When the New Zealand Electoral Commission was asked to review how the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system was operating, the outcome was pre-ordained: the report would extol the virtues of MMP, recommend a reduction in the 5% threshold, and scrap the one seat rule.

And so it has come to pass.

Introducing an absolute threshold without the one seat situation is good, but decreasing that threshold from 5% is not.

MMP was designed in post World War II Germany to prevent a Führer-like figure emerging. A parliament of coalitions would prevent concentration of power. New Zealand is not post World War II Germany, but a long-established democracy. But MMP in New Zealand has produced many small parties that have to be cobbled together and appeased or bought and paid for (like in Germany now).

This does not aid policymaking or accountability, and it makes coherent policy or reform agendas difficult to promise and almost impossible to execute.

Fortunately, New Zealand has had a relatively high threshold, keeping some of the more fringe parties out of parliament. For this reason alone, lowering the threshold to 4% is a mistake.

The report also wheeled out the article of faith that the MMP list ensures ‘diversity of representation’, which is ‘under threat’, so fixing a 60:40 ratio of local/list MPs should be considered.

The list does increase diversity but only at the margins, and the report’s arguments about MMP and diversity are dodgy. For example, the report argues that since 1996 only 24% of MPs in electorates have been women, compared to 43% from the list. Ipso facto, the list increases representation of women. This of course doesn’t consider that parties would behave differently if no list existed.

The same applies for Mâori list representation: 21% of all list MPs have been identified as Mâori, compared to 14% from electorates. This means electorate seat representation more closely reflects the Mâori population than the list number! Of course higher Mâori representation in Parliament than in the proportion of population is not a bad thing, but it does make the notion of the list ‘ensuring diversity’ a bit of a joke.

Perhaps the Electoral Commission has a ‘correct’ level of diversity in mind?

In short, the report is strongest in arguing what shouldn’t change rather than what should. The best recommendation is getting rid of the one seat threshold.