The 2014 New Zealand general election took place on Saturday 20 September 2014 to determine the membership of the 51st New Zealand Parliament.
Voters elected 121 members to the House of Representatives, with 71 from single-member electorates (an increase from 70 in 2011) and 49 from party lists. Since 1996, New Zealand has used the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system, giving voters two votes: one for a political party and one for their local electorate MP. The party vote decides how many seats each party gets in the new Parliament; a party is entitled to a share of the seats if it receives 5% of the party vote or wins an electorate. Normally, the House has 120 seats but extra seats may be added where there is an overhang, caused by a party winning more electorates than seats it is entitled to. The one-seat overhang from the 50th Parliament remained for the 51st Parliament, after United Future won one electorate when their 0.22% party vote did not entitle them to any seats.
A total of 3,140,417 people were registered to vote in the election; around 92.6% of all eligible New Zealanders. A total of 2,446,279 votes were cast, including a record 717,579 advance votes, more than double the number cast in 2011. Turnout was 77.90%, higher than the 2011 election, but the sixth-lowest since women gained the vote in 1893.
The centre-right National Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister John Key, won a plurality with 47.0% of the party vote and 60 of the 121 seats. On election night counts, the party appeared to hold the first majority since 1994 with 61 seats, but lost one seat to the Green Party on the official count. National re-entered confidence and supply agreements with the centrist United Future, the neoliberal ACT Party, and the indigenous rights-based Māori Party to form a minority government and give the Fifth National Government a third term.
The centre-left Labour Party, National's traditional opponent, lost ground for the fourth election in a row, receiving 25.1% of the party vote and 32 seats. The Green Party dropped in the party vote from 11.1% to 10.7%, but remained steady on 14 seats. New Zealand First meanwhile increased its vote share to 8.7% and seat count to 11. The Māori Party, ACT, and United Future retained their Parliamentary representation, despite losing party votes. The Internet Mana Party did not return to Parliament after its only representative in Parliament, Hone Harawira, was defeated in his electorate of .
Background
MMP review
A referendum on the voting system took place in conjunction with the 2011 election, with 57.8% of voters voting to keep the existing Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system. Under the terms of the Electoral Referendum Act 2010 the majority vote in favour of retaining MMP meant that the Electoral Commission had the task of conducting an independent review of the workings of the MMP system.
The Commission released a consultation paper in February 2012 calling for public submissions on ways to improve the MMP system, with the focus put on six areas:
basis of eligibility for list seats (thresholds) by-election candidates dual candidacy order of candidates on party lists overhang proportion of electorate seats to list seats
The Commission released a proposal paper for consultation in August 2012 and published its final report on 29 October 2012. In the report, the Commission recommended the following: Reducing the party vote threshold from 5 percent to 4 percent. If introduced, the 4 percent threshold should be reviewed after three general elections. Abolishing the one electorate seat threshold – a party must cross the party vote threshold to gain list seats. Abolishing the provision of overhang seats for parties not reaching the threshold – the extra electorates would be made up at the expense of list seats to retain 120 MPs Retaining the status quo for by-election candidacy and dual candidacy. Retaining the status quo with closed party lists, but increasing scrutiny in selection of list candidates to ensure parties comply with their own party rules. Parliament should give consideration to fixing the ratio between electorate seats and list seats at 60:40 (72:48 in a 120-seat parliament).
Parliament has the right to decide whether to implement any changes to the system, which had been largely unchanged since it was introduced in 1994 for the . In November 2012 a private member's bill under the name of opposition Labour Party member Iain Lees-Galloway proposed implementing the first two recommendations; it was drawn from the member's bill ballot on 14 November 2013, but by the time Parliament dissolved for the election, it was still awaiting its first reading. In May 2014 Judith Collins and John Key announced that no inter-party consensus existed on implementing the recommendations of the Commission, so the Government would not introduce any legislation.
50th Parliament (2011–14)
Following the 2011 general election, the National Party entered into confidence and supply agreements with ACT, the Māori Party and United Future to continue the Fifth National Government. These arrangements give the National-led government a majority of seven seats, with 64 on confidence-and-supply in the 121-seat Parliament.
The Labour, Green, New Zealand First and Mana parties are all in opposition, but only the Labour Party constitutes the formal Opposition.
At the 2011 election, the National Party gained 59 seats, the Labour Party 34 seats, the Green Party 14 seats, New Zealand First eight seats, Māori three seats, and Mana, ACT, and United Future gained one seat each. One change was made to the allocation during the Parliament. In 2012, Brendan Horan was expelled from the NZ First caucus but continued to sit as an Independent, meaning NZ First had seven caucus MPs for the remainder of the Parliament.
On 31 May 2013, the Electoral Commission de-registered United Future after it could not prove it had the 500 financial members required for registration. The party successfully re-registered on 13 August 2013, but in the interim its sole MP, Peter Dunne, sat in the house as an independent. On 13 June 2014, ACT's sole MP John Banks resigned from Parliament after being found guilty of filing a false electoral return for his 2010 Auckland mayoral campaign. As his resignation came within six months of the election, his seat was left vacant, meaning ACT had no representation in Parliament until the general election.
Dates On 10 March 2014, Prime Minister John Key announced that the election would take place on Saturday 20 September 2014. As in 2011, the Prime Minister announced the date early, although only six months in advance compared to the nearly ten months in 2011. Traditionally, the election date is a closely guarded secret, and announced as late as possible.
A general election must take place every three years, and Parliaments generally run the full three-year term unless an early election is called or the election date is set to circumvent holding a by-election. Voting for the previous election occurred on Saturday, 26 November 2011. In 1950, New Zealand introduced a legal requirement to hold elections on a Saturday, and beginning with the , a convention evolved to hold general elections on the last Saturday of November. The events of upset this convention, and it took until the for election dates to creep gradually back towards the conventional timing, only for an early election to occur in . By the , the conventional "last Saturday of November" was achieved again. If the convention had been followed in 2014, the election would have taken place on 29 November.
In October 2013, Prime Minister John Key hinted that the election would take place before November. The setting of the election date became further influenced by Australia inviting New Zealand to attend the G20 summit in Brisbane on 15 and 16 November 2014, with the possibility that some leaders might make flying visits to New Zealand. Ideally, major diplomatic visits and engagements should be avoided during the election period, as they can distract politicians from campaigning and voters may see them as an attempt to influence the election result.
Key dates relating to the General Election include: 10 March 2014 (Monday) Prime Minister John Key announces election to be held on 20 September 20 June 2014 (Friday) The regulated election advertising period begins. 31 July 2014 (Thursday) Last sitting day for the 50th Parliament 14 August 2014 (Thursday) Governor General dissolves the 50th Parliament 20 August 2014 (Wednesday) Writ Day – Governor General issues formal direction to the Electoral Commission to hold the election.Electoral roll closes for printing (all people enrolling after this date must cast special declaration votes) Official campaigning begins; radio and television advertising begins 27 August 2014 (Wednesday) Details of candidates for election and polling places released 3 September 2014 (Wednesday) Advance and overseas voting begins 19 September 2014 (Friday) Advance voting ends; overseas voting ends at 16:00 local timeThe regulated election advertising period ends; all election advertising must be taken down by midnight 20 September 2014 (Saturday) Election Day – polling places open 09:00 to 19:00 Preliminary results released progressively after 19:00 4 October 2014 (Saturday) Official results released 9 October 2014 (Thursday) Writ for election returned; official declaration of elected members (subject to judicial recounts)
Electorate boundaries Per the Electoral Act 1993, the South Island must have 16 general electorates, with the number of North Island general and Maori electorates calculated by dividing the respective population in each group by one-sixteenth of the South Island general electorate population, within a tolerance of five percent. At the 2011 election, the North Island had 47 general electorates and the Maori roll had seven Māori electorates, totalling 70 electorates across the country. Following the March 2013 New Zealand census and the 2013 Maori electoral option, the Representation Commission re-drew some electorate boundaries.
In October 2013, Statistics New Zealand announced that there would be one additional North Island general electorate, bringing the total number of North Island general electorates to 48 and the overall number of electorates to 71. Growth in Auckland saw three existing electorates, Auckland Central, Helensville and Hunua, exceed their quota by at least 14 percent. Population changes in Christchurch following the 2011 earthquakes meanwhile saw the Christchurch East electorate drop to 23 percent below quota, while the urban fringe electorate of Selwyn grew to 14 percent above quota.
The Representation Commission, tasked with redrawing the electorate boundaries, released its final electorate boundaries on 17 April 2014. The largest changes took place in northern and western Auckland, with two new electorates – and – created, while the existing electorate was dissolved. Upper Harbour centres on the Upper Harbour Bridge, stretching from Wairau Valley to Massey, and was predicted to be a safe National seat. Kelston centres on the western Auckland suburb of the same name, stretching from Oratia to Waterview, and was predicted to be a safe Labour seat. Kelston's creation took population from the Mount Albert electorate, which in turn allowed Mount Albert to take Westmere and Grey Lynn from Auckland Central, bringing Auckland Central within quota. Helensville's over-quota has been solved by the creation of the Upper Harbour electorate, while Hunua has lost the area south of the Auckland Region boundary to to bring it within quota.