Ultimately, says Wellington lawyer and electoral law expert Graeme Edgeler, it would be political rather than constitutional matters that would determine whether such an approach to government could win public support. “From the larger parties’ point of view, leading a minority government would enable them to get on with governing without having to worry about the day-to-day demands of support partners … the crossbench parties would be able to hold firm to their own policy positions without the required compromise of being part of the government.”īut as Dunne also notes, there are downsides in the form of greater instability, particularly when it comes to passing the Budgets necessary to fund the government’s work. Minority government could in theory have some benefits for parties both big and small, as former UnitedFuture leader and government minister Peter Dunne points out in his weekly column for Newsroom. “Does the government do a good job? Do they get to govern in the way that they want to? Or just fundamentally, nothing happens for years because … it was a vote by vote basis, but they could never get agreement to do anything and so nothing much changed.” “It would go for 18 months or two years, get a couple of Budgets through before quite disparate opposition parties that didn't much like each other would decide, maybe we’re positioned OK for an election now,” Clark says. Multi-party governments may have become the norm under MMP, but Clark says New Zealand has avoided the situation seen in Canada and the United Kingdom, where a party has held power despite lacking the security of a stable majority across their entire term.Įxperiences have varied: the UK held two elections within eight months in 1974 because of the instability of the minority Labour government, though Canada has had greater success in recent decades. “It may end up just being talk, but the talk is quite a lot tougher – and across the board as well,” says Victoria University of Wellington senior law lecturer Dr Eddie Clark of the current political rhetoric from the minor parties. With ACT and Te Pāti Māori already threatening to shun coalition or confidence deals in favour of sitting on the cross benches, and the Greens demanding stronger climate action in exchange for any support, New Zealand could yet end up with a “true” minority government – one forced to barter for votes on every single piece of legislation or face oblivion. * Te Pāti Māori underwhelmed by prospect of government * Why the crossbenches are a minority sport Such lofty goals are all but impossible for Ardern’s successor, Chris Hipkins, as he scraps with National leader Christopher Luxon to secure office at this year’s election. But Labour or National could still make electoral history of a different sort come October 14. Ultimately securing just over 50 percent of the vote, Labour made history as the first party in the MMP era to win enough seats to govern alone. ![]() In 2020, the biggest unknown on election night wasn’t whether Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party could earn a second term in power, but whether it would need any friends to do so. With less than four months until the election, the race for a parliamentary majority is heating up, but what if neither side can hit that mark? Sam Sachdeva looks at the unlikely (but not impossible) alternatives ![]() Election 2023 The potential coalition complications for major parties
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