September 3, 2026 • 20 mins
Te Pāti Māori’s call for supporters to split their votes has put one of MMP’s strangest quirks back in the spotlight: overhang seats, strategic voting, and whether parties can game the system to change who forms the next government.
Jordan Williams is joined by Oliver Hartwich from the New Zealand Initiative to unpack what it all means, why the strategy could backfire, and whether New Zealand’s electoral system is heading for a serious credibility problem. From Māori seats and tactical voting to German-style fixes and the case for scrapping MMP altogether, Oliver explains how the rules of the game could shape the election result.
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SPEAKER_00 (00:08):
At its campaign launch in Gisbon on Sunday,
Tiparty Maori asked its supportof something apparently no other
party has requested so openlybefore.
Candidate votes for the partyand party votes for its allies
on the left.
That was the introduction ofOliver Hartwitch's weekly column
in the New Zealand Initiative'sInsights.
(00:29):
And joining me now to explainboth his concerns and to outline
the counterfactual, if the righttried the same trick, is Oliver
Hartwitch, a lawyer andeconomist.
Oliver, welcome to TaxpayerTalk.
Great to be with you, John.
So you set out, and I think itcontrasts well to Heather
Duplici Allen's uh piece in TheHerald on Sunday.
(00:53):
You basically say what theTeparty Maori is doing or
attempting to do is prettyoutrageous.
Um Heather Duplici Allen issaying, no, this is how MMP uh
it's quite legitimate.
Take me through firstly what whyis Tapati Maori doing it?
What does it mean in terms ofthe election, and why do you
object to it?
SPEAKER_01 (01:14):
Well, first of all, I would like to say that I think
both Heather and I are equallyright because it is totally
possible for voters to maketheir own decisions on MMP, and
still for a party to play thegame deliberately, I think is
still objectionable.
Um but maybe we start at thebeginning.
Um we of course have anelectoral system that uh New
Zealand borrowed from Germany,and apologize, apologies for
(01:35):
that once again.
I mean, you could have importedso many things from Germany, but
I'm not quite sure why youimported, yeah.
Well, yeah, I think you shouldhave left it there.
But seriously, this theelectorate system is a bit
complicated.
We have two votes, one forcandidates and the electorates,
the other one for party lists,and usually that plays out uh
(01:56):
quite well.
Um normally you get a parliamentthat reflects the will of the
voters.
That means the party votedetermines the composition of
parliament, and then it's onlyreally for the electorate votes
to figure out how many of thoseseats in parliament are actually
filled with electoratecandidates and how many other
seats are filled with candidatesfrom the list.
But the overall proportionalrepresentation will usually not
(02:19):
be affected by that.
Now, we've got a situation thisyear where for the first time,
actually, we look towards asubstantial so-called overhang.
And an overhang results from aparty gaining more electorate
seats than it is due under theparty vote in total.
Um, we've had an overhang, ofcourse, for the last three years
(02:40):
already from um two factors.
One was the party Maori winningmore electorates than it was
entitled to under the party listvote.
The other one, and it's a bit ofa quirk, Port Waikato, Andrew
Bailey, of course, won a seatafter the election because one
of the constituency candidatesdied shortly before the
election.
So the election couldn't be heldon election day, but a few weeks
later.
(03:00):
And so in the currentparliament, therefore, we've got
123 MPs, where we usually have120.
That's an overhang of three.
One overhang for national, twooverhang seats for Tepathi Mari.
So far, so normal.
What's different this year isactually that uh Teepati Mari is
really setting about to reallycreate, to engineer an
(03:20):
additional overhang.
They told their voters, hey, youonly give us your electorate
vote.
We don't want your list votes.
There's even speculation TepatiMari might not even file a list
for the election, which wouldrender all of the MPs' um
overhang mandates by default.
And uh that is an attempt to rigthe system from the left,
because Tepatimori is saying,well, um, if you vote for us in
(03:43):
the electorate, please give yourvotes to Labour or the Greeks.
SPEAKER_00 (03:48):
So I had to say that the because it's widely
misunderstood by the public, ofcourse.
If you win an electorate in thenormal circumstances, you simply
lose a list MP, and it's why Iobject to one of the many
reasons I don't like M MP.
If similarly, if you lose anelectorate, the party just gets
another list MP in the normal umstate of affairs.
(04:08):
But that's interesting.
So if a party doesn't file alist, that means that by
default, even though it's aregistered party and people
could give it the party vote,that even if it wasn't entitled
to any list MPs because it um ituh had the same number, you're
saying that results in anoverhang.
That is quite a quirk.
SPEAKER_01 (04:28):
Well, you might even get in a ballot paper which
doesn't feature Tepati Maori forthe list vote because if they
don't file a list, you can'tvote for them.
And so by default, every singleelectorate MP that Tepathi Maori
gains will be an overhangbecause there is no list vote to
match it.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (04:44):
So you've said that this has never been done before,
but hang on, what about theinfamous cup of tea in Epson
between Rodney Hyde or JohnBanks and John Key?
SPEAKER_01 (04:55):
Well, that's actually quite the flip side of
what's happening right now,because back then, of course, if
you remember, the uh party umwhat national was asking their
voters not to give it theirvotes, but for the electorate,
not for the list.
I mean, nationalists stillwanted to get your list vote at
the time, but they wanted toensure that the local
constituency electoratecandidate, John Banks, got
(05:16):
through in Epson, and thereforeum well, that was the vote
wasn't wasted.
Yes, the vote wasn't wasted, andit was also banking on another
feature of MMP, which is thecoattailing rule.
That means if you get one MPthrough, you might not reach the
5% threshold for parliamentaryrepresentation, but you could
still bring in your mates fromthe party list, even if you win
only a single electorate.
(05:37):
That was the idea behind um theEpsom deal with John Banks and
the cup of tea.
Um, by the way, even that kindof gaming can occasionally um
result in an overhang.
We had that in 2014 with PeterDunn in Ohio.
So again, similar kind ofscenario.
National told the voters inOhio, can you please vote Peter
Dunn United Future with yourelectoral vote?
(05:57):
We still want your list vote, bythe way.
SPEAKER_00 (05:59):
They often don't do it do it explicitly.
It's sort of a bit of anudge-nudge wink wink, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01 (06:04):
Oh, well, in Ohio, I think it was actually quite
explicit.
I remember actually another onthe constituent actually, um, I
received a letter from Nationaluh telling us what to do.
Um, that was quite explicit.
Really?
Wow.
And it's all resulted in anoverhang.
Um it still resulted in overhangbecause uh United Future, of
course, did not even win enoughlist votes to justify that
(06:25):
single MP they had, which wasPeter Dup.
So that was a quirk.
But what's happening right now,of course, happens on a
different scale.
Because if you just ask votersto just lend your electorate
vote to somebody else, you mightoccasionally, I mean really
rarely, create an overhang likePeter Dunn's.
But usually what you do isactually you try to curtail,
(06:47):
meaning you bring in an extrafew MPs that don't from a party
that doesn't reach the 5%threshold.
That's not a way to really rigthe system dramatically.
If you do it the other wayaround, if you ask your voters,
can you please lend your partyvote to our coalition partner?
That might actually materiallychange the result.
And I've actually modeled thisin my paper which we launched a
(07:08):
week ago.
Okay, take me through it.
Well, put yourself in a positionof a national voter.
The national voter has justlearned about their party Mari
and how they're trying to wreakthe system.
And that national voter nowlooks at the opinion polls and
sees, hey, hmm, national, myparty, they will probably get,
say, around 37, 38 electorateseats, but they're only polling
(07:32):
around 29%.
And so I do the maths and Ifigure out actually that my vote
for the party would not actuallyget them a single list MP
because National is already inoverhang.
And then the voter will think,well, there are probably 900,000
of voters just like me who willgive their vote to National, and
they know that despite our900,000 votes, National will not
(07:55):
gain an additional seat inparliament.
They will be stuck with theelectorates they've won, so they
will get their 37 or 38 MPs.
SPEAKER_00 (08:03):
But this is the big unknown.
I mean, i if nets don't losemany electorates on their
current polling, they get one toperhaps no list MPs.
And depending on the result inHutt South, which is very close,
and uh depending on the preciseswing, you know, you probably
lose Chris Bishop fromParliament, or you'll lose uh
(08:23):
Paul Goldsmith, Jerry Brownlee,Nicola Willis.
But what you're suggesting iswould in effect tank the
National Party vote, send itdown to 20, 27, 26, or even
lower.
And you're assuming that thoughthey keep those electorates,
they keep strong in theelectorates, and then you get
this overhang.
Is it is that right?
(08:44):
That's correct.
SPEAKER_01 (08:45):
Um, on current polling, which is under 30,
closer to 29, sometimes even alittle bit lower than that,
National is not looking likelyto win any list MPs.
And that means, of course, thatuh MPs like Nicola Willis, who
you like very much, and uh ChrisBishop would be out alongside
Paul Goldsmith and JerryBrownlee.
(09:05):
Now, for the national votersactually making a strategic
consideration, um, once theyrealize the party is not going
to get any list MPs, it doesn'treally matter anymore whether
the national overhang is one ortwo or ten, um, because in the
end he can't save Chris Bishopanyway.
I mean, the only way thatcoalition voters would be um
(09:26):
able to save Chris Bishop is, ofcourse, to vote for him in the
electorate.
So even act voters and NewZealand First voters would have
to gather behind Chris Bishopand give him their electorate
vote.
But from a list party vote,well, um, there's not much he
can do.
SPEAKER_00 (09:40):
So the most rational thing unless the Nets, you know,
drag their party vote up, whichwas pretty hard for the big
parties during the course of anelection campaign.
SPEAKER_01 (09:48):
And which is unlikely because um the opinion
courts have been relativelysteady really for about a year
now.
So I think we started talkingabout the potential for a
national overhang about a yearago, I remember.
And uh I haven't seen anythingthat changes their calculations.
So back to the double standardhere, Oliver.
SPEAKER_00 (10:08):
Oliver there's a double standard.
It is amazing how littlecoverage to party Maoris, I
mean, with the exception of youand and Heather, I've not seen
very much commentary on it.
But I put to you that if theNational Party or even Act of
New Zealand First raised thismatter, the media, Radio New
(10:30):
Zealand, Jack Taines, Goblins ofDoom would come down uh and
smack this idea um uh and thepotential gaining, and that
would be hugely disruptive andthere would probably be a uh a
um blowback.
Because and I guess that's thethe question for this podcast is
(10:53):
is it uh uh rational um playingof the system under the rules,
or is it cheating?
SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
It is a bit of both.
It depends on who does it.
Um so, first of all, if nationaland Well hang well hang on a
minute.
SPEAKER_00 (11:09):
That's that that's my point.
It's fair enough when when TeParty Maori do it, but not when
um no, no, it's the opposite,actually.
SPEAKER_01 (11:16):
Let me explain.
Um if national did this, um,they would deserve all the
criticism there, criticism thatthey would get.
Because um that would be a partyactually trying to rig the
system, and by the way, Te PartyMaori deserved exactly that.
They didn't get it because ourmedia was a little bit asleep at
the wheel.
SPEAKER_00 (11:32):
Oh no, it's because that no one's willing to
criticize to Party Maori.
They have a different standardapplied to them.
SPEAKER_01 (11:38):
Okay, but still what they were doing was not right
because they were trying to rigthe system, they were trying to
manipulate the result.
They deserved a lot ofcriticism, it's a pity they
didn't get it.
If national tried the same, ofcourse, they would deserve
exactly the same kind ofcriticism.
Now, um what individual votersdo, of course, um is totally up
to them.
Um so my objection is mainly toparties trying to engineer a
(12:00):
result.
If a voter actually uses theirum votes they have um according
to their own preferences, thereis absolutely nothing we can do
about it.
I mean, that's the principle offair elections.
Voters are free to make theirown decisions, and if they make
decisions tactically, that isokay.
SPEAKER_00 (12:16):
So you're saying it it's possible to happen
organically.
How many people would need to dothis in order for it to
materially affect the result?
SPEAKER_01 (12:25):
Well, that's what I calculated because I wanted to
see if um even if Nationaldoesn't opt um officially asked.
SPEAKER_00 (12:32):
They wouldn't.
I can tell you now, they're soburdened by the experience in
2002 of a of a of um not goingafter the party vote that this
is old um this is Judy Kirk, uhthe former president and uh
Stephen Joyce's, you know, it'sthe it's it's the party vote
that counts, the party vote thatcounts.
It's drummed into every nationalparty candidate and volunteer.
SPEAKER_01 (12:55):
Yeah, and national can't do that anyway, because it
would basically be a signal toNicola Willis and Chris Bishop
that um we've given up.
We're abandoning you.
Exactly.
So National can't do that, and Isay they shouldn't do that.
But of course, if individualvoters come to their own
conclusion looking at theopinion polls saying, well, I
want to give my vote uh a biggerweight than actually having it
effectively wasted by um votingfor a list that doesn't yield
(13:18):
any NPs, well, um can't stopthem.
So if only one in ten nationalvoters does it, it would
materially change the result.
Under the kind of poll of pollsright now, it looks likely we
might even have a slightcenter-left majority.
If one in ten national votersshift their votes, say to act,
(13:39):
um, that would probably turn theresult around and we would have
a slight majority in parliamentfor the center right.
If one in four national votersdo that and lend their votes to
the ZN First and Act, that woulduh lead to a substantial
majority for the centre right.
So voters themselves couldactually materially change the
result.
SPEAKER_00 (13:57):
If that happened, two things.
Um, wouldn't the party Maori orLabour respond by pulling back
in the Maori seats and if ineffect do the same thing?
And in the longer term, wouldn'tit just wouldn't it I mean, this
is perhaps a feature, not a bug,but wouldn't that undermine the
confidence in MMP and result ina in us going to something like
supplementary member, which isof course how people think MNP
(14:22):
works, where your party votesfor the proportion of the list
and your electorate votesactually, you know, the the
winner of the seats actuallycount?
SPEAKER_01 (14:31):
Yes, I I think it could actually do both.
Uh first, the left wouldretaliate.
Um, so in the future, you couldexpect some arrangements between
Labour and the Greens doingexactly the same, trying to rig
the system.
Right now, I think Labour is notin a good position to do that
because right now, Labour stillexpects to win some list MPs.
So before they even get towardsa territory where the additional
(14:52):
overhang mandates would actuallychange the result for Labour,
they would first have to give upon some of their own MPs, which
I think makes it less likely.
But longer term, of course, uhthere would be a question of
fairness when it comes to MMP.
And since the Prime Minister hasnow announced he would like to
hold a referendum in MP, thatwould have an effect, I think,
on the result of thatreferendum.
People would say, actually,we've seen how it's been
(15:14):
wrecked, we don't want to seethat again, and we'll move
towards a different electoralsystem that will prevent that
result.
Or, by the way, you could alsoreform MMP to actually prevent
such outcomes.
Well, it just before we go, hasthis happened in Germany?
Not to the same effect.
Um, what happened in Germany isof course Germany has um long
had provisions against overhangmandates um distorting the
(15:36):
result.
So previously until the lastelection, Germany compensated
the other parties that missedout on the overhang mandates
with so-called leveling seats orcompetition.
SPEAKER_00 (15:46):
Oh wow, so you get a bigger, you get a much bigger um
Bundestag.
SPEAKER_01 (15:50):
That's exactly right.
So the last Bundestag uh grew to736 MPs.
It was supposed to be just under600, and that was the result of
these overhangs.
No, no, no.
The taxpayers union doesn't wantus.
Doesn't want us.
And actually, I don't want iteither because I think 736 MPs
is ridiculous.
The um German Bundestag thenchanged um the electoral system
(16:11):
for the last federal election,which was only held last year,
and uh they did it in quite abrutal fashion.
So now you can actually win anelectorate in Germany, and you
will still not make it to Berlininto the Bundestag because your
own party didn't win enoughvotes on the list.
So what happens is actually thatuh the winners of electorates in
a state with the lowest share ofthe vote relative to their party
(16:33):
colleagues who won otherelectorates would not actually
make it if the party doesn'tqualify for the total number of
seats.
And so the Bundestag is now hardkept to the number of seats um
it is supposed to have.
But I think the result isunfortunate because it means
that, of course, there will beelectorates who are not
represented by a local MP.
And I don't think we want to seethat in New Zealand.
SPEAKER_00 (16:54):
Yeah, okay, I see.
You know, that would be thatreally undermines the idea of of
local representation if you ifyou in effect striking people
out.
Let me just give you an exampleof what would happen.
SPEAKER_01 (17:04):
We currently have a very tight race in Auckland
Central, right?
Yep.
And there is a chance that anational candidate will narrowly
win that electorate.
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (17:13):
And on what our polling shows that she's
actually five points ahead ofChloe.
But I suspect But of course it'snot a strong vote for national
traditionally.
They have won it before, though,of course.
Um Nick Nikki Kay won it.
But the the the thing is, isLabour have generally pulled
back a bit, and I suspect whatwill happen in that case is Camp
Candace is a tremendouscandidate.
(17:34):
Yeah.
But I suspect that that Labourwill pull back a bit and those
votes will fall behind.
SPEAKER_01 (17:38):
Um, but let's just assume we had the German
solution now to the overlyingmandates.
SPEAKER_00 (17:42):
Yep.
SPEAKER_01 (17:43):
She would win the electorate narrowly relative to
other national MPs andtraditional strongholds, and
therefore she would have done afantastic election campaign.
She would have won a seat, whichis really hard to get, and still
be told at the end of it, and bythe way, since we haven't got
enough list MPs, uh sorry, uhparty votes, you would not make
it to Wellington.
I don't think that's a goodoutcome.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (18:04):
Just by interest, are you pro-supplementary member
or are you one of these umweirdos that like the single
transferable vote and 3D chessand even more complexity?
SPEAKER_01 (18:15):
I am actually a first past the post person.
Oh wow, based.
Okay.
I really think that first pastthe post usually delivers
better, clearer majorities inparliament where you actually
know who governs whom.
SPEAKER_00 (18:27):
So you're one of the people that and I've got a lot
of sympathy for it.
You believe democracy is muchmore about accountability than
about representation.
Um that would be my idealsystem.
SPEAKER_01 (18:37):
But okay, we have MMP now, so my argument we would
be as long as uh the majorityview of the New Zealand people
is that we want to have aproportional system and we might
even want to have MMP, there areways in which at least you can
make MMP workable.
For example, you could introducethese leveling mandates which
would prevent the kind of gamingthat Takoti Morikagi does.
(18:59):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (19:00):
So I guess from here from here, it will be really
interesting to see whetherTapati Māori submit a list, and
if they don't, that would beoutrageous, and that would be
obviously the open invite to thecentre right supporters to do uh
to do the same thing.
Yeah, I I think it is a verydangerous game, Oliver, um uh on
this, but I think your uh theconclusion you get to that it
(19:23):
would make uh MNP inherentlyunstable is right.
Do you think it would make theMaori seats inherently unstable
in this model?
SPEAKER_01 (19:34):
Probably yes.
If uh National and uh itscoalition partners fight back in
the next parliament, they wouldsay, hey, you gained the system,
you're really trying to createan overhang.
That was outrageous.
And as a as our kind ofretaliation, we're going to
abolish the seats, which issomething, of course, that has
been on the cards for well, aslong as MMP was around, because
(19:55):
under MMP, it doesn't make anysense whatsoever to have Maori.
SPEAKER_00 (19:58):
And the Royal Commission um uh commented on
that.
And I mean you look at thecurrent government.
SPEAKER_01 (20:03):
And that could be the moment that really tips the
balance in favor of finallyabolishing the Maori seats and
making the system compatiblewith MMP.
Yeah.
So that could happen.
Um, but it could equally happen,of course, that the other
parties um will also try toretaliate if enough national
voters do this kind of tacticalvote splitting and actually lead
to a centre-right majority whenthe popular vote is for a
(20:24):
centre-left government.
SPEAKER_00 (20:25):
Interesting.
Oliver, we will no doubt talkagain between now and uh and the
election.
In the meantime, OliverHartwitch from the New Zealand
Initiative Think Tank.
Thank you for joining TaxpayerTalk.
SPEAKER_01 (20:37):
Thank you, John.
At its campaign launch in Gisbon on Sunday,
Tiparty Maori asked its supportof something apparently no other
party has requested so openlybefore.
Candidate votes for the partyand party votes for its allies
on the left.
That was the introduction ofOliver Hartwitch's weekly column
in the New Zealand Initiative'sInsights.
(00:29):
And joining me now to explainboth his concerns and to outline
the counterfactual, if the righttried the same trick, is Oliver
Hartwitch, a lawyer andeconomist.
Oliver, welcome to TaxpayerTalk.
Great to be with you, John.
So you set out, and I think itcontrasts well to Heather
Duplici Allen's uh piece in TheHerald on Sunday.
(00:53):
You basically say what theTeparty Maori is doing or
attempting to do is prettyoutrageous.
Um Heather Duplici Allen issaying, no, this is how MMP uh
it's quite legitimate.
Take me through firstly what whyis Tapati Maori doing it?
What does it mean in terms ofthe election, and why do you
object to it?
SPEAKER_01 (01:14):
Well, first of all, I would like to say that I think
both Heather and I are equallyright because it is totally
possible for voters to maketheir own decisions on MMP, and
still for a party to play thegame deliberately, I think is
still objectionable.
Um but maybe we start at thebeginning.
Um we of course have anelectoral system that uh New
Zealand borrowed from Germany,and apologize, apologies for
(01:35):
that once again.
I mean, you could have importedso many things from Germany, but
I'm not quite sure why youimported, yeah.
Well, yeah, I think you shouldhave left it there.
But seriously, this theelectorate system is a bit
complicated.
We have two votes, one forcandidates and the electorates,
the other one for party lists,and usually that plays out uh
(01:56):
quite well.
Um normally you get a parliamentthat reflects the will of the
voters.
That means the party votedetermines the composition of
parliament, and then it's onlyreally for the electorate votes
to figure out how many of thoseseats in parliament are actually
filled with electoratecandidates and how many other
seats are filled with candidatesfrom the list.
But the overall proportionalrepresentation will usually not
(02:19):
be affected by that.
Now, we've got a situation thisyear where for the first time,
actually, we look towards asubstantial so-called overhang.
And an overhang results from aparty gaining more electorate
seats than it is due under theparty vote in total.
Um, we've had an overhang, ofcourse, for the last three years
(02:40):
already from um two factors.
One was the party Maori winningmore electorates than it was
entitled to under the party listvote.
The other one, and it's a bit ofa quirk, Port Waikato, Andrew
Bailey, of course, won a seatafter the election because one
of the constituency candidatesdied shortly before the
election.
So the election couldn't be heldon election day, but a few weeks
later.
(03:00):
And so in the currentparliament, therefore, we've got
123 MPs, where we usually have120.
That's an overhang of three.
One overhang for national, twooverhang seats for Tepathi Mari.
So far, so normal.
What's different this year isactually that uh Teepati Mari is
really setting about to reallycreate, to engineer an
(03:20):
additional overhang.
They told their voters, hey, youonly give us your electorate
vote.
We don't want your list votes.
There's even speculation TepatiMari might not even file a list
for the election, which wouldrender all of the MPs' um
overhang mandates by default.
And uh that is an attempt to rigthe system from the left,
because Tepatimori is saying,well, um, if you vote for us in
(03:43):
the electorate, please give yourvotes to Labour or the Greeks.
SPEAKER_00 (03:48):
So I had to say that the because it's widely
misunderstood by the public, ofcourse.
If you win an electorate in thenormal circumstances, you simply
lose a list MP, and it's why Iobject to one of the many
reasons I don't like M MP.
If similarly, if you lose anelectorate, the party just gets
another list MP in the normal umstate of affairs.
(04:08):
But that's interesting.
So if a party doesn't file alist, that means that by
default, even though it's aregistered party and people
could give it the party vote,that even if it wasn't entitled
to any list MPs because it um ituh had the same number, you're
saying that results in anoverhang.
That is quite a quirk.
SPEAKER_01 (04:28):
Well, you might even get in a ballot paper which
doesn't feature Tepati Maori forthe list vote because if they
don't file a list, you can'tvote for them.
And so by default, every singleelectorate MP that Tepathi Maori
gains will be an overhangbecause there is no list vote to
match it.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (04:44):
So you've said that this has never been done before,
but hang on, what about theinfamous cup of tea in Epson
between Rodney Hyde or JohnBanks and John Key?
SPEAKER_01 (04:55):
Well, that's actually quite the flip side of
what's happening right now,because back then, of course, if
you remember, the uh party umwhat national was asking their
voters not to give it theirvotes, but for the electorate,
not for the list.
I mean, nationalists stillwanted to get your list vote at
the time, but they wanted toensure that the local
constituency electoratecandidate, John Banks, got
(05:16):
through in Epson, and thereforeum well, that was the vote
wasn't wasted.
Yes, the vote wasn't wasted, andit was also banking on another
feature of MMP, which is thecoattailing rule.
That means if you get one MPthrough, you might not reach the
5% threshold for parliamentaryrepresentation, but you could
still bring in your mates fromthe party list, even if you win
only a single electorate.
(05:37):
That was the idea behind um theEpsom deal with John Banks and
the cup of tea.
Um, by the way, even that kindof gaming can occasionally um
result in an overhang.
We had that in 2014 with PeterDunn in Ohio.
So again, similar kind ofscenario.
National told the voters inOhio, can you please vote Peter
Dunn United Future with yourelectoral vote?
(05:57):
We still want your list vote, bythe way.
SPEAKER_00 (05:59):
They often don't do it do it explicitly.
It's sort of a bit of anudge-nudge wink wink, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01 (06:04):
Oh, well, in Ohio, I think it was actually quite
explicit.
I remember actually another onthe constituent actually, um, I
received a letter from Nationaluh telling us what to do.
Um, that was quite explicit.
Really?
Wow.
And it's all resulted in anoverhang.
Um it still resulted in overhangbecause uh United Future, of
course, did not even win enoughlist votes to justify that
(06:25):
single MP they had, which wasPeter Dup.
So that was a quirk.
But what's happening right now,of course, happens on a
different scale.
Because if you just ask votersto just lend your electorate
vote to somebody else, you mightoccasionally, I mean really
rarely, create an overhang likePeter Dunn's.
But usually what you do isactually you try to curtail,
(06:47):
meaning you bring in an extrafew MPs that don't from a party
that doesn't reach the 5%threshold.
That's not a way to really rigthe system dramatically.
If you do it the other wayaround, if you ask your voters,
can you please lend your partyvote to our coalition partner?
That might actually materiallychange the result.
And I've actually modeled thisin my paper which we launched a
(07:08):
week ago.
Okay, take me through it.
Well, put yourself in a positionof a national voter.
The national voter has justlearned about their party Mari
and how they're trying to wreakthe system.
And that national voter nowlooks at the opinion polls and
sees, hey, hmm, national, myparty, they will probably get,
say, around 37, 38 electorateseats, but they're only polling
(07:32):
around 29%.
And so I do the maths and Ifigure out actually that my vote
for the party would not actuallyget them a single list MP
because National is already inoverhang.
And then the voter will think,well, there are probably 900,000
of voters just like me who willgive their vote to National, and
they know that despite our900,000 votes, National will not
(07:55):
gain an additional seat inparliament.
They will be stuck with theelectorates they've won, so they
will get their 37 or 38 MPs.
SPEAKER_00 (08:03):
But this is the big unknown.
I mean, i if nets don't losemany electorates on their
current polling, they get one toperhaps no list MPs.
And depending on the result inHutt South, which is very close,
and uh depending on the preciseswing, you know, you probably
lose Chris Bishop fromParliament, or you'll lose uh
(08:23):
Paul Goldsmith, Jerry Brownlee,Nicola Willis.
But what you're suggesting iswould in effect tank the
National Party vote, send itdown to 20, 27, 26, or even
lower.
And you're assuming that thoughthey keep those electorates,
they keep strong in theelectorates, and then you get
this overhang.
Is it is that right?
(08:44):
That's correct.
SPEAKER_01 (08:45):
Um, on current polling, which is under 30,
closer to 29, sometimes even alittle bit lower than that,
National is not looking likelyto win any list MPs.
And that means, of course, thatuh MPs like Nicola Willis, who
you like very much, and uh ChrisBishop would be out alongside
Paul Goldsmith and JerryBrownlee.
(09:05):
Now, for the national votersactually making a strategic
consideration, um, once theyrealize the party is not going
to get any list MPs, it doesn'treally matter anymore whether
the national overhang is one ortwo or ten, um, because in the
end he can't save Chris Bishopanyway.
I mean, the only way thatcoalition voters would be um
(09:26):
able to save Chris Bishop is, ofcourse, to vote for him in the
electorate.
So even act voters and NewZealand First voters would have
to gather behind Chris Bishopand give him their electorate
vote.
But from a list party vote,well, um, there's not much he
can do.
SPEAKER_00 (09:40):
So the most rational thing unless the Nets, you know,
drag their party vote up, whichwas pretty hard for the big
parties during the course of anelection campaign.
SPEAKER_01 (09:48):
And which is unlikely because um the opinion
courts have been relativelysteady really for about a year
now.
So I think we started talkingabout the potential for a
national overhang about a yearago, I remember.
And uh I haven't seen anythingthat changes their calculations.
So back to the double standardhere, Oliver.
SPEAKER_00 (10:08):
Oliver there's a double standard.
It is amazing how littlecoverage to party Maoris, I
mean, with the exception of youand and Heather, I've not seen
very much commentary on it.
But I put to you that if theNational Party or even Act of
New Zealand First raised thismatter, the media, Radio New
(10:30):
Zealand, Jack Taines, Goblins ofDoom would come down uh and
smack this idea um uh and thepotential gaining, and that
would be hugely disruptive andthere would probably be a uh a
um blowback.
Because and I guess that's thethe question for this podcast is
(10:53):
is it uh uh rational um playingof the system under the rules,
or is it cheating?
SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
It is a bit of both.
It depends on who does it.
Um so, first of all, if nationaland Well hang well hang on a
minute.
SPEAKER_00 (11:09):
That's that that's my point.
It's fair enough when when TeParty Maori do it, but not when
um no, no, it's the opposite,actually.
SPEAKER_01 (11:16):
Let me explain.
Um if national did this, um,they would deserve all the
criticism there, criticism thatthey would get.
Because um that would be a partyactually trying to rig the
system, and by the way, Te PartyMaori deserved exactly that.
They didn't get it because ourmedia was a little bit asleep at
the wheel.
SPEAKER_00 (11:32):
Oh no, it's because that no one's willing to
criticize to Party Maori.
They have a different standardapplied to them.
SPEAKER_01 (11:38):
Okay, but still what they were doing was not right
because they were trying to rigthe system, they were trying to
manipulate the result.
They deserved a lot ofcriticism, it's a pity they
didn't get it.
If national tried the same, ofcourse, they would deserve
exactly the same kind ofcriticism.
Now, um what individual votersdo, of course, um is totally up
to them.
Um so my objection is mainly toparties trying to engineer a
(12:00):
result.
If a voter actually uses theirum votes they have um according
to their own preferences, thereis absolutely nothing we can do
about it.
I mean, that's the principle offair elections.
Voters are free to make theirown decisions, and if they make
decisions tactically, that isokay.
SPEAKER_00 (12:16):
So you're saying it it's possible to happen
organically.
How many people would need to dothis in order for it to
materially affect the result?
SPEAKER_01 (12:25):
Well, that's what I calculated because I wanted to
see if um even if Nationaldoesn't opt um officially asked.
SPEAKER_00 (12:32):
They wouldn't.
I can tell you now, they're soburdened by the experience in
2002 of a of a of um not goingafter the party vote that this
is old um this is Judy Kirk, uhthe former president and uh
Stephen Joyce's, you know, it'sthe it's it's the party vote
that counts, the party vote thatcounts.
It's drummed into every nationalparty candidate and volunteer.
SPEAKER_01 (12:55):
Yeah, and national can't do that anyway, because it
would basically be a signal toNicola Willis and Chris Bishop
that um we've given up.
We're abandoning you.
Exactly.
So National can't do that, and Isay they shouldn't do that.
But of course, if individualvoters come to their own
conclusion looking at theopinion polls saying, well, I
want to give my vote uh a biggerweight than actually having it
effectively wasted by um votingfor a list that doesn't yield
(13:18):
any NPs, well, um can't stopthem.
So if only one in ten nationalvoters does it, it would
materially change the result.
Under the kind of poll of pollsright now, it looks likely we
might even have a slightcenter-left majority.
If one in ten national votersshift their votes, say to act,
(13:39):
um, that would probably turn theresult around and we would have
a slight majority in parliamentfor the center right.
If one in four national votersdo that and lend their votes to
the ZN First and Act, that woulduh lead to a substantial
majority for the centre right.
So voters themselves couldactually materially change the
result.
SPEAKER_00 (13:57):
If that happened, two things.
Um, wouldn't the party Maori orLabour respond by pulling back
in the Maori seats and if ineffect do the same thing?
And in the longer term, wouldn'tit just wouldn't it I mean, this
is perhaps a feature, not a bug,but wouldn't that undermine the
confidence in MMP and result ina in us going to something like
supplementary member, which isof course how people think MNP
(14:22):
works, where your party votesfor the proportion of the list
and your electorate votesactually, you know, the the
winner of the seats actuallycount?
SPEAKER_01 (14:31):
Yes, I I think it could actually do both.
Uh first, the left wouldretaliate.
Um, so in the future, you couldexpect some arrangements between
Labour and the Greens doingexactly the same, trying to rig
the system.
Right now, I think Labour is notin a good position to do that
because right now, Labour stillexpects to win some list MPs.
So before they even get towardsa territory where the additional
(14:52):
overhang mandates would actuallychange the result for Labour,
they would first have to give upon some of their own MPs, which
I think makes it less likely.
But longer term, of course, uhthere would be a question of
fairness when it comes to MMP.
And since the Prime Minister hasnow announced he would like to
hold a referendum in MP, thatwould have an effect, I think,
on the result of thatreferendum.
People would say, actually,we've seen how it's been
(15:14):
wrecked, we don't want to seethat again, and we'll move
towards a different electoralsystem that will prevent that
result.
Or, by the way, you could alsoreform MMP to actually prevent
such outcomes.
Well, it just before we go, hasthis happened in Germany?
Not to the same effect.
Um, what happened in Germany isof course Germany has um long
had provisions against overhangmandates um distorting the
(15:36):
result.
So previously until the lastelection, Germany compensated
the other parties that missedout on the overhang mandates
with so-called leveling seats orcompetition.
SPEAKER_00 (15:46):
Oh wow, so you get a bigger, you get a much bigger um
Bundestag.
SPEAKER_01 (15:50):
That's exactly right.
So the last Bundestag uh grew to736 MPs.
It was supposed to be just under600, and that was the result of
these overhangs.
No, no, no.
The taxpayers union doesn't wantus.
Doesn't want us.
And actually, I don't want iteither because I think 736 MPs
is ridiculous.
The um German Bundestag thenchanged um the electoral system
(16:11):
for the last federal election,which was only held last year,
and uh they did it in quite abrutal fashion.
So now you can actually win anelectorate in Germany, and you
will still not make it to Berlininto the Bundestag because your
own party didn't win enoughvotes on the list.
So what happens is actually thatuh the winners of electorates in
a state with the lowest share ofthe vote relative to their party
(16:33):
colleagues who won otherelectorates would not actually
make it if the party doesn'tqualify for the total number of
seats.
And so the Bundestag is now hardkept to the number of seats um
it is supposed to have.
But I think the result isunfortunate because it means
that, of course, there will beelectorates who are not
represented by a local MP.
And I don't think we want to seethat in New Zealand.
SPEAKER_00 (16:54):
Yeah, okay, I see.
You know, that would be thatreally undermines the idea of of
local representation if you ifyou in effect striking people
out.
Let me just give you an exampleof what would happen.
SPEAKER_01 (17:04):
We currently have a very tight race in Auckland
Central, right?
Yep.
And there is a chance that anational candidate will narrowly
win that electorate.
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (17:13):
And on what our polling shows that she's
actually five points ahead ofChloe.
But I suspect But of course it'snot a strong vote for national
traditionally.
They have won it before, though,of course.
Um Nick Nikki Kay won it.
But the the the thing is, isLabour have generally pulled
back a bit, and I suspect whatwill happen in that case is Camp
Candace is a tremendouscandidate.
(17:34):
Yeah.
But I suspect that that Labourwill pull back a bit and those
votes will fall behind.
SPEAKER_01 (17:38):
Um, but let's just assume we had the German
solution now to the overlyingmandates.
SPEAKER_00 (17:42):
Yep.
SPEAKER_01 (17:43):
She would win the electorate narrowly relative to
other national MPs andtraditional strongholds, and
therefore she would have done afantastic election campaign.
She would have won a seat, whichis really hard to get, and still
be told at the end of it, and bythe way, since we haven't got
enough list MPs, uh sorry, uhparty votes, you would not make
it to Wellington.
I don't think that's a goodoutcome.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (18:04):
Just by interest, are you pro-supplementary member
or are you one of these umweirdos that like the single
transferable vote and 3D chessand even more complexity?
SPEAKER_01 (18:15):
I am actually a first past the post person.
Oh wow, based.
Okay.
I really think that first pastthe post usually delivers
better, clearer majorities inparliament where you actually
know who governs whom.
SPEAKER_00 (18:27):
So you're one of the people that and I've got a lot
of sympathy for it.
You believe democracy is muchmore about accountability than
about representation.
Um that would be my idealsystem.
SPEAKER_01 (18:37):
But okay, we have MMP now, so my argument we would
be as long as uh the majorityview of the New Zealand people
is that we want to have aproportional system and we might
even want to have MMP, there areways in which at least you can
make MMP workable.
For example, you could introducethese leveling mandates which
would prevent the kind of gamingthat Takoti Morikagi does.
(18:59):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (19:00):
So I guess from here from here, it will be really
interesting to see whetherTapati Māori submit a list, and
if they don't, that would beoutrageous, and that would be
obviously the open invite to thecentre right supporters to do uh
to do the same thing.
Yeah, I I think it is a verydangerous game, Oliver, um uh on
this, but I think your uh theconclusion you get to that it
(19:23):
would make uh MNP inherentlyunstable is right.
Do you think it would make theMaori seats inherently unstable
in this model?
SPEAKER_01 (19:34):
Probably yes.
If uh National and uh itscoalition partners fight back in
the next parliament, they wouldsay, hey, you gained the system,
you're really trying to createan overhang.
That was outrageous.
And as a as our kind ofretaliation, we're going to
abolish the seats, which issomething, of course, that has
been on the cards for well, aslong as MMP was around, because
(19:55):
under MMP, it doesn't make anysense whatsoever to have Maori.
SPEAKER_00 (19:58):
And the Royal Commission um uh commented on
that.
And I mean you look at thecurrent government.
SPEAKER_01 (20:03):
And that could be the moment that really tips the
balance in favor of finallyabolishing the Maori seats and
making the system compatiblewith MMP.
Yeah.
So that could happen.
Um, but it could equally happen,of course, that the other
parties um will also try toretaliate if enough national
voters do this kind of tacticalvote splitting and actually lead
to a centre-right majority whenthe popular vote is for a
(20:24):
centre-left government.
SPEAKER_00 (20:25):
Interesting.
Oliver, we will no doubt talkagain between now and uh and the
election.
In the meantime, OliverHartwitch from the New Zealand
Initiative Think Tank.
Thank you for joining TaxpayerTalk.
SPEAKER_01 (20:37):
Thank you, John.
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