A good weekend for MMP

The weekend was a good one for the Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) voting system New Zealand has used to elect its Parliament since 1996.

The NZ Herald's senior political columnist, John Armstrong, wrote a strong column in favour of MMP. Armstrong lays his cards firmly on the table:

"...if voters give MMP the boot, they will have chucked away the only means by which they can curb the power of the Executive, if only in a blunt and roundabout fashion. How stupid is that? Yet, opinion polls consistently show FPP will give MMP a serious run for its money."

I doubt the sanity of anyone who seriously claims First Past the Post is better than MMP. MMP gives any voter at least one vote that results in representation in Parliament. FPP leaves roughly half of all voters having elected no one at all. If you didn't vote for the winner in the one electorate you live in, you sure as hell didn't elect anyone from any other place either.

MMP lets you hold an entire party to acccount with your party vote. FPP - at *best* - lets you decide of the future of a single MP with your vote.....assuming the one person you voted for won the day.

Armstrong wasn't alone, though. Also in the NZ Herald, Paul Holmes is staunchly in favour of MMP and canvasses why we adopted it in the first place back in 1993. Holmes concludes his examination with a summary of the good that MMP has done, at the same time batting away many of the key criticisms of MMP opponents:

"MMP requires consultation. It requires many sides to be considered in any policy change. In doing so, it provides the checks and balances FPP did not guarantee. Under FPP, a government could run rampant. If MMP has slowed down some decision-making, that is no bad thing. Things slowing down because of greater and wider representation might have played a part on the restoration of respect for Parliament after the turbulence, anger and frustration of the 1980s and 1990s.

Parliament is a nice show to watch now. It is less poisonous. You can sense greater co-operation for the good of the nation. Let's not waste our time. Let's move on."

Over at the Sunday Star-Times, Finlay Macdonald was hopeful we would see a "smart and sane" debate. His optimism is tempered by recalling the tactics of the people who opposed MMP in the first referendum, some of whom are behind the push for the one to come:

"...Several MMP elections on, we hear about minor party tails wagging majority dogs, anonymous party hierarchies controlling list hacks, and the intrinsic inequities of a two-vote split. Such problems have remedies well short of abandoning the whole system, but just watch the die-hard First Past the Posters exaggerate them into a reason to return to the mythical golden age of political certainty. Those who pine for the good old days of winner-takes-all (and then privatises it) like to deride an earlier select committee review of MMP as largely self-interested in the words of Shirtcliffe, unwilling to "upset what in political terms could be described as a nice little earner". No mention of MMP's many virtues, not least that our parliament actually looks like the community it serves."

There really is no case to return to FPP. Each of the writers above make it clear they think voters dumping MMP would be "turkeys voting for Christmas" (Armstrong), "...well on the way to becoming an idiocracy in our own right" (Macdonald), while Holmes takes the time to explain, in simple terms, why we adopted MMP in the first place and why there is no need to revisit that decision.