A Tale of Two Houses: Does MMP Mean New Zealand Doesn’t Need an Upper House?

Abstract

Mixed Member Proportional voting (MMP) was introduced in New Zealand as a remedy for four particular problems that characterised New Zealand's unicameral political system. These problems were (1) lack of effective representation, (2) inadequate public deliberation, (3) lack of executive government accountability and (4) rushed legislation. Prior to the introduction of MMP, New Zealand’s unicameral Westminster system meant that a single party was usually able to gain control of the entire Parliament, often with only around 40 per cent of the popular vote, and as a result was able to conduct the affairs of government and enact its legislative agenda without substantial parliamentary scrutiny.

This paper undertakes an assessment of the capacity of MMP to remedy these problems. The paper concludes that while MMP has substantially improved the representativeness of the system, and has helped to improve the quality of public debate and legislative deliberation, it has led to little if any improvement in the level of government accountability to Parliament. While MMP creates strong incentives for minor parties to maintain their distinctiveness from the two major parties in matters of policy, when minor parties cooperate with one of the major parties to form government, those minor parties have no real incentive to scrutinise the exercise of executive power by the government, as they themselves share in the spoils of government. Only if executive and legislative power are more effectively separated can the Parliament function as an effective check on executive power, and this separation can only effectively be achieved in Westminster systems through a second house of Parliament over which the governing party (or coalition of parties) does not have majority control.

Keywords: unicameralism, bicameralism, MMP, New Zealand, government accountability