November 06, 2012
Labour endorses MMP change plan
Labour leader David Shearer is backing the Electoral Commission's recommended changes to the MMP system.
The commission wants to get rid of coat tailing, which allows parties that win electorate seats to bring in other MPs even if they don't reach the party vote threshold.
That means it will be much harder for Mana to get another MP into Parliament, and will also work against National's support partners ACT and United Future.
But Mr Shearer says the trade off would be a lower threshold.
"Dropping the threshold from 5 percent to 4 percent to give smaller parties more ability to get representatives into parliament, because you've got, as (New Zealand First leader) Winston (Peters) in 2008 got 4.2 percent, it's quite a lot of people voting for him but no representation, so both of those I think are good ideas and also a review within a couple of parliamentary terms," he says.
National's response to the report tabled in Parliament yesterday was lukewarm, with Justice Minister Judith Collins saying the government would take time to consider it.
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