John Lykles

I would like the thing I call "coat-tailing" eliminated from the MMP system. That is the ability of someone winning an electorate seat bringing in other MP's up to the five percent threshold. It has bothered me for sometime and has warped the system. An example of this was the Epson seat that was targeted heavily by ACT Party supporters while the National Party candidate was given only lukewarm support by his party. If "coat-tailing" is stopped I would like to see the threshold dropped to three percent to ensure smaller parties have a presence in Parliament. If we ever get back to the 80 % voter turnouts again it would take about 120,000 votes to reach the five percent threshold. This would pose a significant barrier for new parties.