I meant to include a mention of the two populations (the NZ population which is used to apportion electorate seats (people repressented of all ages) and the voting population that is allocate seats) in my submission. However I missed it out. Really no idea why as I do rant on a fair bit on regional lists which the difference between the two population is very important

I think you have expressed the situation more articulately than I could have. I'm glad someone mentioned it.

I think the question is wrong. It is looking at the sympton and not the cause.
My draft reply to this question is
"3. Dual Candidacy
Candidates should be able to stand in both electorates and list if they and their party agree.
However I think that the number of sitting MPs (both electorate and list) should be limited in numbers that appear on the list to say 15 "

Wording needs some work

I finally got the first draft of my submission finished. at under 3 pages much shorter than I anticipated.

I suspect there are 3 millions different opinions in New Zealand on how MMP should work.

Graeme, I really don't like it at all. In some places both main parties put up rubbish candidates with little merit and they both get in (as the lower polling candidate gets a high vote). In other the Greens and another party put up very strong candidate the vote is split 4 ways and only the winner gets in as the other candidates have a proportionally lower vote than their party members elsewhere.

I personally prefer the regional system of MMP that Scotland and Wales use. Yes it is marginally less proportional however it has the advantage of smaller lists. List small enough that voters could have the time to identify the candidates.

I looked into this using some rough splits ranging from 4 regions (or 14-16 seats) to many regions of (3-6 seats) the result were similar to the actual results (the main exception was that parties that did not make the 5% threshold and got in by winning a seat did worse). The 2008 election was also closer (mostly because it allowed NZ First to win seats and ACT would have been reduced to 2 or 3)