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We examine the causal effect of legislative activity on private benefits, which have been largely neglected by previous research in legislative studies. By relying on a natural experiment in New Zealand, where randomly selected Members of Parliament (MPs) are given the opportunity to propose legislation, we find evidence for a causal relation between proposing a (successful) bill and the private benefits MPs receive, in terms of gifts and payments for services. We conclude that the allocation of private benefits depends on legislative performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 26 November 2011, an indicative referendum was held in New Zealand with the aim of gauging public support for a change from the current parliamentary electoral system (mixed member proportional) to one of four alternatives. To understand the consequences (in terms of the seat distribution of parties in Parliament) of a change in electoral system, we created an online simulator several months before the referendum date. Several interesting research issues arose in this work, which in our opinion deserve greater analysis. We describe the assumptions made in order to create such a simulator, and their consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers the origins and evolution of s 3A - the Treaty clause - in the Climate Change Response Act 2002. The paper examines the nature of the negotiations between political parties in an MMP system when a contentious piece of legislation is at issue. The author concludes that s 3A came about as a compromise measure to secure the necessary support of a minor party, against a backdrop of pressure on the Government to implement its international obligations. Section 3A developed as a result of two parties making mutually acceptable compromises to pass contentious legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research note, I discuss results from a recent study assessing the impact that New Zealand's electoral and legislative system reforms had on levels of vote consensus achieved in the House of Representatives. Using a new legislative vote data set spanning from 1987 to 2007, I find evidence that the institutional changes fostered an increase in consensual legislative vote outcomes. I also provide a brief theoretical explanation of the developments and address a few issues concerning the measure of consensus used and the interpretation of the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the status of New Zealand in 2010. Scandals in New Zealand politics are reviewed, including those involving Cabinet minister Pansy Wong, Labour minister Shane Jones, and Labour minister Chris Carter. Competition between several political parties is detailed, including the Green Party, the Labour Party, and the ACT Party. Economic reforms are also discussed, noting the government's response to high unemployment rates and poor economic growth by increasing the comprehensive goods and services tax.

How and how well do different parties manage similar environmental changes? How do organizations shape parties’ adaptation to change? In 1996 New Zealand replaced its Single Member Plurality (SMP) electoral system with a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system. MMP added an overriding proportional tier to national elections and compelled the major incumbent parties, Labour and National, to undertake new tasks: the creation of national lists of candidates and the construction of nationwide campaigns for the ‘party vote’. This paper compares how Labour and National organized candidate selection in response to MMP. It demonstrates how and why Labour possessed organizational capacities to meet these challenges that National lacked before the advent of MMP and for several years after it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the theory and practice of government formation,with particular reference to the experience of New Zealand since the introduction of the mixed member proportional (MMP) system in the mid-1990s. As predicted by coalition theory, virtually all the coalitions and related multi-party governance arrangements under MMP have been ideologically connected. But contrary to certain theories, they have not all been minimum-winning in nature. Moreover, by international standards, some aspects of government formation under MMP have been highly unusual. These include the negotiation of many different types of formal inter-party agreements and novel multi-party governance arrangements, most notably the adoption of very flexible approaches to the management of inter-party dissent. The unusual bargaining outcomes, it is argued, can be attributed to the flexible nature of New Zealand's constitutional arrangements (including the accommodating institutional rules which govern inter-party bargaining), a pragmatic political culture, a party system characterized by a degree of multi-dimensionality, and the complex parliamentary arithmetic which followed several MMP elections. Whether the recent models of multi-party governance will become enduring features of New Zealand politics remains unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Works on coalition formation and survival have traditionally focused on tactical and policy considerations at the elite level, and frequently neglected the role of voters. This study draws attention to how policy preferences among supporters may constrain parties' coalition choices and affect their subsequent electoral performance. New Zealand and Japan, which have seen both significant party systemchanges and the emergence of previously unfamiliar coalition cabinets as the newnormsince the 1990s, provide suitable cases for hypothesis testing. Analysis of cross-temporal survey data demonstrates that the distance between the ideological mean of each coalition partner (measured by its supporters' left-right positions) and the coalitionmean is negatively correlatedwith its vote share change in the following election. Parties participating in or supporting an ideologically distant cabinet, especially when alternative coalition choices are possible, face particularly heavy electoral sanctions. These findings highlight a micro-political explanation complementing existing coalition theories, and confirm the ideal of democratic representation that governments are held accountable by their voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to critically examine and document the Mt Albert by-election within the context of New Zealand by-elections and MMP, and further aims to update the literature on the subject of New Zealand parliamentary by-elections. This account of the Mt Albert by-election places emphasis on the Labour Party perspective towards the by-election. The article argues that the propositions regarding New Zealand by-elections under the FPP electoral system, and the actors who contest them, still hold true for MMP by-elections. However, the introduction of MMP has changed - for better or for worse - the dynamic of these events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political marketing is a growing phenomenon and few political parties would seek to compete in an election without utilising at least some of its tools to help them understand their market and compete more effectively. The current range of tools available includes pre-election strategy, branding, e-marketing, opposition research, multiple forms of direct marketing and GOTV utilising market segmentation, tangibility tools, insights marketing and leadership re-marketing. New developments in practice transfer quickly between countries. In the 2008 New Zealand election, both major parties, Labour and National, utilised different aspects of political marketing with varied effects, showing the importance and limitations of global strategies, as well as the need for parties to utilise all aspects of political marketing for government and re-election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion on the management of general elections in New Zealand. It is noted that elections in the country should be on a regular fixed date. Pollsters and political scientists spend time and effort trying to distil out what voter-customers want to buy with their taxes. It is noted that during political campaigns, political parties are set out to manage public opinion. Campaign managers draw on marketing techniques such as newspaper print advertising and focus groups.

In the early 1990s, popular discontent with politics in Italy, New Zealand, and Japan led to the enactment of new electoral systems in all three countries. The results of the reforms have been mixed, as they have dramatically altered politics in some cases but in others have been a great disappointment to many observers. This essay examines the reforms and the conditions under which they successfully addressed the problems of their party systems. The cases highlight the limitations of using electoral systems to explain political Outcomes that are not direct effects of electoral rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines why the ACT New Zealand political party has experienced an overall lack of success since entering Parliament in 1996. ACT'S lack of success is represented by the fact that despite high expectations and continued confident predictions from within the party, it has thus far failed to receive the substantial share of the vote for which it hoped. Moreover, the party's support was slashed at the most recent election in 2005, when the party went from nine to just two MPs. This research considers several different explanations for why ACT failed to grow and latterly declined. Three different plausible hypotheses are tested, which respectively suggest reasons related to policy, branding and internal decay. Both primary and secondary sources are used to evaluate the validity of each theory. From the research, it is established that components from all three theories may explain the lack of success of ACT. Over time, the party's policies became less distinctive and were adopted by other parties. In addition, an image problem in place from the beginning prevented ACT from expanding its support beyond a small niche. Furthermore, ACT came to be seen as increasingly irrelevant by voters and suffered from internal decay in its organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under proportional representation, New Zealand has frequently been governed by minority governments backed by a support party on matters of confidence and supply. This article seeks to analyze the 'policy influence differential' - the influence a party in government may exert, as opposed to the influence exerted by a support party in the context of New Zealand coalition politics. While individual personalities clearly influence the performance of minority coalition governments, parliamentary institutions and informal political norms shape New Zealand's policy influence differential. This article examines this topic in the context of the 1999-2002 Labour-Alliance government and analyses enactment of one particularly important piece of legislation. The policy influence differential remains substantial in New Zealand due to the persistence of first-past-the-post institutions and political culture. As a result, small parties pay a significant cost in policy influence when remaining outside government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though the process that led to the adoption of MMP in New Zealand in 1993 has been studied widely, one key step in that process—the National Party's decision in 1990 to promise a referendum on electoral reform—has received less attention. It has commonly been assumed that that promise was motivated by short-term electoral calculation. In fact, however, the evidence suggests that reality was more complex and that the principled support of some leading National Party politicians for constitutional reform also played an important role. This article weighs the evidence for the various individual motivations that may have underlain the decision to make the promise, before offering a mixed-motivation interpretation according to which short-term self-interest, genuine belief in constitutional reform, and recognition of the medium-term need to respond to public disquiet all contributed. It finally draws out implications for our understanding of the origins of MMP in New Zealand and for the study of electoral reform more widely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the presence of political administration effects and day-of-the-week effects with New Zealand's trade-weighted foreign exchange index. The data covers six administrations during the period March 1985 to November 2000. The analysis, based on an orthogonal design, shows that changes in the index did not differ between Labour Party administrations and National Party (Conservative) administrations. One day-of-the-week effect, consistent with the settlement regime hypothesis, is observed. This effect, which differs between the two political administrations, disappears when the data is trimmed to ameliorate the impact of fat tails. The implication is that the effect is merely a reflection of the extreme cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Has the first MMP election in New Zealand in 1996 led to a new party system? We argue that the post-reform party system has changed its format while its mechanics remain virtually unchanged because the underlying competition logic stays bipolar. The fundamental variable that decides if this is a correct description is the existence of a permanent and genuine centre party. In order to assess the potential for establishing such a party we look at three aspects: (1) Based on an expert survey we find that the dimensionality of the party system and party positions have not changed dramatically. This leaves little scope for a change to multipolar party competition. (2) Applying a range of formal coalition theories shows that those theories based on the size principle are particularly successful in predicting the actual outcome of the coalition formation. We argue that the office-seeking motivation plays an important role with those actors located in the centre of the party system. (3) As to the characteristics of the ‘new’ parties in the system, we interpret these parties as ‘Schumpeterian’ political entrepreneurs who instead of being genuine centre parties strategically place themselves in the centre in order to enhance their bargaining power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various developments related to the politics and government of New Zealand in 1998. The decisions of political leaders to change from one political party to another caused public concern because of its effect on the legitimacy of the new Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system. Meanwhile, a by-election was called in the electorate of Taranaki-King Country because former Prime Minister Jim Bolger was appointed as ambassador to the U.S. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, the government took up issues of welfare and work.

The article discusses several developments related to the politics and government of New Zealand in 1997. Alliance Member of the Parliament Alamein Kopu resigned from her party to sit as an independent in July 1997. Meanwhile, Neil Curton held the position of Minister of Customs and Associate Minister of Health until he was terminated for his persistent criticism of government policy in August 1997. It is noted that the major political issue throughout the year was the conduct of the government given the opening of the first coalition government in the country.

The article analyzes the consequences of the fourth Labor Government's choice of election campaign strategies, which caused its eventual defeat during the 1990 New Zealand national election. It discusses the disjointed election campaign of the Labor Party by citing modern campaign strategies that reflect the inefficacy of partisan disunity and programmatic intransigence in swaying electoral votes. Moreover, it analyzes the organizational structure of the Labor Party's campaign strategy that resulted to its supporters being alienated from the party's objective and ideology.

The article discusses various issues related to the politics and government of New Zealand in 1993. There was a decline in support for the two major parties during the general election in November 1993. The cabinet was reorganized in March 1993 after the resignation of Simon Upton as member of the parliament (MP). Meanwhile, voters were asked to choose between the existing first past the post (FPP) or plurality electoral system during a referendum which was held concurrently with the general election.