Don't vote-it only encourages them!

Opinion

NEW Zealanders will go to the polls this month in a general election that has the entire political system on the line just as much as individual Members of Parliament, their parties and the next government.

At the time of writing, the general feeling could be summed up by that old slogan: “Don’t vote - it only encourages them.”

Such is the dissatisfaction with the political process that a few weeks out from polling day, more than 40(3,000 eligible voters had not even bothered to put themselves on the electoral roll. Of particular concern was the fact that most of these were young - under 30-year-olds with the country’s future in their hands but who clearly have little taste or respect for politics and politicians.

Those who do go to the polling stations, however, will have a chance to let the politicians know exactly what they think of them this time - in fact, the opportunity to sack 21 regardless of which party they represent.

For this year’s election will include a referendum on cutting the number of MPs from 120 to 99, and the wide spread dislike of politicians means it is virtually certain to be passed.

Cutting it to nine or even abolishing Parliament would probably be as popular an option in the current climate.

Not that voters will necessarily get their way. The ref erendum was forced by a petition signed by nearly 300,000 voters, well over the 10 per cent of the electorate required under the Citizens’ Initiated Referenda Act, but it is indica

tive only.

That means the incoming government does not have to act on the result, though it would do nothing to enhance its credibility or the political image generally if it was ignored. Primarily, this election is about whether the National Party, which has run a centre-right government for the last nine years, gets a fourth term in office or the Labour Party takes the country into the new millennium with a cen tre-left administration.

National’s Jenny Shipley became New Zealand’s first woman Prime Minister when she toppled Jim Bolger as party leader at the end of 1997, but would dearly love elec toral endorsement. Labour’s Helen Clark is no less keen to become the first female elected to the top job.

But of equal importance in this poll is the future of the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system of voting copied from Germany and used for the first time in 1996.

This was designed to end the National-Labour duopoly

which enjoyed a stranglehold on government for more than half a century, give minor parties more seats and the chance to share power and broaden the representation in Parlia ment..

It worked three years ago, giving Winston Peters’

New Zealand First party 13 per cent of the vote and enough MPs to hold the balance of power, and bringing more Maori and women into the political decision-making process.

After keeping National, Labour and the rest of the country guessing for nine weeks, Peters plumped to go to the right, forming a coalition with National and picking up the deputy prime minister’s and treasurer’s jobs in the process.

It has been all downhill for MMP ever since. Much of the blame rests with Peters’ scandal-plagued party which dropped out of the coalition in August last year when his

fractious relationship with Shipley finally ended.

National backbenchers, fed up with the NZ First tail wagging the dog, shed no tears and the party soldiered on with a minority government. But it was propped up by a motley crew of minor parties and independents, including defectors from NZ First and although Shipley claimed it was MMP at work, it did not make for stable or good gov ernment.

With 13 MPs now sitting in Parliament representing parties different from those they belonged to at the elec tion, including a handful elected not in their own right but on the party list, MMP has fallen into disrepute. So much so that another referendum on the voting system right now would probably send it packing along with those 21 MPs destined for the sack.

The Electoral Act requires Parliament to review MMP before the 2002 election, but if Shipley is re-elected and has her way in the new government, she plans to give the people their say on the system early next year.

She proposes an initial referendum offering four vot ing alternatives - the old first-past-the-post system, prefer ential voting, supplementary member and the single trans ferable vote. The winner of this ballot would then line up against MMP in a further referendum deciding the method to be used in 2002 and future elections.

Shipley says there is uncertainty overseas, especially among potential investors, about whether New Zealand has gotten its electoral system right. She wants to settle it once and for all.

Predictably, she has been accused of wanting to get first past-the-post back to restore the National and Labour par ties’ advantage and the minor parties are crying foul.

They say, with some justification, that MMP has not had a fair chance yet and it would be wrong to ditch it because of all the shenanigans in its first three years.

The turnout in this election will give some idea as to just how fed up New Zealanders are with politics. The out come - a smooth transition to stable government or another period of uncertainty, opportunism and political musical chairs - will decide the future of MMP. ■

David Barber Wellington