Yahoos and Numptys

Luxon can’t manage them, so he wants another MMP referendum.

Spare me your weak apologies
I don't care for the way they make me bleed
Can't find a reason and you won't explain
You'll be sorry if it happens again

Songwriter: Ashley William Slater.

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1993 was the year of our last First Past the Post (FPP) election, with a referendum accompanying the vote on whether we should move to MMP, which won 54% of the vote, compared with FPP's 46%. This gave us a new electoral system with the prospect of wider representation and a government that better reflected the popular vote.

Publicity materials for New Zealand’s first MMP election. Source: Electoral Commission

We look aghast at the US political system, which has seen a President elected, despite not winning the popular vote, five times, most recently George W Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016, after Hilary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million votes. Yet what we used to have wasn’t so different.

In the 1993 election, the last under FPP, it was clear why we needed change. Mike Moore’s Labour Party and Jim Anderton’s Alliance Party received 52.9% of the vote but lost. Things were grim for third parties under FPP, with the Alliance receiving 18.2% of the vote but only gaining two seats.

There have been even worse results. Back in 1978, Labour received slightly more votes (691,076 or 40.41%) than National (680,991 or 39.82%), but National won 51 seats to Labour’s 40 (with Social Credit on 1). So a narrow popular-vote victory for Labour became a clear win for National, all thanks to FPP.

Then, in 1981, came the first election I remember watching, and I recall my parents’ great disappointment that Muldoon retained power. In that election, Labour again edged National in the popular vote (702,630 or 39.01% vs. 698,508 or 38.77%), but National took 47 seats to Labour’s 43 (Social Credit 2).

National retained government with less than 40% of the vote, again, while Bruce Beetham’s Social Credit secured 20.7% of the vote but won just two electorates.

Bruce and Beverley Beetham celebrate his re-election to the Rangitīkei seat in Marton in 1981.

As grim as that sounds in terms of third-party MPs under FPP, that was a high point; below is the full list.

Social Credit won seats in:

• 1966: Vernon Cracknell (Hobson) — the party’s first MP.

• 1978: Bruce Beetham (Rangitīkei).

• 1981: Bruce Beetham (Rangitīkei) and Gary Knapp (East Coast Bays).

• 1984: Gary Knapp (East Coast Bays) and Neil Morrison (Pakuranga).

In 1990 Jim Anderton (New Labour) held Sydenham, which he had won under Labour.

Then, in 1993, the Alliance and NZ First each won two seats, and that’s it. For all the thousands of votes people had cast for third parties over the years, that is the sum total of representation achieved.

Without MMP, the Greens, NZ First, and ACT would have one or two seats at best, and we’d be back to choosing option 1, which you really don’t like, or option 2, which is slightly better, selecting the lesser of two evils.

Given the coalition’s performance, with Christopher Luxon giving away the farm during coalition negotiations and failing to manage Seymour or Winston since, to the point that the three parties seem to be attacking each other more than the opposition, some might say that’s a good thing.

But that’s on Luxon. Other Prime Ministers have had to work with coalition partners and even managed Winston for long periods, so should we really change our electoral system just because the Prime Minister is a terrible negotiator and manager?

That’s what the man in question suggested yesterday, because he’d prefer not to deal with “some yahoo or numpty” in cabinet. That raises the question: out of Seymour and Winston, which is the yahoo and which is the numpty?

Looking at the full list of MPs in cabinet from other parties, you’ve got Seymour, Brooke, and the gun lady from ACT, and Winston, Shane, and the tobacco lady from NZ First, so I have some sympathy for Luxon. But when you look at the National members of the cabinet, including Matt Doocey and Penny Simmonds, you see that National have plenty of numpties of their own.

Siam wrote, “If he doesn’t want to work with numpties, why did he choose to form a coalition with them? Why not choose a more bipartisan method of collaboration and government? Spoiler alert: because he is also a numpty.”

Darien commented, “Such a loser; Can't manage his coalition partners who have run mad rings around him, so wants to change the rules.”

Alex said, “It will be Keep MMP for me. Also, I challenge whoever the next government is to implement the recommendations that resulted from the 2012 review, after the country voted to keep MMP in the 2011 referendum.”

Christopher Luxon in his happy place (Newstalk ZB). Photo: Michael Craig.

Of course, Luxon isn’t the first National PM to long for an FPP past and for not having to deal with Winston. National held a referendum on the system in 2011, with the following result:

• Keep MMP: 1,267,955 votes (57.77% of valid votes)

• Change: 926,819 votes (42.23% of valid votes)

In the 2012 New Zealand Electoral Commission review of MMP, it was recommended that we:

• Lower the party vote threshold from 5% to 4%

• Abolish the one-electorate-seat threshold (the “coat-tails” rule) for allocating list seats.

Both of which make good sense to me; in fact, I’d lower the threshold to around 3%. In my view, that is enough people to warrant representation.

As with other recent announcements Luxon has made, such as ruling out TOP, the PM didn’t seem to have discussed his latest brainwave with his colleagues.

I watched an interview with Nicola Willis, and she squirmed, clearly unaware that the boss was about to go rogue. When asked whether this was National Party policy they had discussed, the best she could offer was, “Well, the Prime Minister is the leader of the National Party.”

Paul Goldsmith was even more obsequious, the sphincter-quenching sycophant, saying, “Well, when the leader of the party says he’s keen to do something, it becomes policy, obviously.”

How very democratic; should we just make Luxon king so he can rule by decree?

Seymour said he wasn’t certain whether Luxon was calling his ministers yahoos and numpties. He said, “Who knows, I suspect that he’s being a bit free-wheeling and may not have thought through what he’s saying there.”

I posted the photo above saying: David Seymour hears about Luxon’s MMP referendum. It seems the only people Christopher discussed it with were ZB talkback callers.

Winston was pretty grumpy about it, if you can imagine that, as Luxon tried to pull the Kingmaker role out from under him. Peters said, “Shutting down and taking away true democratic representation from the people of New Zealand should be seen for what it is – a power grab and an ignorance of what it means to be a democracy.”

Here’s the Three News coverage of the story, with some other reactions:

While it is enjoyable to watch Seymour and Winston sputter, National has done more than enough to restrict who can vote by shortening the enrolment period; such blatant self-interest in getting rid of their pesky partners should not be a reason for Aotearoa to change the way we vote.

This November 7th is essentially a vote on whether to hold a referendum on MPP, so if you want to keep proportional voting, you should vote for anyone other than the National Party.

Have a good Friday, all of you lovely people.

Ngā mihi,
Nick.

If you can spare a few dollars to subscribe or buy me a coffee, it would be greatly appreciated. 🙂

To end today, yesterday there was a suggestion that the Headless Chickens’ song Choppers would go with Mr Luxon’s use of aircraft, so here they are with the very dark George and the magnificent Fiona MacDonald.