Brad Heap

Hallelujah; we finally have an election date. In a little over six weeks time New Zealand will have a new government and it is up to you to decide who it is. If you haven’t enrolled to vote yet make sure that you do today (go to www.ivotenz.co.nz). Everyone will vote on November 8 which is the last day of exams. But if you have an exam on that day you can vote early (check out the next issue of Satellite for more information on this).

Knowing how MMP works is vital to ensuring that New Zealand gets the best government for the next three years. The first thing to understand is that you have two votes. One for your local MP – this is the person that you want to represent your local community in the government. The second vote is for the party you want to control parliament. Just because you are going to vote for Green for your local MP does not mean that you can’t vote United Future for your party vote. Your electorate vote and your party vote can go to different parties.

One of the greatest hallmarks of MMP is that it discourages a single party majority and encourages coalitions, tradeoffs and cooperation between political parties so there is more debate about issues and the generally accepted best way forward is found. However, this will only happen in practice if enough people vote for smaller parties rather then just the two big main ones. In order to have a good MMP government it is vital that neither Labour nor National receive more then 35% of the vote each. Currently Labour is polling around 38% and National at 50%. This leaves only 12% of the vote to be fought out by the small parties rather then 30%.

The reason why this is occurring is because not enough people understand MMP, especially those who used to vote under the old system FPP. As youngish people (and mature students who are young at heart) it should be up to us to use the system as it is designed to be used. And that is why we should all vote for smaller parties. Find a party that you agree with and vote for that party. Don’t just follow the Labour or National mob mentality. And for your information I plan to give my party vote to the Greens but my electorate vote to National. You can’t get much of a bigger split then that.