If gaming MMP distorts Parliament, what about the Māori seats?

In brief

• Commentators have warned that an engineered National overhang could distort Parliament's proportional makeup.
  • Te Pāti Māori has encouraged supporters to give their party votes to Labour or the Greens while backing its electorate candidates.
    • The 1986 Royal Commission recommended abolishing Māori electorates under MMP, citing concerns about effective representation and the potential for disproportionate parliamentary influence.
      • Overhangs can arise from either Māori or general electorates.Efforts to engineer additional parliamentary seats through tactical voting have attracted criticism ahead of Saturday's election, with National supporters encouraged to give their electorate votes to National while directing their party votes to ACT or NZ First. Political commentator Bryce Edwards has criticised efforts on both sides to engineer additional parliamentary seats. Meanwhile, Toby Manhire has examined the right's proposed manoeuvre, including the campaign involving Don Brash, Michael Laws and wealthy political donors.The arithmetic is straightforward. If National wins 40 electorates but receives enough party votes for only 36 seats, it keeps all 40 MPs. Parliament expands by four seats, potentially altering the parliamentary balance without a corresponding increase in party-vote support.Te Pāti Māori's approachTe Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has encouraged supporters to give their electorate votes to Te Pāti Māori and their party votes to Labour or the Greens.The party has also submitted a list containing just one additional candidate. Together, these decisions could maximise representation across the opposition bloc, potentially producing an overhang.Labour's Willie Jackson has warned that Te Pāti Māori's tactics could provoke a backlash against the Māori seats.What the architects of MMP recommendedThe 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System, which recommended introducing MMP, also recommended abolishing the Māori electorates. The Commission argued that proportional party voting would deliver more effective Māori representation. As Centrist reported in 2023, it also warned against giving any minority group an effective veto in Parliament. New Zealand adopted MMP but rejected the recommendation to abolish Māori electorates, retaining them following strong representations from Māori organisations.Today, seven Māori electorates operate alongside general electorates. Māori voters choose which roll to join and receive the same two votes as other voters.The Māori seats do not automatically create overhangs or give Māori voters additional votes. Like general electorates, however, they can produce overhangs when a party wins more electorate seats than its party vote would otherwise entitle it to.Overhangs are nothing newIn 2023, Te Pāti Māori won six electorates despite receiving enough party votes for approximately four seats.The resulting two-seat overhang contributed to a 123-member Parliament, alongside an additional seat arising from the Port Waikato election.Te Pāti Māori also had overhangs in 2005, 2008 and 2011.These historical overhangs do not necessarily indicate tactical voting. A question of consistencyProtecting Māori seats is one thing. Using MMP's rules to manufacture extra seats is another. More recent electoral reviews have also examined the issue. As Victoria University researchers Claire Timperley and Richard Shaw noted, both the 2012 MMP Review and the 2023 Independent Electoral Review recommended abolishing overhang seats.If engineered overhangs are considered a problem for MMP, the principle should apply regardless of which party stands to benefit.Re-published from the Centrist with permissionOriginal article at The Centrist