Geoff Neal: No new party has entered our MMP parliament without a sitting or previous MP

108 parties have missed out

KEY INSIGHTS

All 6 parties that have entered New Zealand parliament for the first time under MMP had a sitting or previous MP

:1996 

* ACT = Richard Prebble (Labour), Derek Quigley (National), Ken Shirley (Labour)

 

* United Future = Peter Dunne (Labour)

 

1999

* Greens = Jeanette Fitzsimons (Alliance), Rod Donald (Alliance)

2002

* Progressive = Jim Anderton (Alliance), Matt Robson (Alliance)

2005

* Māori = Tariana Turia (Labour)

2011

* Mana = Hone Harawira (Māori)

* No party has ever made it into an MMP parliament without a sitting or previous MP

* 107 parties have failed to make it into parliament during the 1996-2020 MMP era (+5 other parties who’ve been in and out)

* 3 parties have fallen just short of the 5% party vote threshold

• 1996 = Christian Coalition 4.3%
• 2008 = NZ First 4.1%
• 2014 = Conservatives 4.0%

There have been no new parties in our parliament since Mana in 2011 (12 years ago)

No new party has entered our 

MMP parliament without a sitting

 or previous MP (108 parties have missed out)

• Equality • Government     October 2, 2023

Click images to read

KEY QUESTIONS

1. Is the 5% party vote threshold set at the right level, too high, or too low?
2. What % of Kiwi voters understand the 5% party vote or electorate seat threshold rules? (AKA ‘wasted votes’)
3. Should we introduce STV (Single Transferable Voting) so that if your 1st choice party misses out, your 2nd (or 3rd) vote contributes representation towards a party you chose, rather than parties you didn’t?
4. And just for fun, which party has the:
1. Best name?
2. Worst name?
3. Craziest name?

Full data analysis
Please contact us if you would like the full analysis as the table is far too large to insert into the content here.

Other notes:

* All publicly available data has been published.
* For the the 2nd graph:

• We didn’t list NZ First at the top as they were already in parliament in 1993 under the old FPP (First Past the Post) system.
• We listed the parties at the top in their short form names since most voters are familiar with who they are.
• We listed all other parties in order of:
• Parties that have been in Parliament before
• Highest party vote
• Alphabetical
• We showed the party vote % if higher than 1%.
• We researched parties that had similar names and combined them together then they were the same entity but under a different name, e.g. Blokes Liberation and Blokes Liberation Front. The one we were least sure about was the Workers Party of New Zealand in 1999 and the Workers Party in 2008. We listed them as different parties. This is a complex list, so if we have made an error, please let us know.
• Many of the parties shown were unregistered parties that ran only in electorate seats and did not have a party list. This means that not all New Zealand voters had the opportunity to vote for all of them via a party vote. For more information on party types, see https://elections.nz/guidance-and-rules/for-parties/parties-at-a-general-election/.
• There were also independents who stood in electorate seats but didn’t have a political party. As such, they are not shown on the graphics above.
• Our graphic shows 113 names, but our spreadsheet shows 112. If you can spot our error, please let us know. We will return to this to work out where the extra 1 came from.

* The Green’s polled 6.8% in the 1990 FPP system, but did not get into parliament because they did not win an electorate seat. They joined Alliance for the 1993 and 1996 elections, before going on their own again in 1999.

* Additional details and notes can be found in the data source pages below.

* All numbers are provisional and subject to revision.

Thank you to The Electoral Commission and the Factors who helped pull this together.
…

SOURCES:
1996 = https://electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_1996/pdf/1.1%20Summary%20of%20overall%20results.pdf
1999 = https://electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_1999/e9/html/e9_partI.html
2002 = https://electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2002/e9/html/e9_part1.html
2005 = https://electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2005/e9/html/e9_part1.html
2008 = https://electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2008/e9/html/e9_part1.html
2011 = https://electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2011/e9/html/e9_part1.html
2014 = https://electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2014/e9/html/e9_part1.html
2017 = https://electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2017/statistics/overall-results-summary.html
2020 = https://electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2020/statistics/overall-results-summary.html

Geoff Neal, a business advisor, writer, and researcher, is the founder of theFacts website HERE - where this article was sourced.