Rt Hon Winston Peters
New Zealand First Leader
13 August 2012

MMP Recommendations Are Anti-Democratic – Peters

New Zealand First says the recommendation to reduce the MMP party threshold goes against the public view already confirmed by a referendum.

Rt Hon Winston Peters says the 1993 referendum confirmed that the public wanted the threshold for a party to win list seats in a general election to be five per cent.

“It shouldn’t be tampered with now by Parliament.”

Mr Peters says the proposed removal of the overhang rule is anti-democratic and is a further erosion of the MMP system because it is list seats which are affected.

“If there were concerns about this then why didn’t they consider reducing Parliament to 100 MPs, theoretically leaving a number of seats available for the overhang.”

Mr Peters was also concerned that the review did not investigate other serious issues.

“It should have taken an in-depth look at the number of MPs, the disclosure of party donations, and at the fairness or otherwise of tax payer party funding which isn’t based on any historical analysis.

“But members of the governing parties made sure the Commission couldn’t look at these issues.”

However, New Zealand First does support the removal of the coattail provision.

“There have been numerous attempts to corrupt the integrity of MMP by the National, ACT and United Future parties by misusing the intent of the one electorate seat threshold for the allocation of list seats,” says Mr Peters.

ENDS

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