John Hyndman: A Different Democracy - a Proposal for New Zealand

In 1852 the British Parliament passed the New Zealand Constitution Act, which created New Zealand's first Parliament. It established a system of representative government based on the British parliamentary tradition, which subsequently developed into our Westminster system of Government and Opposition.

The Westminster adversarial system inevitably causes political division and partisanship. Governance becomes a zero-sum game in which winning and retaining power can become more important than achieving the best long-term outcome for the country. Policy can change substantially when governments change, while party loyalty can override the individual judgement of elected representatives.

Is there a better way?

I think there is. I propose a New Zealand parliamentary democracy in which political parties have no constitutional role.

The Proposal

A. A Parliament of 100 independent members

New Zealand would be divided into 100 electorates, each containing approximately 50,000 voters.

There would be a maximum of seven candidates in each electorate, with the Electoral Commission responsible for determining the number and ensuring that voters have a genuine choice. Every candidate would be required to publish a personal manifesto, answering a standard set of questions determined by the Electoral Commission, so that voters could compare candidates on their policies, principles and priorities.

Voting would be preferential. Voters would rank the candidates in order of preference, and preferences would be redistributed until one candidate achieved a majority.

Every MP would therefore have a direct personal mandate from the majority of voters in his or her electorate.

There would be no party labels on the ballot paper.

B. Parliament as a national council

This proposal is, in many respects, an extension of the way local government already works.

I am a Marlborough District Councillor. There are 14 councillors. There is no party system. Councillors are elected as individuals, they have their own views, and they frequently disagree with one another. They debate, negotiate, amend proposals and ultimately vote.

It works.

The question is not whether independent representatives can govern democratically. They clearly can. The question is whether the same principle could be scaled from 14 councillors to a Parliament of 100 members.

I see no fundamental reason why it could not.

Instead of a Government sitting opposite an Opposition, Parliament would simply consist of 100 elected representatives. Its principal functions would be to scrutinise legislation, debate national issues, hold the Executive to account and vote on proposed laws and expenditure.

C. A small National Executive

Parliament would elect a National Executive of perhaps seven to nine members. Each would have responsibility for a major portfolio, for example:

• Finance and the Economy
• Health
• Education
• Social Development and Housing
• Infrastructure and Transport
• Environment and Natural Resources
• Justice and Internal Affairs
• Foreign Affairs and Defence

The Executive would be collectively responsible for governing New Zealand, rather than being a collection of party representatives.

Executive members would be chosen for their judgement, ability and competence as well as their political views. Some could potentially be appointed from outside Parliament, subject to approval by Parliament. An outstanding economist, health administrator, engineer or educator should not be excluded from national executive government simply because he or she has never been a politician.

The Executive would have a Chair or President. I favour this person being directly elected by the people, in much the same way that mayors are directly elected in local government. The President would chair the Executive and undertake the functions currently performed by the Prime Minister, but would be first among equals rather than the political leader of a governing party.

D. How would Parliament work?

There would be no Government and Opposition as we know them.

MPs would consider legislation on its merits and vote according to their judgement. They would inevitably form alliances, but these would be temporary and issue-based rather than permanent political parties.

An MP might cooperate with 40 colleagues on taxation, 60 on health and 25 on environmental policy. There would be no requirement to vote with the same group on every issue.

This would not eliminate disagreement. Indeed, vigorous debate would remain essential to democracy. What would change is the nature of the disagreement.

The question would no longer be:

"What does my party want me to vote for?"

It would be:

"Having considered the arguments and the evidence, what do I believe is best for New Zealand?"

This would also change the relationship between MPs and their constituents. Under the present system, an MP can sometimes hide behind party policy. An independent MP could not. Voters would have elected that individual on the basis of his or her stated views and could judge the MP accordingly at the next election.

E. Direct and deliberative democracy

Representative democracy should not mean that citizens have no say between elections.

I would introduce two additional mechanisms.

First, Citizens' Assemblies could be established to consider particularly complex or contentious questions. Ordinary citizens, selected to broadly represent the population, would hear evidence from experts and competing interests before deliberating and making recommendations to Parliament.

Second, citizens should have the right to initiate referenda on important matters if a sufficiently large number of voters supported the proposal.

The combination is important. Citizens' Assemblies provide informed deliberation; referenda provide the ultimate expression of popular will.

What about the political parties?

Some will argue that political parties are necessary because they provide coherent policies and make Parliament manageable.

There is some truth in this. A Parliament of 100 individuals would certainly require good procedures, strong committees and an independent parliamentary research service.

But political parties also have a cost. They encourage tribalism, concentrate power in party leaderships and require MPs to support policies with which they may personally disagree.

Furthermore, if independent MPs naturally form permanent groups with identical policies, political parties could simply re-emerge informally. That is possible.

But there is an important difference.

An informal group would have no constitutional power over its members. An MP could cooperate with it on one issue and disagree with it on another. The objective would be to build a majority for a particular policy, not to maintain a permanent political tribe.

The potential advantages

The proposed system would provide MPs with much greater freedom to exercise their own judgement. It would reduce party tribalism, encourage cooperation and make individual MPs directly accountable to their constituents.

It could also improve the quality of executive government by allowing Parliament to select people for their competence rather than simply because they belong to the governing party.

Most importantly, it would put the individual citizen, rather than the political party, at the centre of the democratic process.

Under the present system we often ask:

"Which party do you support?"

Under the proposed system we would ask:

"Which person do you trust to represent you?"

Potential problems

Would the system be unstable? Would 100 independent MPs make decision-making difficult? Would informal political alliances eventually become parties?

These are legitimate questions.

But the essential democratic process already operates successfully in local government without political parties. Parliament would obviously be more complex than a local authority and would require more sophisticated procedures, committees and professional support.

The proposal is therefore not that national government should simply become a giant local council. It is that we should take the fundamental principle that works at local level – independent representatives deliberating and voting in the interests of their communities – and apply it to national government.

Does this system exist elsewhere?

The short answer is “No”. Tuvalu has a non-partisan parliament but it only has 16 MPs. Switzerland is a more relevant example. The Swiss parliament has political parties but they also have a Federal Council of 7 members (elected by Parliament), with each member heading a government department. Members don’t have to be Parliamentarians. Ireland has Citizens Assemblies and Referenda.

I am not proposing a copy of an existing system. My model combines elements which already work elsewhere — particularly Swiss collegial government and direct democracy — with the more radical idea of applying the non-partisan local government model to our national Parliament.

Conclusion

I believe this proposed system could be an improvement on our present adversarial parliamentary system.

Political differences would not disappear. Nor should they. Democracy requires argument, disagreement and scrutiny.

But there is a fundamental difference between political disagreement and political tribalism.

The purpose of this proposal is not to eliminate political differences. It is to eliminate the institutional incentive to turn every political difference into a tribal conflict.

Perhaps it is time to ask whether a system designed in nineteenth-century Britain is still the best way to govern twenty-first-century New Zealand.

Perhaps we could do democracy differently.

John Hyndman is a Marlborough District Councillor and a retired medical practitioner with a long standing interest in politics, governance and public policy.