Politics in New Zealand?

Question

I like to think I know quite a bit about politics and political parties both at home and abroad ( I currently live in the UK) but I know nothing about the political parties and structures in New Zealand. Can anyone give me a simple discription about politics in New Zealand. When I was in Wellington in November there was a protest happening on the streets but I have no idea why.

Thanks!

Answer 1

New Zealand is a democratic country in which the members of parliament (MPs) are chosen in free and fair elections.  Citizens and permanent residents who are aged 18 years and over are required to enrol to vote.  Voting is not compulsory, but turnout is high by international standards (although trending lower).  

New Zealand has a single chamber of parliament which consists of the House of Representatives, which generally has 120 MPs, and the Governor-General (who does not personally attend the house).  The house is elected for a maximum three-year term using the mixed member proportional (MMP) system (see more about this below).  Every New Zealand citizen who is enrolled as an elector is eligible to be a candidate for election as an MP.

The government is accountable to parliament for its actions and policies. So ministers are answerable to parliament for their own actions and policies and for the actions and policies of the departments and state agencies for which they are responsible.  Most ministers are members of cabinet, which is the main decision-making body of the government.  Much of parliament's scrutiny role is carried out by select committees.

The leader of the party which is elected to govern will become the 'Prime Minister' - the leader of the country. The parliamentary debating chamber is modelled on the UK system. It is adversarial and has a 'speaker', front and back benches, as well as the style of seating that has the government and opposition members sitting opposite each other across a central division.

New Zealand has an unwritten constitution and is a constitutional monarchy. The Queen of New Zealand, Queen Elizabeth II, is the Head of State. The Queen's representative in this country is the Governor-General who has all the powers of the Queen in relation to New Zealand.  Although an integral part of the process of government, the Queen and the Governor-General remain politically neutral and do not get involved in the political contest.  The Governor-General does play an important constitutional role in the calling of elections, the life of Parliament, and the formation of a government.

The current government is Labour and the main opposition is National (equivalent to the UK's Conservative party). Minor parties include the Greens, the Maori party, the Progressive party and New Zealand First. As the Labour party doesn't have a governing majority in its own right, the minor parties have either been included in government or have signed various agreements of support on issues of confidence and supply which  ensure that the government can remain in power.

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system.

This system replaced the 'First Past the Post' system (the UK system) and seeks to allow more representation by minor parties, who can now get MPs elected to parliament if they can get at least 5% of the country to vote for their party even though none of their candidates win in a specific electorate seat.

Each voter has two votes - a party vote and an electorate vote. The party vote helps decide how many seats each party gets in parliament. Every voter in every general and every Māori electorate has the same selection of parties to choose from. The government will be formed by one or more parties with the support of enough seats to win important votes in parliament. Parliament is currently made up of 62 general and 7 Māori electorate seats, plus 51 seats allocated from party lists, giving a total of 120 seats. The electorate vote helps decide who becomes a local MPrepresenting a specific area. Each electorate has a different selection of candidates to choose from. Electorate candidates can include independents and candidates from parties not contesting the party vote. The candidate who gets the most votes wins the seat.

Parties getting seats will get a share of seats in parliament close to their share of party votes. A party's share of seats is filled first by any of its candidates who win electorate seats and then by taking other candidates from the party list.

A party will get seats in parliament based on its party vote if it wins:

    * 5% or more of all the party votes, or

    * one or more electorate seats.

This is called the "threshold".

Party votes cast for parties that don't cross the threshold are disregarded in the allocation process (which uses a mathematical formula and not percentages to share out the seats) and they are not in any way reallocated to the other parties.  A party vote cast for a party that does not cross threshold has no impact on the number of seats other parties will receive.  In this sense it has the same impact as a non-vote - exactly none - except that the voter's electorate vote will have helped decide that particular contest.

People are always protesting in Wellington about something. In this particular case it was probably against the Electoral Finance Bill. This is a bill that, amongst other things, seeks to enforce registration of and place limits on organisations and individuals who wish to engage in political campaigning during an election year. The government has sought to introduce it in order to stop what it believes are abuses of the system that tilt the process in favour of those with the biggest wallets. Opponents believe it is an attack on free speech - hence the protests.

Answer 2

For general info, I found this link which might help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of...

And this link which is more short and sweet:

http://www.nzembassy.com/aboutmore.cfm?c...

The protest you saw in Wellington was probably all about the 'Electoral Finance Bill' which has been enacted to try and prevent the secret funding of political parties (amongst other things).  That said, those who are against the law think that it encroaches upon citizens' freedom of speech.  Here is an opposing view:

http://thespark.org.nz/2008/02/04/the-el...

We have some really difficult political issues facing us right now though.  This was another big one (also a big protest which ended up in Wellington too):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand...

Then the Maori Party was created here out of a belief that the mainstream political parties were not effectively addressing the rights of the indigenous people.

There's our anti-smacking law, where you can still smack your kid lightly, but it's an 'anti-smacking' law in that people can no longer hit, batter and bruise their own kids, then go to court and argue 'use of force' as a defence to escape a conviction (which has happened).  We have had big problems with child abuse, and deaths as a result.  This law was an attempt to address that.  

However, the down-side is that kids can now call in the police and falsely accuse a parent of abuse when the parent/s haven't done a thing.  And now the police have to show up regardless, even if they know that it's just a kid trying to get back at his/her parents for grounding them or something mundane.

Then there's no smoking in bars here anymore and on and on it goes with a perception that we are living in a Nanny State that is trying to tell us how to live our lives.  Helen Clark's government was hugely popular for a long time, but after about 9 years in office, and with an election in November, Labour is around 15-20 points behind the National Party in the polls, and might have a hard time holding on this time around!  

So, unlike our neighbours across the ditch in Australia who have recently moved from a centre-right government under John Howard, to a leftist government under Kevin Rudd, in New Zealand we might just be going the other way round.  We're probably looking at a shift away from a centre-left coalition government, to a centre-right coalition led by the National Party and its leader John Key (and I should mention that I'm telling you all this as a guy who sits to the "left of centre" as far as New Zealand politics goes, so I can't exactly be called a National Party loyalist).

  

Anyway, there's a few months left, with a lot of back and forth to happen before then, so I guess only time will tell.

Answer 3

Simple description: 2 main parties, Labour and National (conservative) same as UK. Different voting system which is a complete waste of time and means that people that nobody has ever voted for can be in Parliament (or even in the Cabinet!).

Unfortunately like much of life today the political system here seems to have evolved into something that is mainly interested in not upsetting anyone rather than an efficient, effective way of running a country... I'd write more but then I'd just start ranting and dribbling and eventually they'd come and put me in a home for the politically disturbed.