2012 MMP Review

In 2012 New Zealanders had the opportunity to share what they thought about how MMP works.

The MMP Review came out of the 2011 Referendum on the Voting System, when most voters chose to keep MMP as our voting system. This triggered an independent review of MMP which we carried out.

Summary of our recommendations from the review

After the review, we recommended:

  • lowering the party vote threshold from 5% to 4% and reviewing the new threshold after three general elections
  • abolishing the one electorate seat threshold for allocating list seats and removing the provision for overhang seats
  • considering whether fixing the ratio of electorate seats to list seats at 60:40 would help maintain the proportionality and diversity of representation in Parliament
  • continuing to allow political parties to select and rank their candidates
  • making political parties declare they’ve followed their party rules for selecting and ranking list candidates
  • continuing to allow candidates to stand for an electorate seat and be on a party list at a general election
  • continuing to allow list members of Parliament to stand as a candidate at a by-election.
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