Some explanation:
There are 7 political parties that hold seats in New Zealand’s Parliament.
These are Labour, National, ACT, New Zealand First, United Future, Green, and Progressive.
My question is, thus:
Of these parties, when neither Labour or National (the two major parties) are unable to form a majority, what parties will supply the votes needed for either party to take control?
Basically, Labour is the Government, with United Future and Greens support on most issues. Progressive is really just a part of Labour, and is a coalition partner. National, ACT and New Zealand First are opposition parties.
Governor Quin, because our parliamentary voting system is based on the Mixed Member Proportional system (or MMP), and there are “party” votes as well as actual constituent votes, the power structures can change within the parliament from election to election. While ACT will almost always side with National (further right policies with right-wing policies) and Progressive (if Jim Anderton can keep going) and the Greens will be next to Labour (mind, the Greens do not agree with all Labour’s policies), our friends in United Future and NZ First tend to be floaters. Depending on which side can offer them the most power.
Out of personal interest, Ice Wolf, in what order will the National Party and the Labour Party probably call on other parties in order to gain the organizational votes needed?
And while yer at it Wolfie, can you explain the MMP system to a poor, ignorant West islander?
Good heavens, I can do that, and I’m not a New Zealander.
Basically, there are 65 electoral districts (6 of which are reserved for Maori voters) and 55 “list” seats.
In the electoral seats, an ordinary “first-past-the-post” vote is done, with the top vote-getter being elected.
However, there is also voting for a “party list”. After voting for a local candidate, a voter than casts a vote for a party.
If a party passes a certain amount of the vote (or wins an electoral seat), they are eligible for “list” seats.
These “list” seats are set up so that they are roughly proportional, but, at the same time, the more electoral seats a party wins, the less list seats they get.
Hope that helps.
I think so. I’ll try and get my Australian “preferential system” noggin around that. Thank you.
Yeah it’s supposed to work so that you can vote for the local representative you want even though they may not be aligned with your party of choice, you may just like what they can do for your electorate. You can then say what is your prefered party. Then extra seats are given in parliament to make the parties proportional to what the people of the country want.
The good part about it is that if 40% of NZers want to be goverened by Labour, then parliament will be made by 40% Labour seats.
The bad part is that politicians that noone in their right mind would vote for, can get a seat in parliament by being on the make-up-the-numbers list.