New Zealand: don’t blame proportional representation

Saturday, 24 September 2005, 09:25

Via Southerly Buster, I see that some Australians are looking at the outcome of the New Zealand election and are making anti-PR comments that we are hearing in Britain about Germany.

It makes just as little sense there as it does here.

Germany and New Zealand have the same system of proportional representation under which half the MPs represent constituencies and the other half are selected from party lists to make up the proportion of votes the party has received.

If we discount the seats assigned by party list and look only at the the directly-elected seats, the New Zealand Parliament would also have resulted in a hung Parliament — just like Germany.

Entry Filed under: Germany