Could an MMP loophole return a centre-right government?

If you’re a centre-right voter, there’s a fair chance that a sense of dread has started to descend as you watch the National Party consume itself from within. The latest episode was the second leadership challenge of the year, this time involving Chris Penk, who has now lost his portfolios and announced that he won’t be standing at the November election.

But as dramatic as these latest events are – none of this should really surprise anyone. The events unfolding are the direct and entirely predictable consequence of a National party that came into government in 2023 with an enormous mandate for change, then inexplicably chose to deliver almost none of it.

New Zealanders had endured six years of a Labour Government that dramatically increased public spending, expanded the public service, embedded policies that divided New Zealanders and embraced the kind of ideological thinking that Americans now describe as DEI. National, reading the mood of the nation, promised to change all of this. It promised a leaner state, less waste, a smaller public service, less ideology and a return to the basic principle that government should serve New Zealanders equally.

Then, once in power, it morphed into Labour 2.0.

Yes, there have been some worthwhile reforms, and yes, some Labour-era policies have been reversed, but the scale of change has been nowhere near what National’s voters thought they were buying. The public service remains huge, government spending remains at levels that would once have horrified a National Government, and many of the cultural and institutional assumptions embedded under Labour have either been left alone or, in some cases, allowed to become even more deeply entrenched.

Perhaps most tellingly, the strongest moves in the direction that centre-right voters actually wanted have very often come not from National, but from ACT and New Zealand First. Again and again, the minor coalition partners have been the ones pushing for the changes National itself campaigned on, while National has looked hesitant, defensive and oddly reluctant to upset the very bureaucratic and ideological structures its voters elected it to change.

Voters have had enough – evidenced by National position in the polls. If people give you power because they want change and you don’t deliver it, they’ll look for somebody who will.

But there’s a problem. However angry you might be with National, there’s no plausible path back to a centre-right Government without a substantial National caucus – and frankly, the alternative Is terrifying. Right now we’re looking down the barrel of a Labour, Greens, Te Pāti Māori and Opportunity Party coalition that that would take the country to a level of extreme experimentation that we have never seen before and which would make Ardern’s government look centrist by comparison.

So the question isn’t whether National deserves your loyalty. It’s whether there’s a way to punish National for failing to deliver while still maximising the chances of keeping that extremist left-wing bloc out of power.

Oddly enough, MMP may provide the answer.

Over the past few weeks, Don Brash, former National minister Maurice Williamson and broadcaster Peter Williams have all been talking about an unusual possibility created by the way MMP works. Their arguments are interesting, but they tend to assume that everybody already understands the machinery.

Most people don’t, so here’s the simple version.

Under MMP, your electorate vote chooses the local MP you want representing your seat, while your party vote largely determines how many MPs each party is entitled to have in Parliament overall.

If National gets enough party votes to qualify for 36 MPs and wins 30 electorates, those 30 electorate MPs get in first and then National receives another six MPs from its party list to bring it up to 36.

That’s the normal pattern. For almost the entire MMP era, major parties such as National and Labour have typically won fewer electorates than their party vote entitled them to, so list MPs have been used to make up the difference.

But this election could produce something very different.

National still holds a large number of electorates around the country, many of them reasonably safely, even though its party vote has collapsed into the high 20s. That creates the possibility that National could actually win more electorate seats than its party vote entitles it to have in Parliament.

This has never happened to National before and if it happens in this election it would create what’s known as an overhang.

Let’s say National’s party vote entitles it to 36 MPs but it wins 40 electorate seats. National doesn’t lose four of those electorate MPs. All 40 of them go to Parliament, which means Parliament itself grows by four seats.

That’s the overhang.

And this matters because the number required for a majority doesn’t rise at the same rate. In a normal 120-seat Parliament, 61 MPs are needed for a majority. If National creates a four-seat overhang, Parliament grows to 124 seats and the majority requirement rises to 63.

Under that scenario, National has gained four extra MPs, but the finishing line has only moved by two – and that’s where things get really interesting. On current polling, National would be entitled to roughly 36 seats from its party vote – but it could still win as many as 40 electorate seats – even after losing some of the seats it currently has. In fact, it may even win some new ones. Wigram has become more interesting following boundary changes, Henderson may be competitive, and Auckland Central, Palmerston North and several other seats could become possibilities under the right circumstances.

And that’s the point at which this stops being an interesting quirk of MMP and starts becoming a practical voting strategy.

For this election, a centre-right voter should consider using their two votes to do two different jobs.

Give your electorate vote to National.

Give your party vote to ACT or New Zealand First.

The logic is straightforward. If National is already winning more electorate seats than its party vote entitles it to, another party vote for National won’t result in another National MP. But that same party vote given to ACT or New Zealand First can help increase the number of list MPs that those parties receive.

So your electorate vote helps National retain or increase its overhang, while your party vote helps ACT or New Zealand First increase their representation. Two votes, doing two different jobs, both aimed at the same objective of building the largest possible centre-right bloc.

Of course, if National stages a major recovery and climbs far enough back into the 30s, between now and November, its party-vote entitlement may once again rise above the number of electorates it can win. At that point, party votes for National start producing list MPs again and the logic has to be reconsidered.

But that’s not where things stand now – and this is where some centre-right voters may need to make peace with a choice they wouldn’t normally make.

If you don’t like ACT, vote New Zealand First on the list.

If you don’t like New Zealand First, vote ACT.

If you don’t particularly like either of them, pick the one you find least objectionable and vote for that one anyway.

I can already hear the arguments. ACT isn’t conservative enough. New Zealand First is too interventionist. One is more centre-right than the other. You don’t like David Seymour. You don’t trust Winston Peters. You disagree with this policy or that one.

Some of those criticisms may be perfectly legitimate – but for the purposes of this election, they’re also largely irrelevant.

If your objective is to return a centre-right Government, ACT and New Zealand First are the only two minor parties currently in a position to convert centre-right party votes into parliamentary seats at the scale required to matter. That doesn’t require you to fall in love with either of them. It doesn’t require you to abandon every disagreement you have with them. It simply requires you to understand what the numbers are telling you.

A vote for any other centre-right party is wasted. Yes, I get that some of those parties may reflect your values better than National, ACT or New Zealand First and in another election, under different circumstances, they may deserve serious consideration.

But if they don’t win an electorate and they don’t reach 5 percent of the party vote (which none of them will), they elect nobody – and that vote doesn’t transfer to another centre-right party. It simply disappears from the calculation that determines who gets seats – effectively increasing the likelihood of a left wing government.

And in an election where every vote counts – that’s a luxury that we don’t have.

So if National stay where they are in the polls (or drop further) the choice for this election is clear.

Support the National candidate in your electorate.

Use your party vote to strengthen ACT or New Zealand First.

Not because any of those parties is perfect, but because this election may be decided by whether centre-right voters understand how to use the two votes MMP gives them.

National created this predicament by disappointing the very people who put it into office. The irony is that MMP may now give those same voters a way to register that disappointment without handing the Government benches to the left.

For 2026, that may be the most important distinction of all….

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