Peter Luiten: One vote is too scant a margin for error

I remember feeling, even as a child, the injustice in the idea that the votes of 61 could quell the wishes of 60. If the 60 were overruled, I reasoned, it could hardly be held that the people had spoken.

A meagre numerical advantage seemed too primitive a tool for the task of shaping a civilised world. Surely, my conscience argued, we could do better than this.

These reflections came to the fore when the election decided who would represent our electorates, which parties would represent us in government, which parties would coalesce, which would support confidence and supply, and which of this 48th Parliament's bills - already numbering dozens - would be supported and which opposed.

Most of these decisions have far-reaching consequences.

Many of them walk straight through our front door and make it clear they are here to stay. They get into our wallets, into the fridge, into the bedroom. They get into our bloodstream and into our sleep.

All of them gain relatively easy access through our acceptance of simple majority rule.

Despite our electoral rejection of the first-past-the-post ethos in the early 90s, the notion that 61 beats 60 remains entrenched in our political consciousness.

In sport it is easy to accept the validity of the scoreboard and, in the event of a tie, the sudden death of a playoff.

We take the score to be very close to the core of what sport is all about. We understand that a split second can make all the difference. But even in this arena, death need not always be so sudden.

In tennis, a close contest is decided with a two-up advantage. This refinement alone is enough to make the outcome appear so much more convincingly a matter of skill than of chance.

If we appreciate the distinction in sport, then the world of families, meals, jobs and debt gives all the more reason to question how appropriate it is to let narrow margins determine either the selection of our political representatives or their collective decisions.

It might be that the simple majority model is among the worst ways of deciding how best to order our country, yet we cling to it despite there being no shortage of other models.

For inspiration we need not go past our own jury system.

We consider the outcome of an inquiry into an accused person's innocence or guilt so important that we are prepared to spend thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars in order that 12 people, hearing both sides, might come to one mind.

It is a grievous thing to ponder that one mind is not considered necessary for the creation of the law.

Even with consensus, mistakes are made. We need not be mathematicians to see how much more room there is for human error when Parliament passes a bill - as it did last month - by 61 votes to 60. Hanging by a thread, of all things, was our Electoral Integrity Bill.

What gives the one-vote margin particularly dangerous scope in Parliament is the penchant of our MPs for vendetta, symptomatic of deeply disturbing us-and-them dichotomies.

The tone of the message from one side of the House since the election can be summarised in five words: "Nyah nyah, scum, you lost."

The response needs even fewer words: "You wait, you woofters."

Taunting is not a new phenomenon but it does tend to prejudice good law.

It would be futile to legislate against such a tone. But there is one structural change which would replace personal jibes with a more dispassionate approach to the issues involved in each bill.

Admittedly a compromise with consensus, it was one that was adopted by the Christian Church 826 years ago when it replaced its simple majority process in the election of a pope.

Our country would be much better served with a two-thirds majority rule in our House of Parliament.

Bills this term have largely fallen into two categories - those receiving unanimous or near-unanimous votes and those split about 70:50.

With a two-thirds majority rule, the Government would have had to argue very persuasively to win the extra 10 votes needed for the more controversial bills.

It would not have been able to afford to alienate a single MP of the other parties. They, in turn, may not have felt so bound to vote along party lines. Cabinet might even have included one or two Opposition members.

We would have taken another step towards civilisation, another step towards democracy. We would be feeling the repercussions of the new constructive approach from Cape Reinga to Rakiura.

* Peter Luiten is an Auckland voter.