Also what consent does a party need before adding somebody to their list? Could a minor party start adding random people into their list to attract votes.

No.

They could not. In respect of each list candidate, a party's list nomination must be accompanied by "a statement in a form provided?

It's a cheque that's guaranteed by the bank and is as good as cash. Typically used to buy something expensive like a car without walking around with a wad of cash, or relying on the buyer to trust the sellers cheque.

__ So, has any?

Not the Greens (so far as I know): Green members got into Parliament in 1996 as dual members of the Green Party and the Alliance. The sitting MP who came?

Is that different from a bank cheque?

No. Not without more involvement from the major party.

Would that almost be like your first question about major parties pretending to be two different parties for list and electoral votes?

No. Because it wouldn't cause?

Aren't the drafters of legislation supposed to define technical terms like these?

No, what I actually meant was: has any party got into parliament for the first time without one of its candidates already being a sitting MP? (as the Conservative Party are trying?

Yes. Technically, every party does this every election. There are currently no members?

No. FPP elections would be fought in the marginal electorates. Some of the M?ori electorates?

Yes. Indeed, this is the one instance where it seems common sense. If an electorate MP resigns from Parliament, their party loses one MP. If one of their list MPs then?

S54 of the Electoral Act provides that people holding office as a Member of Parliament: vacate that office at the close of polling day at the next general election

So I?d say there are 119 MPs in office (vale Allan Peachey).

Have I managed?

Yep. Wrote it in too much of a hurry. But it appears I'm not the only one :-)

That's another iFAQ: does there have to be a by-election?

No. The section that requires there to be a by-election upon the vacating of seat (by, for example, the death of an MP) has a subsection that states:?

Thanks – that was a gap in my knowledge – I thought the founding ACToids had gone straight from Labour to ACT. Hadn't realized they spent a few years sanitizing themselves in the private sector.

vacate that office?

Back to the substantive point:

ACT in 1996 was elected without a current MP. But they did have three?

I can't say it makes sense to me that there a members of a Parliament which doesn't really exist.

Can NZ MPs still use parliamentary facilities during the election period?

Yes, but not for electioneering.?

As implied in my previous post, yes. And IMHO that?s a good thing. Still constituent cases to be serviced. They can travel to talk policy. And they can use resources (funding/staff/Library research) for policy work ? the development would?

I had thought about that and considered that s129(2) would come into play – the writ for?

Yeah. So you get Kerry Prendergast, who was sufficiently National to run as a parliamentary candidate in 1999, but not to declare herself a National candidate for mayor. Even our current mayor was a Green councillor, but AFAIK?

It increases proportionality, and diminishes the unfair aspects of having a threshold at all.

The basic argument is that the rationales for denying representation to voters who support sub-5% parties are far weaker?

When the peeps are grumbling about the illegitimate list MPs not being real MPs, blah blah, don't deserve to be there, etc., I generally retort?

99 MPs (29 list) in 2008 would see
National 41+6
Labour 21+15
Green 0+7
ACT 1+3
M?ori 5-2
Jim 1+0
United 1+0

101 seats, Nat+ACT+Uni at 52, 2 overhang same as now. Still bugging me about that advert in?

ACT in 2011 do not have a current MP as a candidate.
John Boscawen is standing in T?maki.

So (and I bet this is a very infrequently asked question), if a party wants to?

Yes. Section 128(1)(c) of the Electoral Act requires the Electoral Commission to reject a list if it does not contain the name of at least 1 candidate.

Thanks for the explanation of the single seat exemption Graeme – I am still not convinced of the rationale above, it seems a bit?

They?re not bonus seats, they?re the seats they earned by getting tens of thousands of people to vote for them.

In practice it seems to give distorted power to those small parties that gain one seat?

It always amused me that MPs stand for elections and then become a sitting MP.
LAZY.

Nice.

Not before we adopt STV, which is the only system where independents seriously have a chance of being elected in New Zealand.
[And probably not then, either]

I agree. Someone could run a no confidence party with an empty list that reduced the size of Parliament by one for every MP they earned.

I bet if a NC party became a regular part of NZ politics the major parties would start?

A curiously attractive suggestion as a regular part of the system, though it might ultimately bring selfish California/Colorado-style consequences.

Electorate resignations would just lead to by-elections. Perhaps just a list with 1 person on it who promises to resign. The 99 MP party had a list of two (and the?

I believe Auckland did sometime in the 80s or 90s too. Very popular candidate.

How much later? It has been 3 days.

I can't figure how a party with more MPs than its proportionality allows can do anything but cause an overhang.

However without being obvious, this is wrong:

Because this isn?t Italy, and voters would punish?

I had a?

In terms?

Anyways, I reckon that if a?

This is a possibility, although is?

Maori Party voters split their vote considerably less than Green Party and ACT voters.

I think Angus's point is?

The same thing I'd mean if I said "Labour Party voters". Maori Party voters are people who vote for?

That does make sense though. A Green electorate vote isn't going to get close this election, nor is an ACT one except in Epsom. So people who party vote those parties are more likely to give?

That's a leftfield idea, most creative. I think it wouldn't work, though, because independents would most likely object to the policy of other independents in a lot of cases. They would therefore not see anything that good about working hard to put?

That seems like a really good idea, and not just for the independents (who I think a dropped threshold would serve much better). Perhaps you could rank your candidates in the party you chose to vote for,?

You could actually do this online before the election, entering a voter id (into a secure electoral commission system) and interactively selecting your list ranking.

After the election, rankings would be validated (you'd have to vote for the party you?

(Also problems in terms of representation of minorities, and the fact that it?

It wouldn't be campaigning for a list. It would be campaigning for party votes. If there's someone they don't want to be elected?

1. International experience shows most people will adopt the party?s ranking, which will be given substantial?

In other words, this policy won't do anything, so what does it matter?

(I am not hugely fussed over the possibility of reranking lists; I?

though participation in the 'thick' model has been declining for some time – so what does it matter, right?

Because giving people the option increases public acceptance of MMP, because even if it doesn't alter the result itself, it alters the legitimacy of the result. List MPs become elected, rather than unelected in the eyes of?

But I agree that PV is a vast?

How do they choose which ones? Obviously Te Reo and English. The Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau are part of NZ. But then, is it based on the number of people who list a first language and?

What I find interesting?

English = 97.83%.
Other languages in descending frequency (above 0.25% coverage):
Maori 4.18%; Samoan 2.27%;?

It would not be correct.

1. He can't resign until he's a member?