'A big no' - How was NZ's first MMP election received?

As we go to the ballot box this weekend (or you may have already), it’ll be the ninth election since the Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) voting system superseded First Past the Post (FPP).

But in 1996, Aotearoa was about to go into its first MMP general election, the biggest change in the electoral system since women gained the vote in 1893.

It marked the start of a new era in politics, one which required two votes, not one – and not everyone was chuffed about it.

With the new electoral system, the catchphrase “MMP: It takes just two ticks” was blasted onto television sets around the country by the recently established Electoral Commission, in partnership with the Footrot Flats creator Murray Ball.

Kiwis were educated on how MMP voting works by Kiwiana icons, Wal’, Dog and the rest of the Footrot Flats gang.

The campaign was costly and covered a vast array of media, including newspapers, radio, cinemas, and mailed pamphlets.

Schools had resource kits sent out, and even though it was early days for the internet, there was a website and a toll-free telephone service.

The Electoral Commission was on a mission to educate the public that voting this year would take ‘two ticks’ instead of one.

In one of the adverts, Wal’ practised MMP voting by way of sheep drafting, explaining there’s, “one [sheep] for a party, one [sheep] for a person,” splitting off one sheep after the next.

In another advert, Aunt Dolly explained the party vote by slicing cake into party vote shares.

When Wal’ tried to eat a piece of cake, Aunt Dolly quickly whisked it away, saying, “No Wallace, that slice belongs to one of the smaller parties".

She handed it over to Wal’s best friend Dog instead.

In another advert, Footrot’s Cooch explained the two ways a party can get into parliament to Wal’.

After a hard day of farm work, Wal’ exclaimed they should just, “pack this in and become MPs”, but Cooch said that it’s not that easy to get into parliament.

Wal’ still reckons it was lighter work than fencing, declaring to Dog "it’s as easy as falling off a log".

As one might expect with an overhaul to how we elect our government, controversy swirled, particularly over one newspaper advertisement.

A complaint was made by the tactical lobby group VOTE, which said the advertisements were misleading.

The Advertising Standards Complaints Board agreed, and required the Electoral Commission to change the newspaper advertisements, pictured below.

The election results in 1996 meant that there wasn’t a clear party winner on the night. After nine weeks of coalition negotiations, a government was formed between National and New Zealand First.

In December, Jim Bolger was sworn in as Prime Minister, three days after the coalition agreement. One Network News documented the state opening of New Zealand’s first coalition government since the 1930s.

The MMP representation system had been chosen over the First Past the Post (FPP) voting system by the majority of New Zealanders for many reasons, but one was to bring about more diversity within Parliament.

FPP had long been criticised to favour larger parties, with minor parties often being excluded from parliament. And so, after the first MMP election, the number of parties in parliament increased from four to six. The number of politicians identifying as Māori increased from eight to 13 and the number of women increased from 21 to 35.

MMP still had its critics, even a year into the system, as Paul Holmes found out when he took to the streets of Auckland.

Holmes asked members of the public if they thought MMP was working, and many said they thought it wasn’t and that if they could go back in time, they wouldn’t vote for it.

One woman said, “it just doesn’t seem to be working at all. No kind of agreement going on.”

Others thought it was working, although they said it could do with some improvements.

One woman said, “It couldn’t be any worse than ours [Australia],” to which Holmes laughed.