Brian Nicolle: Put MMP to the vote

In 1993, one week before the general election and the electoral referendum, I received a call at 8am from Helen Clark, then deputy leader of the Labour Party and First Past the Post supporter. She asked me how the anti-Mixed Member Proportional campaign was going and what were the plans for the final week of the campaign. I had taken six months' leave to be campaign manager for Peter Shirtcliffe's campaign in what I termed a kamikaze mission, as it seemed all but impossible to stem the tide of support for MMP. However I believed, as Shirtcliffe did, there needed to be a campaign defending the status quo and scrutinising MMP.

You will recall the TV ads of cash registers ringing and paper bags over the heads of those extra 21 MPs that we would be getting under MMP.

I told Clark that the campaign was coming together and there was a media blitz for the last week. That weekend we polled ahead of MMP for the first time.

It is now 2006 and the question of another referendum on MMP has been raised again given the 10-year anniversary of its introduction.

Polls assessing MMP's popularity since 1999 suggest it has more support than it had in the first three years when the first MMP government fell apart after 18 months.

Back in 1992 Clark and a number of other Labour and National MPs were involved in a pro-FPP campaign in the months leading up to the first referendum. FPP was soundly beaten into third behind Single Transferable Vote and MMP. The signs looked bleak for the future of any chance of retaining FPP at the final referendum to be held in conjunction with the 1993 general election.

The only question was whether the MMP v FPP contest in 1993 could arouse at least a fair contest. Until then the Electoral Reform Coalition promoting MMP had made all the running. Its marketing was fantastic.

It was the National Party who kept its promise for a voting system referendum at the 1990 election and then set up the two-part referendum process and reinserted the Maori seats back into the MMP legislation in 1993.

Interestingly the Maori seats became the issue that helped the National Party reinvigorate itself in 2005. After all, the Royal Commission on the Electoral System had said the Maori seats should go in the event of the implementation of MMP.

I know there is an urban legend that abounds there was going to be another referendum - but there never was any intention by Parliament to have one.

A colleague rang Radio Pacific to correct announcer Geoff Sinclair who was expounding there was going to be another referendum. When she said this wasn't the case he cut her off and told the listeners she was lying.

MMP won the day on November 6 1993 with almost 54 per cent of the vote compared with 46 per cent for FPP, a narrower margin than anticipated.

Ten years on since the first MMP election on October 12, 1996, it's time that the people had the chance again to vote in a referendum to either retain or reject MMP.

FPP is a relic of the command and control economy but the SM (Supplementary system) which contains a measure of proportionality combined with FPP) would be the system to go head to head with MMP in a referendum.

* Brian Nicolle was the anti-MMP campaign manager in 1993.