MMP submissions

Spent this morning at the Electoral Commission hearings into the review of MMP.

I’ve previously blogged on the party submissions, and these were reinforced in their oral submissions. with the exception of the threshold issue, most are calling for no significant change.

Graeme Edgeler submitted in favour of having no threshold, and there was some interesting discussion around that.

I was the only one (so far) who proposed ending dual candidacy and enjoyed when asked about electorate and list MPs saying they are “different but equal”. Yes, I was using an old US quote.

Almost everyone accepted that open party lists are impractical but the Electoral Commissioners did seem quite interested in whether to strengthen the requirement for parties to democratically rank their lists. I proposed that there should be a initial membership vote, which is made public, so the final list can be compared to it to make any changes transparent.