New Zealand Political Landscape

Right now in NZ the two major parties, Labour and National, are pretty much locked in head-on battle. The landscape (for want of a better word) has returned to that which existed before the introduction of MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) in 1996.

In the early days of MMP smaller parties did have a much larger say. Examples are ACT (Association of Consumers and Taxpayers) and the Alliance (a left wing assemblage of New Labour, Mana Motuhake, Greens, Social Credit etc). Now there is no Alliance, and just the one ACT member of parliament.

Only two smaller parties figure these days; NZ First and Greens. Both hover around the 5% threshold. National are left stranded as they only have ACT as a natural fit.

Here's the deal, future governments in the very near future will be elected due to the strength of those smaller parties. It will be essential to have all their votes count. If the smaller parties currently in parliament fall below the 5% threshold their votes may be wasted. Seeing as all votes count once an electorate seat is won by that party, the sensible solution is to make deals, offering up winnable or safe seats to those potential partners. It means losing one or two electorates for the larger party but they have a chance of forming a government.

Think of it like this; if Labour are on 41% at the next election and their current coalition partners are on 4.5% each and they have no electorate seats, then the votes for those smaller partners don't count. But if Labour do deals, they can ensure all 9% that could be wasted fully counts, they get to 50% and form a government.

Consider the alternatives for either major party. If Labour do not play the game smart, they stand to watch National form a government with less than 50% of the vote if National end up the largest party. That's because all parliamentary seats must be allocated and are distributed amongst parties reaching the threshold. For its part National has to adjust and find a natural fit. One approach they could take given its much larger membership base, is start other brands, or possibly reverse takeover smaller parties.

How does this work? Well political parties must be democratic. The BlueGreens group within National could all join the Greens and take them over. Alternatively farmer groups within National could take over NZ First. National could do this quite easily if they had the will to do it. Whether they are organised or not however is another question. My thinking is the Greens would be easier to takeover.

We are in for some interesting manoeuvring.