statement, a spokesperson from The New Zealand Herald said “expression of opinion through advocacy advertising is an essential and desirable part of a democratic society”.

“All advocacy ads must comply with the ASA Codes and Advocacy Principles, as well as our own Advertising Acceptability Policy. Publishing an advertisement does not indicate NZME’s endorsement of that product or message.

“It’s also important to note that advertising stands completely separately from editorial.”

Bishop said he did not have a problem with the Herald running the ad.

“I mean, newspapers have got to sell advertising, I’ve got no issue with the Herald running that ad and I’ve got no issue with other outlets taking advertising money.

“I’ve got an issue with the CTU running it and I think they should be reflecting on it. I think it will backfire, ultimately, on them, and I think New Zealanders will see through it.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

An indigenous legal challenge in a bid to annul the result of last December’s referendum on New Caledonia’s independence from France has failed.

The highest administrative court in Paris has rejected a claim by the Kanak customary Senate that the impact of the covid-19 pandemic was such that the referendum outcome was illegitimate.

More than 96 percent voted against independence in the third and last referendum under the Noumea Accord, but more than 56 percent of voters abstained.

The pro-independence parties had called for a boycott of the referendum after France had rejected pleas for the vote to be postponed until this year.

When the first community outbreak of the pandemic was recorded in September, a lockdown was imposed, which was extended into October, as thousands contracted the virus and hundreds needed hospital care.

The court in Paris found that the epidemiological situation had improved in October and November and that by the time of the referendum on December 12, more than 77 percent of the population had been vaccinated.

It also said the year-long mourning declared by the Kanak customary Senate in September was not such as to affect the sincerity of the vote.

No minimum turnout
The court added that neither constitutional provisions nor the organic law make the validity of the vote conditional on a minimum turnout.

In the week before the referendum, 146 voters and three organisations filed an urgent submission to the same court, seeking to postpone the vote.

They said given the impact of the pandemic, it was “unthinkable” to proceed with such an important plebiscite.

They said because of the lockdown, campaigning had been unduly hampered as basic freedoms impinged.

However, the court rejected the challenge and voting went ahead as intended by the French government.

Rejecting the referendum outcome, the pro-independence side said apart from court action, it would seek to win the support for its position from the Pacific Islands Forum and the United Nations.

A pro-independence delegate to last month’s UN decolonisation meeting said French President Emmanuel Macron had declared after the referendum that New Caledonia showed it wanted to stay French although it was known that 90 percent of Kanaks wanted independence.

French Senate mission planned
The French Senate is hearing experts this week as its law commission prepares work on a new statute for New Caledonia following last year’s rejection of independence.

The commission, which is chaired by François-Noel Buffet, has also formed a team that will travel to New Caledonia in two weeks for talks with all stakeholders.

The team is expected to stay for a week and complete its work by the end of July.

In December, more than 96 percent voted against independence in the third and last referendum under the Noumea Accord, which had been the decolonisation roadmap since 1998.

However, the pro-independence parties refuse to recognise the result, saying their abstention had rendered the outcome of the process illegitimate.

Paris plans to hold a referendum next June on a new statute for a New Caledonia within the French republic.

Buffet said his mission to Noumea was to consider the institutional situation by consolidating the dialogue initiated by the Matignon and Noumea Accords between France and New Caledonia.

Electoral rolls issue
A key issue will be the fate of the electoral rolls.

The Noumea Accord, whose provisions have been enshrined in the French constitution, restricts voting rights to indigenous people and long-term residents.

Migration this century has added about 40,000 French citizens who remain excluded from referendums and from provincial elections.

The anti-independence parties want the rolls to be unfrozen, but the pro-independence side is strongly opposed to this.

It told the UN Decolonisation Committee that France’s intention to open the electoral rolls to French people who arrived after 1998 was the ultimate weapon to “drown” the Kanak people and “recolonise” New Caledonia.

It warned the Kanaks would be made to disappear, which would not be accepted but inevitably lead to conflict.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz