MMP will have to change

When MMP was introduced we had 60 general electorate seats, five Maori seats and 55 list seats.

Every six years electorate boundaries are changed to take account of population changes and every six years proportionality decreases.

We now have 70 electorate seats and 52 list seats. Two of those list seats are overhang ones because the Maori Party won more electorates than their party vote entitled them to hold as a percentage of the overall parliament.

Calculations on boundaries start with dividing the South Island population by 16 to give the number of people in each electorate and then dividing the North Island population into areas with that many people, plus or minus 5%.

The North Island population is growing faster than that of the South so every six years the North Island gets at least one more electorate.

Maori also get a change every six years to say whether or not they want to be on the Maori or general roll and if enough opt for the Maori roll another electorate is formed.

The number of seats in parliament is set at 120 (without an overhang) so each extra electorate seat results in one fewer list seat.

If the country decides it wants to continue with MMP something will have to change before the imbalance between electorate and list seats causes problems.

I can think of only three possible solutions:

We could reduce the number of electorate seats, but provincial seats already cover far too great an area.

We could increase the number of MPs to retain a better balance between list or electorate MPs. But I don’t think that will find favour with the majority who think we already have too many MPs.

We could change to an electoral system where population changes don’t matter.